I posted this entry a little over a year ago on my old blog website, Diaryland

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2006-03-12 – 3:52 p.m.

Paperback – Reprint
ISBN: 0373785194
Pub. Date: September 2004

I thought I’d write about a few books I’ve read recently.

The first is called The Marriage Wish by Dee Henderson. I liked this book because it has a particularly strong conflict—The heroine, Jennifer, has lost a husband and child and she’s afraid to love again. Since I now have a son, I look at conflicts involving children differently now. I’ve never lost a child, but I do know that it would be hard for me to get over losing my son because he means the world to me! Even with God’s grace, getting over the death of a child is would be an extremely hard thing to do. As in most romance novels, the couple, Scott and Jennifer, are happily married in the end, and Jennifer does find the courage to have children.

Hardcover
ISBN: 0446531537
Pub. Date: September 2005

The second book I read recently was The Amen Sisters by Angela Benson. This book was a good read with strong conflicts. Francine is haunted by the death of her best friend Toni. After a few months in a mental institution, Francine returns home to live with her fraternal twin sister Dawn. Dawn is having marriage problems with her husband Sly. To add to the conflict, Sly used to be Francine’s beau.

Francine is bitter because of the illicit goings-on that happened in a religious group that she had been involved with. This book deals with the issue of clergymen who take advantage of female parishioners. Francine wished that she had believed her friend Toni, when she confessed that she was pregnant with their preacher’s child. Unfortunately, there are a few people in Francine’s hometown who blame her for Toni’s death, and the guilt she carries affects her family and romantic relationships.

Eventually, Francine, Sly, and Dawn all work through their issues and the story does have a strong and uplifting ending.

I highly recommend reading this book, especially if one has had negative experiences with upper-level clergymen.

Signing off for now,
Cecelia Dowdy
www.ceceliadowdy.com
www.blackchristianfiction.com

Paperback: 320 pages
Publisher: Harvest House Publishers (March 1, 2006)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0736914803
ISBN-13: 978-0736914802

Book Description:
“Didn’t you listen to the news this morning? According to the latest statistics, the only places that have eligible men left are China, Alaska, and Utah!”
Wondering what to do now, Tracy examines her priorities and choices. You’d think an intelligent woman with an impressive career, a coveted urban dwelling, and a closet full of the latest fashions could certainly find the man her heart desires.

But for Tracy and her four friends, there’s more to happiness than simply finding Mr. Right. Adrian has always been the perfect Christian wife, yet even she finds marriage comes with no guarantees. Muriel would just as soon lock her heart away where no man dares to tread. Felicia could use a lesson in romantic restraint, and Carla wonders if God is punishing her for past mistakes.

As the future unfolds, these longtime friends discover that love comes in unique and amazing ways.

Michelle McKinney Hammond, a writer, singer, and speaker who focuses on improving love-driven relationships, is the founder and president of HeartWing Ministries as well as the cohost of the Emmy-nominated show Aspiring Women. Michelle is the author of Sassy, Single, & Satisfied, The DIVA Principle™, and 101 Ways to Get and Keep His Attention. This is her first novel.

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As many of you know, I’m not a non-fiction lover. Therefore, I’ve never read MMH’s non-fiction books about relationships, so it’s hard for me to compare the novel to her other published works.

This book reminded me of a Waiting To Exhale with a Christian twist. You have four good friends who lunch together frequently and commiserate about their relationships. None of the friends is in a successful, fulfilling romantic relationship and they talk about this to a great extent when they get together for lunch.

Adrian is the most ‘holy’ of the group. Married before she was saved, her husband saw something in Adrian that he really liked. However, during her marriage, she found Jesus, and focused all of her energies on Him, neglecting being a passionate wife to her husband. She went through the motions of being a wife to her husband, not enjoying her role as his wife, but finding fulfillment only in her church activities. It’s a crashing wake up call when her husband leaves her a note and abandons her.

Muriel has been through some tough times, so she refuses to date any man. However, she does find herself suddenly spending time with a good-looking white man whom catches her attention. He helps her to unlock the pain that’s holding her captive, releasing her to love him.

Tracy just keeps getting into bad relationships and she has a strange love/hate relationship with Felicia, her sister-cousin. She has a hard time dealing with interracial relationships since she catches her current beau making out with a white woman in a restaurant.

Felicia finds herself pregnant by a good-looking and successful plastic surgeon(Kenny). She’s paranoid about their relationship, under the impression that Kenny is cheating on her, so she decides to cut him out of her life completely, not wanting him to have a part of their child’s life.

Then there’s Carla, who’s been through pain in the past and she finally finds the courage to tell her husband about what she’s been through before they were married, wondering if her past actions were affecting their not being able to conceive.

I found that Ms. Hammond’s point to this novel was that the reason a majority of these women’s relationships did not work was because they did not focus on Him enough, or not at all, except for Adrian. Adrian focused only on God, and let her marriage fall by the wayside.

Cecelia Dowdy
www.ceceliadowdy.com