Customer Reviews

Let There Be Light (Mail Order Bride Series #10)

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1 star:		(3)

 

 

Let me start by saying that I love Christian fiction and am a voracious reader. However, this is only the second book I've read written by Al & Joanna Lacy. Since I do read so much, I have read my share of very good books (Dee Henderson, Lori Wick) and have read some not so good books. Unfortunately, this book falls in the latter category. My biggest disappointment with this book is that the two main characters don't meet until 11 pages before the end of the book. They don't even correspond until right before that. She doesn't even know he exists and vice versa until the very end of the book. Most of the book centers around Jenny and her mother. Her mother is manic depressive and Jenny is taking care of her while her father (the mother's husband) is away in the War. Jenny has a violent temper (which is never explained in the book and borders on psychotic) and centers all her hopes on her father's return. She also has an imagined love affair with a man named Nate who is also away in the War. There are several instances of her violent behavior including bludgeoning a man with an ax handle, battering a man and his wife on the street, ransacking their home, and battering a man in an alley. She then leaves her home to murder a man. Supposedly this 19-year old woman was brought up in a very loving home (albeit she is not saved). There is no explanation given as to why she has such a violent temper. There is a lot of crying for the first 3/4 of the book and then a lot of anger. By the end of the book, I didn't care what happened to Jenny and wanted to warn Dan to run quickly in the opposite direction. There is no surprise in the ending, however, and there is a VERY quick declaration of love. This book did not deliver a good story line, nor a believable one. The other book I read was Mail Order Book 9 "So Little Time" and it was good. Perhaps, the Lacys should have ended this series without a Book 10. I will try another book written by this duo, but I would definitely recommend avoiding this one.

When I first saw what this book was about, I was anxious to read it. After I got about 50 pages into the book, I started wondering when Dan and Jenny were going to meet and the real story of their relationship would get underway. I started to get bored, so I thumbed through the pages to see when Jenny and her mother would find out that their husband/father had been killed. Imagine my surprise to see that over 200 pages of the way into the book is when they find out he died. I was even more disappointed to see that Dan and Jenny don't meet until 11 pages from the end of the book!!! The writers needed to focus more on developing Dan and Jenny's relationship rather than Jenny and her mother. Once they met, the story ended way too quickly. I don't doubt that someone's heart can change that quickly, however, the story would have been a much better one if Jenny's heart transformation would have been a longer process. She and Dan should have met sooner so that the story would have been focused on them. I got bored of the story being so much about Jenny and her mother. It was basically the same thing every time they were mentioned. Her mother with the far off looks...Jenny working at the store...reading the newspaper...her mother panicing about her husband not coming back... There was so much of this and I started to loose interest. The story needed to mainly focus on Jenny and Dan.

I enjoyed the book and received excellant service from Amazon.
Received the book sooner than I expected.

I love the Mail Order Bride Series, but series 10 was not well done. The beginning is unnecessary and leaves you wondering. Jenny is like a Jekyll and Hyde character. If your life is closely in tune with Christ, as Dan's was, you would be able to see there were problems with Jenny, especially after a month of courtship. There is no info on their courtship. The entire story felt like we were being rushed with many of the events and the finales disappointing and abrupt. Toomey's story seemed incomplete. This is the worst book I have read of any books in quite a long time. Very disappointing for great authors.