Just don't bother unless you are feeling a great need to spend more time in Sunday School. The book is preachy and self-congratulatory in a way that casts a shadow on faith-based charity. Not my cup of tea at all! There are far better inspirational books out there.

Our group really enjoyed The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society! It made for a great first read of the year.

This is the most amazing story I've read in a long time! The voice of Jack, a five-year-old who has never left the room where he and his mother are held captive, is completely convincing. I read it in a single day because I just could not put it down until I knew what happened to the two central characters. This book is simply brilliant!

This first novel could have used less plot and better writing. The reader is propelled from one tragic episode to another, and characters are cardboard cutouts whose actions are often inexplicable. The novel's minimal dialogue contributes little and Lavinia's voice is inauthentic. Events lack a historical or geographical context (naming a city is not a context, my dears) and details to flesh out the plot are missing. The tired old soil of the antebellum South has been tilled many times before, often better. It would seem the author rushed to tell the story and get it published. It does succeed in engaging the reader but otherwise is not worth your time. A better book club selection would be Gone With the Wind. I hope Grissom will step off the publishing merry-go-round and write a good book.

I would recommend The Great Santini over this one -- Pat evidently has not enforced writerly self-discipline.