Loree Lough

As I've been combing through vintage (and maybe vintage-adjacent) ChristFic novels a good deal lately to find ones to try, I pretty much jumped at this one. It's especially rare to see brown faces featured on the covers of these older books. Also, though it's a small thing, the fact that this title uses "Soft" instead of "Softly" heightened my interest as a book title geek.

Yet, it seemed to me that the further the story went along, the more the characters' actions/behaviors, their styles of show more speech and expressions they would use, and what they would specifically say didn't have the truest ring to it all. At first I figured I was just having trouble getting a clear sense of the characters' personalities, but the characterizations and their development felt a little off and scattered. Also, the various pieces of commentary on race, racism, and social responsibility in the story seemed to be shoehorned in, in a rather unnatural, didactic sort of way.

I didn't find out until after I stopped reading that this book with a chiefly Black cast of characters—a story that endeavors to present different aspects of the Black experience—was apparently written by a ChristFic author who isn't Black, using a one-time pseudonym.

Do I think that authors must only ever create characters with whom they share the same race/ethnicity? Personally, no. I don't. But I also think it depends on the writer as a person, the particular story, the story's purpose, and the characters' specific roles, among other factors to consider. It seems that in this case, the author used Black characters (and a Korean character with a pretty caricatural feel) to present a social lesson to, in significant part, point out what's wrong with the Black community. It wasn't anything I've never heard before, but the blanket criticisms came off as deficient in empathy—and underinformed. Criticisms that may be the easiest to make about a disadvantaged community if you've lived outside of their experience as a people and have gotten an oversimplified, incomplete picture of their collective story. A collective story that's long, layered, and complex.

From what I can tell, this novel was an inappropriate setup for the racial messages in it. It seems to me that for an author apparently writing outside of their race with the use of Black characters, at the least, the author could have left out the particular racial and socioeconomic commentary in this book, and the plot about familial and romantic love and healing wouldn't have lost anything it needed.

Speaking of the plot, I'll admit I thought this book would be a romance, given the publishing imprint. But it isn't. It's a contemporary family drama written from the perspectives of three main characters, not solely a romantic couple. While the novel's overall premise is interesting, the story develops awkwardly.

Different important events and turning points in the various characters' lives rush by in the background, including key stages of the romance. Because the author would "tell" a bit about a turning point after the fact rather than "show" the process to the reader as it happened, it felt like the story kept having to play catch-up after sudden changes in the characters.

On a more minor note, using exclamation points in a novel's narration comes off as a storyteller shouting at the reader. It can be funny in comedies, but otherwise in adult fiction, it tends to feel over the top when a narrator exclaims (!) parts of the story, as it felt to me in the case of this novel.

I got almost 3/4 of the way through this book before I decided not to finish it.

However, I did have a favorite part, when the heroine reflects on the way she once handled being jilted at the altar. Her untypical choice on that score made me smile. show less

Montana Sky is the second of these little Heartsong Presents romances that I’ve read in a row. Although not perfect, this one was much better than the previous one. It tells the story of a kind veterinarian who rescues two hybrid wolf pups whose mother was shot and killed for bounty. She’s paired with a former rodeo star turned rancher who isn’t too pleased with her keeping the pups, but is determined to protect her from the mysterious man who’s been threatening her over them. For show more some reason, when I first picked this book out, I thought it was a historical (maybe it was something about the cover or the western theme), but it isn’t. It’s a contemporary with just enough of a suspense element for me to categorize it as romantic suspense. Overall, I did enjoy the book, but I thought it had some weaknesses, which I’ll be addressing as I go.

Sky was born in Montana, but moved to Atlanta with her parents, which is where she grew up. After losing her father, who was a sheriff, in a bank robbery gone bad, she decided to move back to her roots. She’s started a small, successful veterinary practice on the land that her father used to own in Big Sky Country. Sky loves the outdoors and when she’s out hiking one day, she witnesses a mother wolf being shot. Realizing the two cubs are still too little to make it on their own, she risks life and limb to scoop them up and make a run for it. Back at her ranch, she sets out to care for them until they’re old enough to be released back into the wild. But local ranchers have a bounty out on the wolves, and Sky begins to receive threatening notes and phone calls. Enter Chet Cozart, one of those ranchers. After learning that his father-in-law was one of the people sponsoring the wolf bounty, she’s a bit suspicious of him, but he gradually wins her over and charms his way into her heart. I liked Sky’s spirited, independent nature. She’s definitely a force to be reckoned with and refuses to let anyone scare her away from her mission. I understood her reluctance to involve Chet or her friend, Dale, in her problems, out of fear for their lives, but I never quite figured out her refusal to involve law enforcement, especially after someone set fire to her clinic. Even then, she was insistent on handling the matter herself, which seemed foolhardy to me. So while I liked Sky and thought she was a good heroine, I felt like she took her independent streak just a tad too far.

Chet was a rodeo star for a hot minute until an injury sidelined his career. At that point, he hung up his spurs, married one of Sky’s good friends, and went into the ranching business with his father-in-law. Unfortunately his wife died in childbirth, leaving him a single father to a now-five-year-old girl. Chet is rather taken by Sky’s spiritedness from the moment he meets her and goes to visit her at her ranch. He figures out pretty quickly that she’s hiding the wolf cubs there and isn’t too pleased about it. However, when he finds out that someone is threatening her, he wants to keep her safe, although she doesn’t really let him. We get very little of the narrative from Chet’s POV, so I don’t feel like I got to know him as well as I did Sky. He seemed like a good guy, but I felt like there were some contradictions in his character. For all his niceness and attraction to Sky’s independence, he can still be a tad chauvinistic at times. He mentions at least two or three times that he’s part Native American (I believe it was either his grandmother or great-grandmother who was Cheyenne), but I honestly didn’t know what the point was of bringing this up as it didn’t play any real part in the story. In fact, normally, Native Americans have a strong reverence for nature, but Chet wasn’t really interested in helping Sky keep the wolf pups safe, only in keeping her safe. Then there was the fact that it was his own father-in-law who’d put up the bounty on the wolves and was in part responsible for the situation Sky was in. You’d think Chet would have some pull with his kin and that getting the bounty dropped would be the quickest way to ensure Sky’s safety, but he refused to confront his father-in-law, which didn’t make a lot of sense. So, while most of the time, I liked Chet, there were some red flags in his character that kept me from truly loving him.

For such a short book, Montana Sky was a pretty good story. It had decent character and plot development for a story of this length. However, where things started getting confusing is when the suspense element suddenly shifted from a focus on the wolf bounty to a developer pulling the strings behind the scenes. This all seemed very abrupt and I felt like I was missing something. I’m not sure if passages were edited out and then the story wasn’t smoothed out around it or what, but it did disorient me. I also wasn’t sure how I felt about Sky and Chet handling things all on their own, because they technically ended up breaking the law in order to get evidence on the bad guy. But then the villain never did get arrested or genuinely taken to task for anything he’d done, so this part of the story was a little unsatisfying. On the upside, the relationship was fairly well done with a decent emotional connection between Sky and Chet, and a touch of sexual tension, which I don’t often see in inspirational romance. The story also wasn’t preachy like a lot of inspirationals. It only had some prayer and a few scripture references, which was a plus as well, and should make it more accessible to believers of all stripes or perhaps even non-believers. Overall, I enjoyed Montana Sky in spite of its weaknesses. This was my first read by the rather prolific Loree Lough, and I found it to be good enough to make me interested in reading more of her work. show less

Emma’s Orphans is another of these short Heartsong Presents inspirational romances that I’ve been working on clearing off my TBR shelves this year. Coincidentally it’s the third I’ve read by this author, too, and probably my favorite of the bunch so far. It’s a sweet story about a young woman, a “too-tall” spinster, who seems to attract orphans. They frequently show up on her doorstep and she never fails to take them in. She’s paired with a man who struggles with mental show more demons from his time as a soldier in the Civil War. The past comes back to haunt him when a fellow soldier shows up in town, conspiring with another ne’er-do-well to make money selling orphan children as slave labor for farmers out west. But our hero and heroine set out to put a stop to it when they find out. I did enjoy the story although it wasn’t without its problems, which I’ll get to shortly.

Emma recently lost the “aunt” who raised her and is now, in turn, raising her younger sister, Jenni. As the story opens she receives some shocking news about her parentage from a letter that her “aunt” left behind. I appreciated this bit of character development, but unfortunately it doesn’t seem to impact Emma in the way one might think it would and has little effect on the trajectory of the story. Emma works for the town doctor as his nurse, and takes in Matt, a young boy whose entire family was killed by runaway horses. As she’s contemplating the possibility of legally adopting him, Matt starts bringing home other orphans he’s found around town, all of whom were supposed to meet the doctor when they got off the train, but who got scared and ran away instead. Without hesitating, Emma takes them all in, even though it’s a strain on her finances and makes it more difficult for her to work to earn the much-needed funds to care for them. Then she meets and gets to know Nate, the man who saved Matt’s life the fateful day that the rest of his family was killed, and she’s instantly smitten. I adored Emma for having such an open and loving heart and for taking care of all the kids until permanent homes could be found for them. She’s equally kind and compassionate with everyone she meets, including Nate, despite his past failings.

Nate is an Irishman, who was a soldier in the Confederate army during the Civil War. With the horrors of the war pressing in on him, he often turned to the bottle to find comfort. On one such night, after drinking whiskey, he fell asleep while on guard duty and awoke to a bloodbath with all of his fellow soldiers either dead or dying. He, alone, ended up being the sole survivor of the incident, or so he thought, and has been wracked with guilt ever since, believing that the deaths of nearly a hundred men were his fault. Now Nate works as a carpenter and lives alone, thinking that he isn’t fit to be anyone’s husband. Then he meets Emma at the bank after her foster son plays an innocent prank due to boredom, and she invites him to Sunday dinner. He can’t seem to resist and quickly finds himself falling for the lovely woman, but he struggles between his feelings for her and the past that he can’t seem to let go of. Nate is a real sweetheart, who is kind and caring, which is probably why he carries so much grief and guilt inside him. I really did love him and thought that he was a wonderful man, but the one thing that gave me a bit of pause was his service to the Confederacy, which seemed to be at odds with the rest of his persona. I just couldn’t quite buy into the idea that a man who had believed in the cause of the South enough to risk his life for it would not only be OK with a woman who took in an orphaned black boy, but also be someone who treated that boy no different than the other children in her care. Don’t get me wrong, I was glad that he did. It just didn’t make much sense to me given his background.

Overall, Emma’s Orphans was a pretty good read. I liked the characters quite well and the theme of a young woman taking in orphans was appealing. Also the inspirational elements were limited to a few prayers and scripture verses, rather than being preachy, which was a plus. However, perhaps because of its short length, it doesn’t reach particularly deep on the character, relationship, and plot development. The character backstories are fairly good for this shorter format, but aside from Nate’s guilt, they don’t really play into the story as well as they might have in a longer novel. The romance is sweet, but Nate and Emma basically start falling for one another after one dinner together, and by the second meal, they’re already in love, even though Nate tries to fight it a bit. Then there was the plot, which was decent but perhaps a tad too ambitious for a short novel like this. The ending felt pretty rushed with confessions being made, forgiveness offered, and the villain being dispatched with little fanfare. We never even find out what happened to the town doctor for his part in the misdeeds, and as an aside, I never quite figured out why the doc wasn’t suspicious when all the orphans he was waiting for went missing and suddenly Emma, his employee, starts expanding her little foster family. Despite the weaknesses, though, I did enjoy it, and I think that readers who like this genre and who enjoy a kind, gentle hero and heroine with a few cute kids on the side will find it a worthwhile read, too. show less

What would you do if you had a father who was a thief and killer? Would you try to hide your identity from other people? I know we don't get to pick who our parents are, and that is exactly what Ruby faces in this unforgettable story of redemption , secrets and trust. After Ruby's father is hanged for his crimes, Ruby is stunned to find out that he has left her a very wealthy woman. I think at first she had a hard time taking the fortune because she knew how it was obtained. What would you show more do if you inherited money that you knew was tainted?

I found Ruby's character was very interesting and heartfelt. She wants to do the right thing and make amends to all the families her father hurt. It was a big task but her heart was so broken by her father's wrongdoing she needed to lessen the pain she felt in her heart. She knew this is what God wanted her to do. I loved the story and found it to be a great lesson in forgiveness and healing. Her heart must have been crushed to learn of the evil doings her father did. Was Ruby feeling guilty and somehow taking responsibility for her father's sins?

When Ruby and her mom travel to FairPlay, Colorado to continue using the inheritance there seems to be a bit more to do in this town that will be a big challenge for them. Rex Truett is the sheriff of the small town and is a bit suspicious of Ruby and her mom. He is a very strong character and I loved his unconditional love for the two children he was taking care of. Ruby and Rex sure don't see eye to eye at first. I'm not sure who was more stubborn but it sure made for many encounters with each other that were tension filled. Rex has to be asking himself " Why would a beautiful woman and her mom travel to a town where they know no one with the intentions to improve the town? "

The story is very well written and flowed at a nice pace. There are others in the town that will add a bit of intrigue to the story. There are many surprises and secrets that have people wondering who they can trust? Will Ruby be able to let go of the shame of her father's sins? Can Rex find a way to trust again? The story is filled with a glimpse into the lives of people who have trust issues, guilt, insecurity and learning to love again.

"When we're hurting, we have a choice , too. We can get all mad and mean, or go to God for comfort and strength."

I received a copy of this book from Bookfun.org.This is my honest opinion . show less