Lori Wick

Having always dreamed of becoming a schoolteacher, nineteen-year-old Marcail Donovan is excited to leave home and relocate to a town called Willits for a teaching position. But a snowy disaster involving the town doctor, Alexander, puts Marcail's career in jeopardy in Donovan's Daughter by author Lori Wick.

The Californians historical ChristFic series used to be my favorite from this author. More recently, I've revisited three of the books for nostalgic reasons. While I've always had some show more issues with the writing style and never cared for the blatant preoccupation with physical beauty in this author's books, I enjoyed my return to Books Two and Three of this series for comfort reading.

Concerning this fourth book, however, I wasn't able to take certain events for granted as I did in my younger days. This time, I became disturbed as I read.

*My following concerns in relation to the novel may be spoiler-ish.*

I realize Alex is worried about Marcail's health on the day she ends up in his barn in her cold, wet clothes after she gets caught in a snowstorm. But when Marcail tells Alex "no" about leaving the barn to go into his house with him (she's been afraid of doctors for years), he throws her over his shoulder and carries her to the house. When she again tells him "no," he threatens to take her clothes off for her if she doesn't do it herself. He proceeds to take her by the arm, take her to his bedroom, and pull off her sweater "before she [has] time to think." He then spins her around and unbuttons the back of her dress before he demands her to take everything else off.

That is not okay. Doctors acting in their professional capacity can let patients know what their options are and inform them of the dangers of failing to take important steps for their health or survival. But for a doctor to force his care on a conscious individual who explicitly refused it?

Aside from the possible medical angle here, Marcail isn't Alexander's child or his property. The two of them aren't even friends at this point in the story, but he takes this woman he already knows has been nervous around him since the day they met (a woman who's now stuck alone with him in his home), and he strong-arms her into compliance.

His overbearing reaction to her refusal isn't heroic. His reaction is the kind that certain abusers would have.

See, Alex would be free to explain the severity of the situation in case Marcail, in her state of distress, didn't realize it. (She grew up in much warmer climates and has never even seen it snow before.) He could have told her she's bound to become ill and may possibly die if she doesn't get warmed up fast enough. He should have articulated that and met her reluctance by asking her to please let him help, but he instead crosses the line by threatening Marcail before he starts to physically force her out of her clothes. When he then leaves her in the bedroom to finish changing, she's "so angry and humiliated that she [wants] to weep."

Yes. Being bullied is indeed infuriating and humiliating.

Moreover, it really bothers me now that because of one other character's tyrannical pull over the town, Marcail acquiesces to a sudden marriage proposal despite the fact that she wanted to remain single for some time. When I was younger, I likely figured Marcail to be strong for choosing to just get married, since she does it to keep her teaching job and she insists that "quit" isn't in her vocabulary.

But deciding not to bow to the town tyrant's unreasonable expectations or demands wouldn't have made Marcail a quitter. She wouldn't have had to quit being a teacher, since that position in Willits wasn't the only teaching position available anywhere. (Marcail's qualifications even landed her two other job offers before she chose Willits.) Neither would it have been a weak or immature move on Marcail's part to forego being hurried into a marriage she doesn't want and to instead go back to her caring and supportive family when she's in serious trouble.

I think sometimes, knowing there will be a "Happily Ever After" at the end of a romance story can make it easy to give a pass to some questionable or bad behavior in the middle, or merely to view it all as entertainment. Still, although Alex is getting what he wants because he "[finds] the idea of being married to Marcail nothing short of splendid," no man should be happy to get a wife who's being pressured into marriage by unjust circumstances.

"You need to either leave town or take a husband," Alex tells Marcail after he's asked her to marry him, but because he knows from the start how "upsetting" his proposal is to her, he should have suggested/encouraged her to turn to her family for help or at least for their advice. Alex makes no such suggestion, though. In a significant way, his manner of going about this comes off as selfish, like he's taking advantage of this woman who's ten years his junior, a woman who hasn't lived on her own for that long and who now feels backed into a corner.

I don't remember if Alex eventually apologizes for his behavior or if Marcail later deals with any regrets over her quick decision to wed. I only got a third of the way through the novel this time before I decided not to finish it.

As I said in another review recently, I felt compelled to address all of this because of the overall journey I'm taking with Christian Fiction (a genre that's changing) and because of the social climate we're living in, where we need to tackle some critical issues with open honesty. Even when it comes to stories.

Nevertheless, I think I'm likely to still enjoy a few other comfort reads I'll revisit from this author sometime. show less

One of my favorite books. Sabrina works so hard to walk away from the life she was born into, amidst all the challenges and the move. Then to see Rylan fall in love with her, not judging her for her past, but walking into the future together with God. Cannot say enough about this book and how hard I cried.

In the third book of the series, I love watching Jessie heal in this book. I can't imagine my estranged husband reappearing out of the blue and asking for another chance. To see her slowly fall back in love and her husband work hard to fix what he broke was a beautiful ending to the series.

Boys will be boys, perhaps, but the way Jeffrey Taylor once hurt Roberta "Bobbie" Bradford's feelings was still inexcusable. Now that Bobbie is returning to Santa Rosa after a five-year absence, Jeff will finally have the chance to make it up to her in person. But her arrival back home throws Jeff strangely off-kilter in As Time Goes By by author Lori Wick.

Here's another novel I've now read thrice, which I think I first read in my teens.

I once loved this second book in The Californians show more series for various reasons, including that the heroine is considered to be rather plain. Bobbie also wears spectacles, and no, when she comes back to town, she's not an ugly-duckling-turned-beautiful-swan who's done away with her glasses to conveniently make her gorgeous. Not that romances have to make a big to-do about a heroine's physical looks either way (they most certainly do not), but it's still refreshing to see something different from this author's norm.

"Plain girls have dreams too, you know." Bobbie is competent and personable with a cheeky sense of humor, and she's regularly ready to cut folks some slack.

Even with the super cool heroine, though, I'll admit I don't feel the same about the story as I used to. It's often pretty schmaltzy and not the most natural. Having jumped straight to the second book in the series this time, I can see how certain minor characters and scenes don't really matter unless you already care about those characters from the previous book. Also, this novel has a lot of talk about salvation, prayer, and Bible reading, which I think can work if a novel's plot calls for it, but it feels overdone in this story.

Nevertheless, this is a feel-good kind of read for fans of ChristFic historical romance who can appreciate something that's easy to digest. show less