Wednesday, March 01, 2006
Today our Christian Fiction Blog Alliance is proud to review A Family Forever. This is the latest book by my blogging friend Brenda Coulter. She also had a Website for her writing.
I loved the book. It's a Heartwarming Inspiration Romance from the Love Inspired line over at Steeple Hill. Now before you go panting and rubbing your hands together at the prospect of reading a romance. I must tell you that this is Christian romance.
What does that mean, you might ask? Well for my buddies out there, who know who they are and shall remain nameless, it means no sex! That kind of thing happend behind closed doors, but you will get to see and feel the emotional impact of the relationship. Which to me takes a much better writer to convey the depth of feelings without resorting to wanton actions.
Now for the story. This is the story of Shelby and Tucker. Shelby was going to marry Tucker's adopted brother, David, but he got killed in a motorcycle accident. To compound matters, Shelby is pregnant...let's not talk about putting the horse before the cart! With her mounting problems like getting evicted from her apartment and having a mom who is a real piece of work, Shelby is an emotional wreck.
In comes our knight...Tucker, a God-fearing, handsome man...who works. He promised Dave on his deathbed that he'd take care of Shelby. His guilt gets the better of him when he finds out that she's being evicted. First he offers to take her in, then he offers marriage...to make her respectable.
Shelby feels all kinds of guilt for taking advantage of Tucker, but at this stage of the game she doesn't have many options. The rest of the story is both of them working on their budding romance and the issues each of them feel. Ladies, you'll love Tucker...he has some sweet and sensitive lines that just make you go...auhhhh! Now if there were just more men like him in real life...Well, we can read and dream!
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Congrats to your friend on the book!
This came up because the Bunions have a tendancy to write novels that have no sex in them. Innuendo but no sex. Lots of laughs, but no sex.
Now before you tell me you've read sex in my novels, Bonnie, the one novel was all about sex and none of it is explicit - well, only a little bit actually. In the other, it was stated, but it wasn't explicit. There's one explicit scene about two thirds of the way through, but for both books, the scenes themselves had a LOT to say about the characters.
And know what brought this up? My kids are progressing past the Middle Grades stage and the girl past the Young Adult stage. It's hard to find YA that I think is appropriate for kids (who I define as under 18 years old). Now the girl is searching farther afield. She's searching my bookshelves, reminding me that there's TONS of good literature out there without explicit sex scenes, or even innuendo. Good yarns that dig deep and are very worthwhile reading.
So - this is a topic that transcends religion and culture, I think.
good show!
Wellllll...M.G....there is a...gulp...recent short story....
I don't think so anyway.
Bonnie? Is all Christian Fiction religious? Because we're a mixed bag in my family. If the message is heavy-handed, I'd have to decline, but if it's along the lines of your writing, that would be fine.
I filter everything my kids read. So far, they self-filter and make pretty good choices on their own.
Part of the guidelines of christian writing (and the list is as long as my arm) is to not name any particular denomination or churchor to reference any of the points of contention amonst the denominations...like eternal salvation, alchol, gambling, religious practices.
In other words they want all people to feel comfortable...and safe, reading.
Here's the link for an excerpt from Brenda's first book called finding Hope...
http://brendacoulter.com/BrendaCoulterMyFirstBook.htm
And here's Alton Gansky's home page. He has two free downloadable books on his lower left sidebar.. http://www.altongansky.com/index2.html