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3.0 out of 5 stars
Mixed Emotions, December 20, 2011
This review is from: The Heart's Choice (Love Inspired #290) (Mass Market Paperback)
As far as keeping me interested and entertained, this book gets a five. I thought it was very well written as well. But... First of all, I never could get the scene in the first couple of chapters out of my head. We meet the couple that are soon to die in a horrible car crash. We talk with them and laugh with them, then all of a sudden they are gone. I cannot get that out of my head and it distracts me from reading the rest of the story... But that's understandable and means the author did well writing about Jewell and Adam. The big problem I have with this book is the fact that Jewell's body was left down in that canyon for weeks. Her body was decaying and...well, I'm sure you get the picture. This woman, Tavia, admits that she liked Jewell, yet she didn't tell anybody about this sweet, pretty, young woman who's body is decaying...Then her body is found and there is no punishment. The family "forgives" her for that. I can accept their forgiveness for so many things, but THAT is hard to stomach. That's why this book gets a three. My entire time I read this book, I kept thinking about poor Jewell who was laying dead out there somewhere. It was unfair, and there was absolutely NO excuse for this behavior. She should have been prosecuted for that crime... After that, the romance went sour for me. I picture Jewell's body laying down there then try to stomach Beck proposing to Tavia and I just can't do it...I just could not see her deserving a guy like Beck, and I don't think her excuse for protecting Annie was good enough for what she did to Jewell. By the way, I remember watching a Tracy Gold movie on Lifetime, "She's no Angel," where something very simular in the beginning happens. Except Tracy's character sits in the front seat because the fiancee has a sprained ankle and needs to keep it up in the backseat. Tracy's character is found with the engagement ring as well, after she tries it on...I'm not sure which came first, so I'm not sure who stole who's idea...
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3.0 out of 5 stars
1 star for the writing and 3 stars for the story (plot)=2.5 stars, August 13, 2007
This review is from: The Heart's Choice (Love Inspired #290) (Mass Market Paperback)
The story reminded me of "While You Were Sleeping", my favorite modern holiday movie. This book had warmth, but lacked humor. I wish I still had the book, so I could post the synopsis, but I will try my best. Tavia MacRae (there are a few odd names in this book) is an impoverished drifter who is picked up (while hitchhiking, having just escaped from a near-rape) by Adam Flint and Jewel Mallory, who are engaged and on their way to meet his family. There is an accident (their car goes over the cliff) and Adam and Jewel die, but Tavia survives (she is thrown from the vehicle), and when Adam's family comes to see her, they assume she's Jewel, as they had never seen a picture of her. Now Tavia couldn't move, or even communicate that she wasn't Miss Mallory, and by the time she is well enough to speak, she feels she can't tell them (James and Annie, Adam's parents, and Adam's grandfather, have all been so good to her and keep telling her what a comfort she is to them) and she finds that she doesn't know what she would do if she did tell them because she really has no place to go, no money, no family, not anything, so I could understand how she felt, how hard it must have seemed to give up being warm and well-fed and cared for. Tavia was not a bad person. She was just lost, and when she became a Christian, she knew she couldn't keep up the deception any longer, but even before that, she never used any of the money they gave her. Though she had taken advantage of their hospitality, she had always planned on paying them all back someday.
Though this was a romance novel, I found the story about Tavia's sticky situation much more interesting than her romance with Beck Brewster (the truck driver who accidentally killed Adam and his fiancee, and who was good friends with the Flint family).
Tavia's story definitely needed a happy ending, and it got one, though it did seem to happen too fast. I mean, it was a lot to take in--a perfect stranger passing herself off as practically one of the family had been eating their food, sleeping in their house, not to mention they had become emotionally involved with this person so that they loved her as their own daughter. I think anyone would need a little time to process this and sort out their feelings.
I am glad Tavia had a chance to pay Annie back (before she told the Flints the truth) by giving her her blood (for it was all she had to give)--that was a nice touch, proof that though Tavia wasn't the girl their son had fallen in love with, she did love them, even though she believed their feelings would probably change once she told them the truth.
Tavia's spiritual transformation was subtly done, but done well.
Definitely one of the better Love Inspired books, as it actually had depth.
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3.0 out of 5 stars
Deja vu, May 17, 2005
This review is from: The Heart's Choice (Love Inspired #290) (Mass Market Paperback)
If you've seen the movie "Mrs. Winterborne", then this book will be kind of like deja vu'(minus the baby). Don't get me wrong, I like Mrs. Winterborne, but that's another review for another day.
The author does a good job of endearing you to each of the characters, and by the end she even manages to make you NOT hate Tavia for the deception she perpetrates. Granted, Tavia is a victim of circumstance... she knows that the deception she is caught in is wrong from the beginning, but there are factors that keep her from coming out with the truth. Even though she is caught in this deception, we still get to see Tavia's heart and new-found Christian attitude shine through.
When she finally does break the deception though,the whole storyline was resolved a little too quickly for me. We see very little of the journey of acceptance for Adam's family or for Beck.
Overall, I wouldn't consider reading this book a waste of time, but I probably won't be reading it again either. In the words of Randy Jackson on American Idol: "It was just alright for me".
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