A Sinner in Paradise
4 stars
426 pages
Expected publication:
Aug. 28, 2013
by Light Messages Publishing
When I picked up this ARC, I wasn't sure what to expect. Is
it a romance? A smarmy cheesefest? A fictional memoir?
Instead, I found it to be an uplifting tale of a woman named
Geneva who journeys from the throes of immaturity to a life filled with wisdom
and humility by eschewing city life and returning to her roots in rural West
Virginia. I was happily surprised with how much I liked it!
The writing was fluid and easy to read. I usually hate it
when accents are phonetically spelled out, but the author Deborah Hining does
it well. It’s actually easy to read. I could hear the accent in my mind.
The ebook had some punctuation problems, but that is easily
overlooked in favor of the prose.
Hining has a knack for descriptive writing. Her descriptions
of the mountain country where Geneva lives were beautiful, and they transported
me to the times I have been in the mountains and experienced that natural
splendor.
One theme of the book: every person in your life can be a
source of knowledge. Every person on earth is equal, and they all have the
ability to enrich your life. Geneva starts out looking down her nose at the
“hillbillies” she meets and morphs into a woman who appreciates and loves them.
She learns from every person that she meets.
There are religious elements to the story, but it only gets
overly preachy two or three times, and those are towards the end of the book
when the main character is discovering and trying to fix her flaws.
My favorite characters in the book are Lilly and Sally Beth.
Whenever those two show up together in the prose, you know you are going to get
some hilarious bickering. I loved it. I delighted in discovering that there was
more to Sally Beth than a bickering cousin. She made me want to look at people
differently.
One reason I gave it 4 stars instead of 5 is that the ending
was a bit abrupt. All the concerns that Geneva brings up about her situation are
not resolved satisfactorily. The ending
also leaves the other three men in Geneva’s life hanging – they were all in
love with her. It seems unfair to leave them unhappy – they were all good men.
There is also a smattering of mild swearing and premarital sex.
I can recommend this book to those in the mood for an
uplifting, Christian book.
Thank you NetGalley and Light Messages Publishing for the
opportunity to review this book.
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