The Bishop’s Wife

Warning: this does contain a few spoilers. Sorry.

Early: I'm only a few pages in, and already I have comments. This book can't seem to decide if it is for people familiar or NOT with LDS culture: it explains about Relief Society and cultural halls, and takes a stab at temple marriage, but rolls right past Stake Presidents and High Councils and calls the Word of Wisdom “ridiculously high standards”.

Update: The book still can't decide on its audience. And the funeral home scene should be majorly summarized.

The doctrine in the book is kind of messed up. A lot of it is correct enough to mostly sound right, but wrong enough to give the wrong impression. I have a problem with that. I realize this is a murder mystery, not a doctrinal book, but authors should be faithful to their “world.” Also, the author seemed to be going out of her way to address unusual factors or viewpoints, rather than staying mainstream (Mormon mainstream, I mean), but there wasn't a literary reason to do so, so it didn't add anything to the story, regardless of audience. In fact, it was quite distracting.

Early: The characters so far include the politically ultra-liberal Mormon, the feminist Mormon, the controversial-&-headed-for-excommunication Mormon, the potentially murderous Mormon. Yes, these all exist in real life, so I'm not complaining about that part of it.... but where's the large proportion of average Mormons?

Update: Also the abusive fathers (plural!) and the keep-a-secret-by-burying-the-body-in-the-backyard Mormon. Again, those are NOT typical–where's the large proportion of average Mormons? (Actually, those aren't even typical for non-Mormons, either...)

On a more nitpicky level, there's a random “Samuel” sandwiched between two sentences on the first page, and two farther along, as well as the occasional missing space that crams two words together.

It really bothered me that a certain character, who had been abused by her father, was more concerned that her four abortions (to hide the consequences) had created fertility problems than she was by the fact that she had had four (FOUR!) abortions. Considering that abortion is a big (no, not absolute) NO in Mormon doctrine, it SHOULD have at least bothered her.

The ongoing internal conflict regarding Georgia was never resolved in any way.

The plot seemed overly complicated. (“You thought she was killed! But there is the video... But what about the other neighbor... But the phone call.... But... But... But...”)

While the murderer was caught (sorry, spoiler), I still didn't like the way the book ended. Or middled. (That SHOULD be a word, right?)

I'm afraid I can't recommend this book, although I do think that the problems I have with it could be fixed (or at least improved in the author's next book).

I received this book in a Goodreads giveaway, but got no other compensation for my review. My opinions are entirely my own.