Pride, Prejudice, and Cheese Grits by Mary Jane Hathaway might sound like a Southern version of Jane Austen’s novel, and indeed it is. Set in the present-day South, it is not a point for point retelling – there are a few differences in characters and plot. But if you’re thinking of P&P while reading it, you’ll recognize a number of plot points and people. This book is the first in Hathaway’s “Jane Austen Takes the South” series. I had read the second book, Emma, Mr. Knightly, and Chili Slaw Dogs, first and then backtracked to read this one.

In this story, Shelby Roswell appreciates history, from old houses to old diaries. In fact, she is a professor of history specializing in the Civil War era working to become tenured. She had written a book with hopes of it propelling her toward her goal, but eminent Civil War expert and writer Ransom Fielding wrote a scathing review of it for a national magazine. And now he’s a visiting guest professor at her college for an entire year. She hopes to avoid him, but at their first meeting, they clash big time, and publicly at that. They each push all the wrong buttons in the other, yet find qualities attractive in each other.

Ransom is, of course, devastatingly handsome, sure of himself, and seemingly a little stuffy at first. He lost both a wife and child, leaving him bitter against God and determined to guard his heart from ever loving another woman.

Of course, following P&P, you know where this is going to go, but it is fun to see how it gets there. Jane from P&P is replaced by Shelby’s roommate, Rebecca, English professor and Jane Austen expert. Ransom’s aunt Margaret Greathouse represents the formidable Lady Catherine de Bourgh. Shelby’s family represents Elizabeth’s in a laid-back father, marriage-minded mother, and silly sisters. Mr. Collins and Wickham are combined in a David Bishop.

I’ve seen a couple of reviewers refer to this volume as more preachy than the second book, but I’d have to ask what they mean by “preachy.” To me, a preachy Christian fiction book is more a “lesson” thinly veiled as a story and may entail finger-wagging and implied “You ought…” advice to the reader. I saw none of that here. As I wrote in Why Read Christian Fiction?, you’d expect in this genre to see professing Christian characters doing Christian things like reading their Bibles and trying to figure out how to apply their faith to everyday life. I do find that here in a natural, uncontrived way, such as when Shelby, after a heated encounter with Ransom, wonders why she has a hard time with putting into practice the verse she had read that morning about being swift to hear, slow to speak, and slow to wrath when she is around him (though actually it’s not just around him – she tends to blurt things out before speaking to nearly everyone) and, when they finally talk about his wife and child, and she advises him in ways to deal with it. That’s perfectly normal. The author seemed to go the other way in the second book – I remember wondering why it was called Christian fiction when there wasn’t really anything distinctly Christian in it that I could recall. Perhaps she did so in response to criticism in this book, but I’d rather have Christianity displayed as it is here rather than being so subtle it is unobservable.

There were a couple of plot points that didn’t quite make sense to me, but overall the writing was fine. There were a couple of sections I felt didn’t need to be there: for instance, when Shelby is holding her cousin’s baby while talking to Ransom, the baby keeps putting its fist in her cleavage. Sure, babies do things like that, but in a book there was really no reason to draw attention (ours or Ransom’s) to her cleavage. And one character is framed with a fake video of a fake sexual encounter. Sure, there is scandal in P&P when Lizzie’s sister runs off with Wickham, but we are told very little about it. This book doesn’t go into all the specifics of the tape but mentions more than necessary – and I felt the conflict and tension this incident was supposed to create could have been handled in a different way. I’ve seen a couple of reviewers mention a swear word in the book, but I don’t remember any, and I am usually sensitive to that.

But I thought the theme that “love changes us” was nicely brought out, and I enjoyed the ways it changed Ransom and Shelby. And the Austen connections were fun, too.

I’ve seen many blog posts recommending Irene Hannon, so when One Perfect Spring came through on a Kindle sale, I got it. Hannon is most known for mysteries, but has written a few contemporary romance novels, this being one of them.

The story opens with workaholic Keith Watson sifting through requests for his boss’s McMillan Charitable Foundation to find the best two or three he could recommend. Among them he finds a handwritten note from an eleven year old girl named Haley asking for the firm’s help for her neighbor. Haley had seen Mr. McMillan’s picture in the newspaper and was told by her mom that he “did nice things for people.” Her neighbor was seeking for a son she had given up for adoption, and Haley wanted Mr. Macmillan to help her. Keith places the note on the reject pile to be sent a standard letter. But his boss finds the note and wants Keith to follow up on it. He sees in Keith a younger version of himself and wants to help him avoid the mistakes he made in putting his work first place for too much of his life. Keith is less than thrilled, but follows through.

The neighbor in question is Maureen Chandler, a college professor. She had just been through cancer treatments that seemed to be successful so far, but the bout caused her to reflect. She had given up her son twenty-two years ago and kept him a secret. Now she wants to make a connection and try to find some closure.

Keith’s pursuit leads him not only to Maureen, but her neighbor, Haley’s mother, Claire Summers. Claire is a single mom who bought a fixer-upper house and is trying to take one project at a time as the budget allows, doing much of the work herself to save money. Keith and Claire don’t hit it off at first, but Maureen and David MacMillan do.

While Keith works on Maureen’s case, some of each character’s past and issues are revealed. They have to learn that dealing with the past and forgiveness are necessary parts of preparing for a future, that learning to trust again is possible but takes time, and that giving a person another chance is necessary.

I enjoyed the story very much. But one aspect of Hannon’s writing grated on me after a bit.

“Mmm. Cream cheese…sweet, smooth, and yummy. Kind of like the man who’d brought it.”

“The effort to eradicate [the paint] chafed her skin, leaving an angry red blemish. Kind of like the lingering blemish left on her heart…”

“[The chair] must be stronger than it looked. Kind of like the owner of this house.”

“She transferred the [hot] dish to the table as fast as she could, touching it as briefly as possible. Kind of like the way she’d handled the events that had gotten her into a mess…Like the hot casserole, her story had the power to burn.”

“[The race] was neck and neck, making the outcome hard to predict. Kind of like the outcome of her relationship with Keith.”

There are half a dozen or so of these “kind of like” comparisons, and many more that don’t use that exact phrasing (“She picked up his glass, swirling the ice that was quickly melting in the heat of the house. Warmth could melt so many things. Including hearts.” “She swiped up a stray drip of mustard left from their dinner, the cheerful hue reminding her of Haley’s comment about Keith brightening up their house.” “It was only a room. But could it symbolize more?”) The first time, I thought, “She didn’t just do that, did she?” Symbolism is a great literary device, but it’s usually much more subtle than that. I don’t think many people see that many connections or object lessons throughout life.

But I am hoping that this isn’t characteristic of Hannon’s writing, and I liked the story well enough to seek out another of her books. In fact, the preview of one of her mysteries at the end of this book hooked me in enough to want to find out what happened.

If you like clean (except for one inexplicit yet to me kind of tacky reference) Christian fiction where characters are realistically flawed, yet learn and grow through the story, you would probably like this book.

In What Follows After by Dan Walsh, Scott and Gina Harrison are separated, but no one knows it. They attend functions together and ask their boys, Colt, age 11, and Timmy, age 6, to pretend as if everything is all right. But everyone is miserable, and Colt has finally had enough. He decides to take the money he has saved and buy bus tickets for himself and Timmy to go to their favorite aunt and uncle’s house. They feel sure their aunt and uncle will take them in, listen to their side of the situation, and talk some sense into their parents.

Everything goes as planned until the bus stops for a short break. Colt and Timmy get something to eat at a nearby diner. When all sorts of Army vehicles begin to pass by, Timmy is enthralled and won’t come when Colt needs to use the restroom. Colt decides it won’t hurt to leave Timmy there for a few minutes. But when he comes back, Timmy is gone. The waitress said he went out with a man she thought was their dad. They had gotten on a different bus heading the opposite direction from their aunt and uncle’s house.

The story is set in 1962 Florida on the eve of the Cuban missile crisis, which, though it doesn’t affect the story directly (except in taking attention and manpower away from the kidnapping case), does add a layer of tension. I was born in the 50s and thought Walsh did a good job recreating that era.

There are a lot of threads to the story: Scott and Gina’s relationship, what led to its current standing, the kidnapping, the motive and the man who did it, race relations in the South at the time, and people’s reactions to the current crisis with Cuba. I thought the overall story was good, and Walsh brought out a lot of good points about the Harrison’s marriage and what needed to be done to mend it.

Walsh is known for writing that tugs at the heartstrings, for books that could easily be made in Hallmark movies. But though all the elements were there to make this another winner, somehow it just fell flat to me. The characters did not seem fully developed and some of the conversation seemed cliche. Whatever it is that draws me in and really makes me feel for the characters just seemed to be missing this time. But, skimming through reviews on Amazon and Goodreads, none of them seemed to have any objections except just a very few people who didn’t like the religious element. So maybe it was just me.

But even though I didn’t feel it was up to Walsh’s usual standards, it’s still a fine book and I’d still recommend it. Maybe you’ll like it better than I did. I especially like the paragraph from which the title comes, that “what follows after” a crisis or terrible situation can be good, that God can bring beauty and blessing out of misery and work all things together for good for those who love Him.

The winner of the giveaway of the paperback version of The Tenth Plague by Adam Blumer is Faith. Congratulations, Faith!

For those who didn’t win, check out Adam Blumer’s Facebook page, where he’ll be posting about various other giveaways over the next few months.

Thanks for entering, and thanks to Adam for sponsoring the giveaway and writing such great books!

In A Slender Thread by Tracie Peterson, five sisters return home to Council Grove, Kansas, for the funeral of the mother who had abandoned them to pursue an acting career. They gather at the farmhouse of their grandmother, Mattie, who raised them and tried to instill in them a hope and faith in God. But each of the women has been affected in different ways by their mother’s desertion which causes conflict between them.

Ashley is married to a doctor, has two young boys, and is vying for Supermom status, trying to be everything her mother was not to her. Brook is a model who can’t let herself open her heart to the possibility of love. Connie feels alone because her two older and two younger sisters are close, and she has a different father, so she feels the odd woman out on many fronts. But she makes it worse by putting up walls that none of them can break through and making choices that she knows Mattie would be heartbroken over if she knew. Deirdre was the only planned child of her mother, conceived to try to heal her marriage. She’s the peacemaker but hides a secret obsession. Erica was the youngest, born barely 9 months after Deirdre, a gifted musician who puts her potential career above her love interest.

As the girls gather for the first time in years, tensions rise to the surface and harsh words break out on all sides. Mattie tries to point them to the love the have for each other, the “slender thread” that ties them together, and to God’s help and grace, but each one is too immersed in her own issues.

There’s a lot of bickering in this book. A lot. It’s meant to show that their issues go beyond the usual sibling rivalry, but they seem extraordinarily touchy and too willing to get offended by innocent remarks. Some of the same issues keep coming up over and over – which does happen when people are fixated on their past hurts without attempts to come to peace with them. But it did get old. The story seemed very slow in the first section when the girls were all together but the action picked up quite a bit when they all went back to their own lives and we saw them in their own setting. Their characters were developed quite a bit more then.

But I did appreciate the emphasis that we don’t have to be bound by a bad past or a parent who has failed us. We’ll forever be affected by them, but with grace and forgiveness and God’s help, we can put the past in perspective and forge new trails for ourselves and our families.

In Not In the Heart by Chris Fabry, Truman Wiley was once a promising reporter. However, downsizing cost him his job and a gambling addiction has resulted in estrangement from his family, the loss of his home, and some shady characters coming after him for a debt he owes. On top of everything else, his son is in the hospital and needs a new heart.

But an unexpected opportunity arises: a death row inmate wants him to write his story before his execution. The inmate’s wife is in the same Bible study as Truman’s wife, who has known about and prayed for Truman’s son’s condition for years. In return, the inmate wants to give Truman’s son his heart. He wants something good to come from his death. The public has mixed emotions and the governor needs some persuasion, but it looks like the heart donation will be approved.

As Truman begins to write the story, however, it begins to look like the inmate’s claims of innocence might actually be true. If he didn’t kill the murdered girl, who did? And if he’s innocent, what happens to Truman’s son?

I’ve never read a book by Fabry before and got this one on a Kindle sale because the story sounded interesting. His writing grabbed me from the start and the story kept up at a rapid pace all the way through. Some surprising twists and turns near the end led to quite an unexpected ending. In short, Fabry has a new fan. I loved some of his phrasing:

The trouble with my wife began when she needed Jesus and I needed a cat.

The woman of my dreams. The woman of my nightmares. Everything good and bad about my life. The “I do” that “I didn’t.”

Someone said, “Hey, Wanda,” and I deduced that this was Wanda. This is why I am such a good reporter.

I pulled out my phone as I hurried along and texted Abby, U OK? I had to stop while I texted because I am not a teenager.

A black pit bull barreled against the fence, jaws dripping with saliva, viciously barking like Old Yeller after the hydrophobia kicked in.

Ron pointed Helen’s gun at me. What kind of name is Ron for such a menacing figure?

Throughout most of the book, Truman’s view of faith is outside-looking-in. He doesn’t share his wife’s faith and pretty much disdains it. He doesn’t believe the inmate’s (Terrelle) profession of faith and dreads writing that part of the book, but he wants to handle it in a way that doesn’t offend “the faithful.” In my one minor criticism of the book, Truman’s own faith journey seemed a little rushed at the end – but then, everything was happening pretty fast at the end.

The point of view was unusual in this book. Most of the time it was from Truman’s point of view, written in the first person. But other chapters from the point of view of other characters are written in the third person.

One area I am somewhat on the fence about concerns his descriptions, mainly in a seedy club owned by one of the potential bad guys. Fabry is careful not to get overly descriptive, but some readers might feel he pushed the envelope a bit more than they’re comfortable with there.

But overall I loved the book and have already started on another by Fabry.