Colleen L. ReeceReviews
Author of The Mayflower Adventure
Reviews
My First Halloween Book by Colleen L. Reece
However, I have to admit that Nancy and Damon's experience at the center of the plot wasn't believable enough to me. For two mature, Black American adults, they both seem fairly naïve about the reality of racism, especially Nancy. In life, it's so common for Black people to get rather familiar with racism early on, often as young children. We learn through experience and/or word of mouth in our families and communities. Somewhere, somehow, the reality tends to reach us at some point before we're fully grown.
Although the exchanges in question in this story are relatively short, it felt off to me when other characters, from their outside positions looking in, had to enlighten Nancy and Damon about the dangers of racism, with one character giving Damon advice on how he should (or shouldn't) deal with racism in his thinking. Aside from that, there's certain stuff I've never heard or heard of Black adults having to spell out for each other while alone in conversation. Some of the private dialogue between Nancy, Damon, and another Black character in this book sounded unnatural to me on that score.
Also, I found the several attacks spelling out the N-word, sometimes in all caps, to be excessive content-wise and repetitive story-wise. I'm not sure everyone realizes just how strong of a word it is in the context of a slur. But it's my firm opinion that if you would consider the F-word to be inappropriate content to spell out in a particular book, or specifically in a Christian Fiction book, then you shouldn't spell out the N-word. Especially not in multiple scenes.
On another note, although this is a romance series overall, I'd call this book suspense or suspenseful contemporary fiction with some romance in it. Damon and Nancy's romantic relationship itself isn't their issue here, and Shina's romantic relationship in the subplot isn't something the reader gets to see her grow into. Sometime before the beginning of this book, Shina started seeing someone; here, she tells Nancy early on that she isn't in love with the guy. A few pages later, during the first of only about three times the reader actually sees Shina and her guy together, she's suddenly convinced that he's the only man who'll ever be for her. Their relationship mostly exists in the background, behind Damon and Nancy's story.
There's also a lot in the novel in terms of Bible passages, spiritual lessons, and teaching on salvation, maybe more than in the previous books in the series. It's a matter of preference for me, but I tend to think less can often be more to get a faith message across in a story. I won't go on about that now, but if anyone reading this wants to ask about my perspective on the topic, you're welcome to. On a technical note, the various Bible chapter and verse numbers (along with the different Bible translation abbreviations) in parentheses or brackets are often an unnatural fit within this novel's narration and the characters' dialogue.
Even so, this isn't the only book by this author that disproves a certain misconception that Christian romance or romantic ChristFic is always nothing more than sweetness and fluff, staying away from tough issues. And as I've mentioned before, this author paints such beautiful pictures of the Puget Sound area.
I read the fifth and last book in the series a number of years ago and plan to revisit it. I'm curious to see what all I've forgotten about the end of the series.
I've certainly changed since I first read this series as a younger woman. It now seems to me that the key hospital workers all but idolize Nicholas Fairchild, who is painted as a rather flawless man of faith who founded a rather flawless Christian hospital.
The hospital itself also seems to be an object of idolization. Lindsey says that Shepherd of Love "stands for everything right and good," as if any human being or institution, Christian or otherwise, could even know everything that's right and good. While I understand the plot's premise of light versus darkness, I don't think that kind of battle should be illustrated as righteous perfection versus evil, so to speak. And I think the further this story goes along, the picture of "pure evil" becomes more and more caricatural.
On a more minor note, while I take it that these 1990s stories were published as contemporary romances, the twenty- and thirty-something main characters sometimes talk like people from...maybe the '50s or earlier?
Even so, I did appreciate a particular point in the story regarding how there's more to gracious giving than just giving graciously. And I'm not sure that I've read any books that paint a more beautiful picture of Puget Sound than this series does.
It turns out that there's a next-to-last book in the series that I didn't know about back in the day, since it wasn't included in the Seattle volume I read. So I'll be going on to try that one for the first time.
I first read this ChristFic novel maybe more than twenty years ago in a romance collection called Seattle.
While I recall that the romantic storylines weren't what I liked most about the collection, and I'd forgotten that this second novel's main characters are Black, I found a family matter in the story to be unforgettable, from my first reading until this one.
"Tell the truth, Damon..."
The novel's super-short prologue and epilogue are also rather effective in their shared use of crucial imagery.
However, I don't agree much with the book being called a romance. For much of the story, the romantic relationship isn't the central focus, and the romantic emotion/devotion is poorly developed. The hero's and heroine's feelings rush to love during chapters when the couple has few conversations with each other and little time together while they're busy dealing with their own separate matters.
Also, the dialogue sometimes reads a little like a romance novel from the '50s or earlier rather than like the language of people in their twenties and thirties in the 1990s. The characters don't always come off as natural, and I found some of the exchanges unconvincing for Black characters, especially a joke from Nancy regarding being a "slave." I'm not sure the author even realized what the "slave" term could sound like coming from a Black heroine who's serving for a while in a household of rich Caucasians.
Moreover, like in the book before this one, the novel oftentimes sounds more like a Bible lesson than natural storytelling.
Even so, my nostalgic side was still glad to revisit the family part of the plot I never forgot, and I may reread at least one more novel in the series: one that I think doesn't have another "male doctor, female nurse" pairing from the hospital.
On continues my journey through ChristFic old and new as well as my revisits to certain books in general. I first read this novel maybe more than twenty years ago in a romance collection called Seattle.
While I recall that the romantic storylines weren't what I liked most about the collection, there was a family matter in one of the novels that I found unforgettable. Besides that, I loved the Puget Sound setting. I loved the soft blue, hazy evening atmosphere and prominence of the Space Needle on Seattle's book cover as well as the smell of the collection's pages. And most of all, I loved the significant prologue in Lamp in Darkness that explains how Shepherd of Love Hospital came to be.
Yet, aside from that prologue (which I've reread several times over the years), I didn't enjoy my second reading of the novel. While the story gives hospital details and introduces the other nurses who'll have their own books later on in the series, there's barely any romantic development—barely even any interaction between the two main characters—through more than the first third of this story. But then by the halfway mark, the two characters are suddenly in love. Many of the story's events are rushed or skipped over, the villain is overdone, and the escalated conflict depends on a plot device I've never cared for: a character jumping to conclusions and taking drastic measures when simple communication could have resolved the issue in a few sentences.
Also, it's rare that I describe any ChristFic as "preachy," since readers often use the term to single out religious fiction even though any fiction can be preachy on any topic when an author detracts from storytelling to drive home a point. Still, through much of this novel, the narrative and characters use "Christianese" in nearly every other sentence or paragraph.
The novel is not only a romantic fairy tale but a spiritual fairy tale, which one character even points out at the end, saying, "It's such a pat ending it sounds like a novel where the author works everything around so everyone has a 'happily ever after.'" To which another character adds a faith explanation and (mis)applies a scripture to make it sound like everything in life will always turn out happily for Christians who obey God.
Of course, that simply is not the case.
Even so, though I've changed as a reader and as a person since I first read this novel, I'm still fond of the prologue for nostalgic reasons along with its depiction of people moving forward with a goal to bring great help to fellow human beings, even when the goal sounds impossible.
And because I still want to revisit the family matter that I never forgot from (I think) the second novel, I'll be rereading at least one more book in this series.
Barbour Publishing
Year: 2006
ISBN 1628369108
Pages: 448
Format: Print, Softcover, Gift Quality
Reviewed by: Tina H.
Date: 12/10/2019
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Though short stories aren't my favorite type of book, I like this particular book, the best, over all the short story bride books that I own, (I own dozens).
Each author has her own story in this book. They are all set in the 1800's, each is about an independent lady.
More later
In this story a country singer, Lindsey, agrees with another, Anita Jane Wells, to cover her Christmas program because Anita lost her voice & is sick. But it's a hoax!
These 4 stories were well worth reading again!
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