March 10, 2007

Pearl by Lauraine Snelling
Paperback: 352 pages
Publisher: Bethany House (April 1, 2004)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 076422221X
ISBN-13: 978-0764222214

Breaker’s Reef By Terri Blackstock
Paperback: 336 pages
Publisher: Zondervan (March 1, 2005)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0310235952
ISBN-13: 978-0310235958

This blog entry is from my old Diaryland blog:
2006-04-29 – 7:14 a.m.

Today is Saturday, April 29th, and I hope all of you had a happy and blessed Easter Holiday. My baby was sick, so my husband and I missed Easter services this year. My husband was sick on Easter Monday, and I was sick on the Tuesday after Easter. Me and hubby are healthy right now, however, our baby seems to either be getting a cold, or, suffering from allergies. Hopefully the little guy will be feeling better soon.

I’ve been doing a little writing here and there during my spare time. I thought I’d take this diary entry to tell you about two great books I recently read.

The first book is called Pearl by Lauraine Snelling. I really enjoyed this historical novel! Pearl “runs away” from home to escape an arranged marriage plotted by her insensitive father. She makes her way to Dakota Territory and makes a new eclectic mix of friends while she is employed as a school teacher in a former whore house that has been converted into a hotel. Pearl has a scar on her neck, which she keeps covered, thinking it will prevent her from finding a suitable mate. I am glad when she is able to find the man of her dreams while living in the Dakotah Territory.

As is common in Lauraine Snelling’s novels, she involves Norwegian characters, and characters with Norwegian ancestry. I like the way she describes their accents and uses a sprinkling of Norwegian phrases in her sentences.

The other novel I’ve read recently is Breaker’s Reef by Terri Blackstock, one of my favorite suspense authors. The murder of a high-school girl has the people on the island of Cape Refuge scared and they are anxious to find the killer. As is common of Ms. Blackstock, she keeps you guessing about the killer’s identity until the very end. There are some interesting characters in this novel, including a quirky writer who turns out to be one of the strongest murder suspects.

Blair, the newspaper reporter, also has to live with scars(like Pearl in Lauraine Snelling’s novel). Just like Pearl, she does end up with the man of her dreams in the end.

I encourage all to read novels by both of these ladies. I’ve read several of their books, and they are good reads that will keep you entertained.

Many Blessings,
Cecelia Dowdy
www.ceceliadowdy.com

I forgot to elaborate on number four when I did my blog yesterday. I think it’s weird when soap opera writers go back and invent new history for the characters to support a new story line that they want to develop. A few examples of this were when Kendall showed up on All My Children. Kendall is Erica Kane’s daughter, whom she had when she was raped at fourteen, whom she’d given up for adoption. There was no mention of this rape until the writers decided to let Kendall pop into the story.

Another example of this occurs on The Young And The Restless. Cane is an Australian, living in America, searching for his birth mother. It turns out that Jill is supposedly his birth mother. Jill didn’t know she had this son because after she had given birth, Catherine(Jill’s birth mother, whom she didn’t even discover was really her birth mother until a few years ago)had kidnapped Cane and gave him to somebody else. Somehow, Catherine “arranged” for Jill to end up taking a baby home, but it wasn’t hers. So Jill ends up raising a child, that’s not hers, but she thinks it is. So when Cane shows up, she’s floored. Also, the child she did raise, Philip is dead from a car accident.

This whole story line is confusing from the get-go. Just thinking about it almost gives me a headache. Catherine just recently ‘remembers’ that she did this dreadful, not to mention illegal, deed to Jill. (Of course, when she did this to Jill, she had no idea that Jill was her birth daughter, and Jill was going after Catherine’s husband, who happens to be the father of Jill’s baby!) Whew! Now I’m confused for real!

Time for me to blog about a book or something. I’m tired of talking about the soaps for now.

Signing off until next time.

Cecelia Dowdy
www.ceceliadowdy.com