Contemporary Book Review - Friend on Friday!

Review: Save the Date
by Jenny B. Jones http://www.jennybjones.com/

Reviewed by: Charlene Quiram http://www.keytreecreations.com/
Format: E-book

Publisher: Thomas Nelson



Do you want to read a book that is fun, fun, fun while delivering a powerful punch about forgiveness and reconciliation? Jenny B. Jones delivers LOL humor with Lucy Wiltshire on almost every page of Save the Date, her latest novel. Lucy is witty, klutzy, noble, haunted, and hilarious when she fakes an engagement to the rich and arrogant pro-football player-turned-senatorial candidate, Alex Sinclair in order to save the struggling woman’s shelter she’s sunk her heart and soul into.

You’ll love how Lucy sucks you into a whirlwind of emotions—panic when it looks like both her dream and the homeless girls she’s grown to love will be thrown back to the streets; conflict as she wrestles with God about a solution; mortification when the answer she opts for flings her so far out of her comfort zone she’d be better off on an alien planet in one her beloved Sci-Fi flicks, and confusion when she finds herself drawn to the man that couldn’t be more wrong for her.

Jones is known for her sassy YA (Young Adult) books, but Save the Date is a great cross-over book with its twenty-something characters and more mature issues.



Faves:

 Jones has a gift for creating terse-but humorous dialogue with the key characters—especially Alex with Lucy and Clare with Julian

 She illustrates key biblical concepts such as forgiveness, the importance of relationships over work, and our own self-worth without being preachy

 Alex is steaming hot

 She mentions Bono on page 223 (Anyone who likes Bono enough to write him into her novel—gets my endorsement)



Fails:

• At first, I had a hard time believing that Alex Sinclair was the kind of God-fearing man her turned out to be—only because of how much Lucy prejudiced me against him in the beginning. Not a complete fail—because eventually you see why he’s changed and he becomes more believable if almost too-good-to-be true.

•  In this same vein, I had a hard time swallowing the wicked witch transforming into a fairy godmother, but, of course, with Him, anything is possible.

At the beach on spring break, on a coffee break, on a couch break, give yourself a break and read Save the Date. I dare you not to break out laughing.


Charlene Quiram is a writer from Williamsburg, Virginia.  She is a member of Tidewater Christian Fiction Writers. Charlene has a special interest in Russia, having adopted two Ukraine children, now teens.