Undeniably Yours

This one's a little difficult for me to rate. The story itself was right up there on 4.5 for characters and enjoyment. But there were little things... The prose was not particularly brilliant, thus the lack of a full five stars, and the writing focused on what felt like a very encapsulated view of just the present. There were places where I'd have loved to have gone much deeper into a flashback or a scene, and places where the action skipped forward almost jarringly into the future...leaving me with a dizzied sense of, “and how many days later was this?”

Also, there were a few niggles of doubt about the theology. Nothing that I could say, “Hey, that's error!”, but spots of, “What does she mean by this and does she realize what ramifications there could be?” The one spot I was most disturbed by was by Meg's feeling guilt over her divorce and then the jump on the next page to her “taking all her feelings to God and asking for forgiveness.” a) was the forgiveness because she felt that she had sinned by receiving a divorce from a scoundrel? Or b) was it meant that if she felt bad all she had to do was boiler-plate “ask to be forgiven and everything is perfect again”? Either way there are biblical issues, one for her repenting for something that wasn't her sin, or for her saying “forgive me” without having a reason and a hope for change from the thing she'd been forgiven for. I'm hoping the author's expression of her beliefs improves with later books.

I also had difficulty with some of the desires of the characters toward each other. Feeling deeply attracted to someone is not wondering how good they'd be in bed, especially if you haven't expressed any sort of love for each other. It's wrong for any woman to let herself wonder about such things with single males of her acquaintance! It objectifies relationships and brings the flesh way too much to the forefront. You can have a real, deep, meaningful attraction for the opposite sex without thinking about their personals, or even their so-called “hotness”. As romance goes, this book is pretty mild, but it went just a step too far for me.

All that said, I loved the rest. The characters were vivid and jumped off the page, and I loved how Meg wanted to find God's calling for her life and also how she sought God's will for the thoroughbred farm apart from her personal wants because of the blossoming romance with the director of it. And I really enjoyed the twist at the end with the hacker.

Overall, a sweet romance with strong characters and a good storyline.