Home Song

"What have we become if we give in to fear and prejudice, if we ignore the facts and let panic override the spirit of compassion?"

It's been years since I used to start a lot of my book reviews with quotes from the books. Now that I've read this novel for the second time since I discovered it twenty years ago, pulling a quote from it feels right.

And timely.

Back when I first read the first four books in the Cape Light series, I immediately considered them to be some of my favorite reads. What I appreciated most about the stories still holds after my second readings of Books One and Two.

The characters are such regular, relatable folks, dealing with life in these down-to-earth stories that are so incredibly…readable.

Even with a couple of show more supporting characters who are, well, downright jerks much of the time, the overall easy readability is still there. And the small-town setting is lovely and rather homey.

Now, there are some aspects of a particular "big reveal" in this story that aren't fully believable, I'd say.

Also, decades ago, I considered the faith content in this novel to be light. Or "lite." (Likely because it isn't evangelical, unlike the content in much of the Christian fiction I used to read.) But now, while I'd still say the faith content in this novel has a gentle vibe, I also find it to be pretty overdone, mainly because of the sermons in multiple church service scenes. I think the writing technique of "show, don't tell" is quite effective, but church sermons in fiction just feel to me like convenient ways to insert paragraphs or pages of telling, in a sense. Spelling out extended lessons from a pulpit.

These days, admittedly, when I come across sermons in novels, I usually skim through or skip past them, which I did in this case.

Nonetheless, I still enjoyed my second go-'round with this book. Even got an inexplicable sense of hope as I settled into the reading. This revisit to Cape Light has been—yeah, such a timely one for me.

Note:
• a former law enforcement character's memories of past violence come up, but the details are brief and non-gratuitous show less

I was really happy to find this second book a huge improvement on the first. I liked the main characters so much more this time around, and the storylines were much more compelling. By the second half of the book, I was really caught up and highly anticipated seeing what would happen.

In the first book, the closest things to main characters were Jessica Warwick and Sam Morgan. Though many characters were introduced, and many story arcs were established, they were the driving force. Their romance was the story goal--the only thing that was tied up in that book. Their personalities suffered greatly because of the daunting task of setting out an entire town's worth of characters and stories, so there wasn't much time left to develop them or show more their relationship to my preference. Unfortunately, that made it all the worse that their relationship drama continued in this book. The fruition of it was good, but frankly, they both made me angry in this book. Fortunately, their parts were small.

In a similar vein, another romance that developed in this book was in some ways like a rehashing of the Jessica/Sam storyline of the previous book, wherein the woman didn't want a relationship because she didn't know how long she'd be in town. The big difference is that the two characters in this case had more depth. They had actual lives and their own stories to tell. I liked them so much more, and their story definitely took a different turn.

Other arcs that were set up in the first book were continued in this one in some way, or even came to fruition. Since unraveling the lives of the different people in this town was what made me care enough about the first book to want to continue the series, I was glad to see this happen. And there is still plenty more to carry my interest into the next book. I'm looking forward to the next much more than I was after finishing the first one, and now I feel safe recommending this book, and the one before it, to fans of Christian fiction, especially involving romance. show less

As I mentioned in my review of Cape Light, I didn’t totally love that book. And while I didn’t *love* this one either, I liked it quite a bit more than the first book. I felt like I was meeting back up with people I hadn’t seen in awhile – some of which I wasn’t so fond of – but old acquaintances and friends alike.

To read the rest of my review, please visit:
http://www.dorolerium.com/?p=1353

This book is the second in the Cape Light series. Emily Warwick, the mayor of Cape Light is overwhelmed with her responsibilities with her job and family. It would take a miracle to fill the hole in her heart, but miracles do happen.