Customer Reviews

Taste of Honey (Carson Springs Novel)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Gerry Fitzgerald is moved to revisit her past when her best friend, Samantha Kiley becomes pregnant. Suddenly, she needs to find the child she gave up for adoption thirty years ago, when she was a postulant nun and could not keep the child. This has been a haunting secret from her family, and learning it shocks and angers her two nearly grown children, each of whom are dealing with their own painful situations. Gerry's firstborn is not all that thrilled with meeting her either, but does so anyway, defying her own family.

The road ahead of each player in this excellent drama is rocky, to say the least. Matters of the heart, both romantic and otherwise plauge them as the newly found families learn to love one another and deal with romances. New love and new life await, but so do pain and danger.

**** Not classified an inspirational romance, this novel still has profoundness that will appeal to the Christian audience, despite occassionally strong language and sexual tensions. However, like Andrew Greeley or Nelson DeMille, Ms. Goudge has succsessfully realized in her writing that Christians do not live in a whitewashed world and have flaws and issues just the same as secular people. ****

Eileen Goudge has captured me with this trilogy. Carson Springs is a place that I would want to live. In this second installment, the story focuses on Gerry Fitzgerald and her family. It is a wonderful story of a mother meeting her daughter that was given up for adoption, the struggle to help her children understand, and of a woman wrestling with the idea of falling in love again. The characters from the first book are all present. The story picks up right where Stranger in Paradise left off. I can't wait for the third book.

Just what we need some pleasant and enjoyable summer
reading. Relax whether it be at home, on the train, bus or plane and make sure you pack a Taste of Honey. Once you finish it you'll want to read the other books. If possible start with Stranger in Paradise and then read Taste of Honey.

If you liked these books check out Garden of Lies (won't be able to put it down) and move on to Thorns of Truth. Excellent and exciting summer reading.

Gerry Fitzgerald, a feisty, independent divorced mother raising two children in the beautiful valley of Carson Springs, California, has decided to find the daughter she gave up for adoption 28 years ago. She was impregnated while in the convent by the parish priest, and for many years has been consumed by guilt and emptiness. She finds her long lost daughter, Claire Brewster, who is now an attorney in northern California, engaged to be married to her childhood sweetheart, Byron, who is in his medical residency at Stanford Hospital.

When they finally meet, Gerry finds that Claire is more beautiful and successful than she could have imagined, but Claire is bewildered and conflicted because of the smothering parents who adopted her and are fearful of losing her to her real mother. Gerry's younger teenage daughter is jealous of the attention that Claire is getting from her mother. Justin was also shocked at hearing the news that he had another older sister and angry at his mother for keeping her a secret for so long.

After her brief introduction to her new family, Claire returns to her home and Gerry doesn't hear from her again for more than 6 weeks. She is afraid that Claire doesn't want to be part of their family. However, Claire was so impressed with Carson Springs and the people there that she decided to quit her job as an attorney, and go into partnership with her best friend by opening a tea shop in Carson Springs in a quaint Victorian home that she had spotted when she was in town.

Taste of Honey is filled with interesting and realistic characters, including the nuns at the convent where Gerry works, her current lover, Aubrey who is a world-class symphony conductor, her best friend, Sam who is having a late-in-life baby, Claire's contractor, Matt, and many other colorful locals. Claire is torn between two lovers, Gerry is denying the fact that she is falling in love with Aubrey, and Gerry and Claire are trying to forge a new relationship after many years apart.

I was thoroughly absorbed and engaged by this heart-warming story and look forward to more in this series set in Carson Springs.

Eileen Goudge has a gift of seeing into people's hearts and in this second book of the Carson Springs series she takes us back to this serene little town in California to visit with people who feel as real as our own friends.....Gerry Fitzgerald seeks a grown daughter she was forced to give up at birth. Even though she has two other children she always felt a void in her life.....After she found her daughter, Claire, she struggled to meld her family with Claire. Claire Brewster agreed to travel to Carson Springs to meet her "new family" and fell in love with the town and the people she met there......With the help of her friend, Kitty Seagrave, Claire left her "safe" job to start a new career in Carson Springs to the dismay of her adoptive family and her longtime love. She became torn between two loves.....This move has made her birth mother, Gerry very happy, but caused mixed feelings with her two other children......Gerry has been having a relationship with a famous symphony conductor, Aubrey Roellinger. Aubrey is a widower with loving feelings for his late wife. Gerry is divorced from her husband after a disappointing marriage. Both Aubrey and Gerry do not want to remarry, but agree to have a non-commited relationship....Gerry finds herself falling deeply in love with Aubrey and he with her. It took the near death of their freinds Sam, Ian, and their unborn baby in a car accident to make them realize that they need to give up their obsessions of the past and start to live in the present and go on with each other in the future for a full complete life......I can hardly wait for next book in this series.

I eagerly awaited the second book in the Carson Springs series and I was not disappointed. Once again the town in the california valley is brought to life. This book introduces us to Gerry who gave up a daughter for adoption 28 years ago. She finds her daughter rather easily and calls her on christmas day to introduce herself. Her daughter Claire has lived a rather sheltered life and isn't sure she wants to get to know Gerry and this other family she belongs to. But Claire feels she is at a crossroad in her life and she decides it is now or never to try and find out about herself and what she really wants out of life.
I enjoyed meeting all the new players in this book and I was also glad to see the return of some of the cast of the first book-- especially Sam and Ian. This is a great summer read. It will take you away for awhile to a corner of california and get to know the people of Carson Springs. I eagerly look forward to the next book in this series.

This is the second book in the Carson Springs trilogy. Former fallen nun and now divorced, Gerry Fitzgerald suddenly has a desire to find the daughter that she gave away 28 years earlier now that her friend Sam is with child. She has continued to work at the convent in the beekeeping operation (hence the title), and is having an affair with the local celebrity conductor, Aubrey.

Claire Brewster knows that she was adopted, but did not want to disappoint her adoptive parents by looking into her adoption, until a call from Gerry changes her life. Claire has always done what is expected of her, including going to law school, despite not having a desire to practice the law. Her childhood sweetheart is her fiancé, though they have never gotten around to setting a date.

She meets Gerry and her half siblings, then returns to the SF Bay Area, but continues to think about the town of Carson Springs. A few months later, Claire decides to relocate for a little while to get to know them and pursue her passion - opening a tea shop. When she purchases a fixer upper, and gets closer and closer to her handyman, her relationship with her fiancé takes a back burner. And she forages a friendship with her birth mother.

Despite a couple of continuity flaws that should have been caught in the editing process, (Alice is mentioned as Sam's oldest daughter in one paragraph, then a few pages later, she is the youngest; Ian is listed as being 15 years Sam's junior - Sam is 48 and Ian is 31), it stands alone as a pretty good story. There were a few too many plots going on all at once though - and a few too many characters that did not bring anything to the storyline.

Carson Springs is a wonderful place to be and if you are not lucky enough like me to live there you can relax and let Eileen Goudge take you back there.

It is easy reading, fast paced and very enjoyable and definitely a must for summer reading. Pack it whether you are going to the beach, on a plane ride or just staying home and want to curl up with a good book and if you want to enjoy more of this wonderful authors books I highly suggest Garaden of Lies and the sequel Thorns of Truth you will love each and every page.

Happy reading.

In Carson Springs, Californian recently divorced Geraldine Fitzgerald still feels guilty over the infant she gave up for adoption almost three decades ago. Gerry was a novice in love with a priest. When she became pregnant, she gave up her vows to give birth to the girl that still haunts her though she has two other children teenage Andie and preadolescent Justin from her recently ended marriage. Unable to resist, Gerry begins a successful search to locate her lost Claire.

On Christmas Day, Gerry calls Claire, a discontented attorney. Two caring parents who worry about her all the time have raised Claire. Though she knows they love her, she feels that at twenty-eight she is an adult and needs some air from their smothering concern. Curious, Claire agrees to meet with her biological mother over the objections of her adopted parents and the jealous anger of Andie. Whatever happens from this mother and adult child "reunion", the meeting will alter the other relationships with others in their spheres.

The return to Carson Springs (see STRANGER IN PARADISE) is an engaging relationship drama for those readers who desire an overwhelming TASTE OF HONEY in their novels. The story line is loaded with numerous subplots, all of which are soap opera in nature, but fun to peruse because the cast is inviting and alive. Even with the sugary fluff, Eileen Goudge provides a deep adult undercurrent mindful of Gibran's bow and arrow metaphor to describe the relationship between parents and children.

Harriet Klausner

With carson Springs still reeling from Samantha Kiley's romance with a younger man, her best friend, Gerry Fitzgerald, fires up the town with another sensational scandal. The child Gerry put up for adoption twenty-eight years ago-and kept a painful secret from her family, has come back into her life. But not without a lot of bitterness attached.

Claire Brewster is a successful attorney engaged to her childhood sweetheart. She hurt her parents feelings when she chose to find her biological mother and family, most of whom do not welcome Claire into their fold.

A bittersweet tale, and I enjoyed this book. As you read, you could feel the pain of rejection and all the hurt it brings to a child who is rejected by their natural family.