-- Grace Elizabeth --

-- Grace Elizabeth --

Sunday, May 19, 2013

Afloat

This review of Afloat by Erin Healy is a hard one to  write.  She has been one of my top favorite writers and I have read everything she has written and loved them until now.  The teaser to the book really tweaked my curiosity and requested this book.
I don't really know where to start this review since most of my reviews are very positive and I have loved the book.  The storyline centers on and interesting project of apartments floating in the cove of a river. It is to be a wonderful idea and an investors dream.  A sinkhole happens and the problems begin.  Rain and lots of rain flood the cove and the people who are not dead are left and cut off from everyone.  How will they survive and is this the end of the world?  The ones left are very divided on how to survive and get to land.  There is the developer, project engineer, single mom and her son and others who all have different ideas on rescue.
Add to the storyline-power failure, daytime darkness, explosions, murder and dark histories.
I realize this book was to be about the supernatural possibilities and the human spirit but it left me not really ever figuring out who was who and what was what. The storyline jumped from plot to plot and I never felt the character development happened.   I did like the character Zeke and how he related to Vance.  Seemed like the most Christian part of the book. In the story the young son saw beautiful shining lights in the dark ocean. I felt the author never explained these and   I never did understand what they were. It seemed the story had good intentions but never really "happened" and the ending just left me glad it was over.
Thanks to Thomas Nelson for sending me this book for free just for my honest opinion.

Gone South

This review is not a glowing account of how I liked this book.  I absolutely loved Meg Mosely's first book
and was thrilled to get this book to review.  I really thought that I would love this book, but it fell short in so many areas of me liking it and just being able to finish it.
The storyline evolves around Tish McComb who is single with her dreams of marriage and family killed when her fiance was killed five years ago,  She is going about in a dead end job and has the opportunity to buy her
great-great-great grandparents' Civil War house in Noble Alabama.  The only problem is, she is a northerner and her grandparents were not "the best of people" and there is a lot of animosity toward Tish. Two people come to her aid-a local antique dealer willing to give her  a chance and a prodigal looking for acceptance.
These are the three main characters in the story with the plot weaving from each to each which left me totally bored and waiting for "something" to happen with the storyline.  Unfortunately for me, it never materialized and I hung in till the end and felt relief when I finally ended this book. 
I am not one usually to find fault with the books I read-I love Christian fiction and enjoy a good plot that holds my interest and I hope her next book is one that fits that criteria for me.
Thanks to Waterbrook for sending me this free copy for my honest opinion.