Blue Ridge Sunrise

Oh, no. How hard is it to admit, “Hey, I sinned, and I have consequences for what I did”?? Instead Zoe spends much of the book pitying herself for the raw deal she got in life. She has a live-in boyfriend who's abusive and doesn't “value her as a person”....well, girl, if you toss yourself away on not one but two guys, without even asking for a ring first, he's not going to value you very highly. Easy come easy go in her case. No wonder he scoffs at her faith...and somehow she is supposed to have maintained some sort of faith even as she was touring with a rock band and sleeping with its leader? That somehow being lonely justified her in climbing into bed with a bad dude?

There are bunches of heated kisses that take up almost 10% of the book.

A very lengthy flashback (an entire section of multiple chapters) takes us back to how Zoe got pregnant and left town. Either do it chronologically or don't do it. This was an awkward story device.

God is mentioned a few times and Zoe expresses regret for not asking God about her plans for the day. Not even going to go there about the moral slant that wasn't there.

Then Zoe pulls a huge manipulative trick and plays the fool thereby putting herself and her daughter and her baby daddy in peril.

Um...in what world are these characters worth while? I guess it's nice that they got a HEA, but they sure didn't have to work hard for it.

Okay, so... I like Christian publishers to publish Christian novels. It's okay to publish clean novels...but this one isn't even moral. I wouldn't enjoy a secular novel that had this level of thumbing one's nose at the law of consequences. Combine the two for a massive lose. If a Christian is going to write a secular novel, AT LEAST make it moral. Nuff said.

Edit: (This is not in any way any sort of admission that I don't have the right to my own opinion and way of expression in my own review spot. This is a continuation of my opinion after my friend Carrie commented on my review and mentioned that her take on the book was different. Here's my response to her comment...)“While you found a more inspirational message than I did, Carrie, I never felt like they are finished finding faith in the end. We didn't get that payoff of her waking up and going Oh my and changing how she is living her life. It's a slow awakening, and yet at the end of the book she talks to God a little but she never seems to realize she's having a hard time in life because she made all the wrong choices. I can decide that for her because of the filter of my moral compass, but really what is in the story would not decide that for someone who does not have a similar viewpoint of morals and consequences. “In the end, I found the story arc to be unrealistic and found Zoe to be whiny and immature. I will be reading the next book, but this book is simply one I didn't enjoy.”Added for Marlene: I liked Bella!end of edit

Thanks to the publisher for a free review copy.