TEST
I took a gamble on my first inspirational with Sweet Sanctuary, and I came up snake-eyes. First, I had the problems I’d have with any book, such as flat characters, a Big Mis, TSTL actions, and ludicrous or offensive plot devices. Second, I had inspirational-specific problems with the book’s theology.
In 1944, Lydia Eldredge, wealthy daughter of a Boston factory magnate, is raising her best friend’s son Nicky after the friend’s death. The problem? Nicky’s father Nic is still alive and trying to take Nicky back, so he can sell him to a (different) wealthy family seeking a child. Enter Dr. Micah Hatcher, gratuitously Texan physician called by God to care for New York City immigrants. First accused of paternity and then turned to for advice, Micah finds himself pulled into the family’s problems, which he must balance with clinic work as well as helping his brother smuggle Jewish children out of Hitler’s Europe.
The Nicky plot is so full of holes that you could use it to strain pasta. Lydia could buy Nicky herself. She doesn’t. Lydia could deny that Nic is Nicky’s father, since there are no paternity tests in 1944. She doesn’t. Lydia could, right when the baby was born, have gone to the courts to ask for custody. Since Lydia is a wealthy factory owner’s daughter and Nic is an unemployed heroin addict who has admitted that he wants to sell the baby, I have a good feeling about that custody case. She could move out of Boston, since a bankrupt drug addict isn’t likely to be able to raise the money to follow her. Instead, she chooses Door #4: kidnap Nicky and stay in Boston while dodging Nic’s attempts to steal the child back. For three years. So yes, we don’t like Nic, the drug addict and trafficker. But Lydia’s also ethically dubious, and stupid to boot. When Nic shows up to take Nicky, Lydia lets him into the house. No, there’s no threatening weapon. Then she lets Nicky walk up to him and talk to him, get grabbed, and get carried off. The phrase “Run, Nicky!” never seems to cross her mind. What kind of a mother is more afraid of getting in trouble with the police than letting the child she loves walk away with a heroin addict?
Nic is actually the most interesting character, since he confronts his addiction and tries to start over as a father, guided by his conversion to Christianity. I enjoyed his redemption and thought it was both unexpected and inspirational, letting the character show Christianity by example rather than tell via endless Bible quotations. Unfortunately, Nic’s growth emphasized the fact that Lydia and Micah are completely flat. Lydia’s Christianity comes mostly from words. In daily life, she’s self-centered, thoughtless, and impulsive. In addition to her bizarre refusal to defend her child, she stalks Micah to the docks in the middle of the night because she’s just too curious to sleep and refuses to contact Micah for months when she leaps to the conclusion that he’s married someone else. She never self-examines and she never matures. Micah is bland, already secure in his Christianity and his medical calling. There’s no conflict between the two of them except whatever idiot thing Lydia will do next.
I found the inspirational component of this book less than inspiring. Everything is smugly oversimplified. The theological question of how God could permit war is answered with “the ones who refuse to embrace God’s ways are the ones who create this madness.” (Not sure how the author explains, say, the Spanish Inquisition, or New World massacres of Native Americans. Fault of the victims for not being Christian, I guess?) So a lack of Christian feeling has caused World War II. Well, what should we do about it? “Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.” Um. I would have preferred Ephesians 6:13, “Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground,” but that’s just me. I’m sure refusing to be afraid and troubled will also help bring down Hitler.
How about Lydia’s reflection on how Nicky came to live with her?
“I prayed for Eleanor’s baby – for its health and safety – and for it to have a happy home. Of course, I envisioned the happy home with Eleanor and Nic, but my prayer was answered in a different way…. He was born healthy, even though he came too soon, and his mother didn’t live. And he has had a happy home – with us. All of my prayers were answered.”
Lydia’s God is a god of fine print. But He sure answers Lydia’s prayers! Silly Eleanor, forgetting to pray not to die!
Finally, the straw that broke my back: Micah adopts one of his smuggled Jewish orphans because the local rabbi refuses to place a blonde-haired, blue-eyed Jew with any of his congregants. Yes. I’m serious. A rabbi abandons a three-year-old girl, rescued from Hitler, to a single Christian man because visually she doesn’t blend in. If I hadn’t been reading an e-book, this would have been the wallbanger moment. I hated the stereotyping of Jewish appearance. I hated the characterization of the rabbi, who apparently was too shallow to keep the child and also too lazy to call around to other rabbis who might know some blondes. I hated the reduction of the Holocaust and Jewish orphans to the level of plot device, providing a girl’s name that Lydia can mistake for a wife and stretch the book out another 70 pages. The book doesn’t explicitly say that Micah will raise the girl as a Christian, but given the fact that Micah and Lydia have converted everybody else they came into contact with, I give that child short odds at growing up Jewish. I hated that, too.
I’ve got more inconsistencies to complain about (a polio-stricken missionary working in Stalin’s USSR during Hitler’s invasion? A physician who “could hardly bear to think of pressing a needle into [a child’s] scalp” after a head injury?) but I’m pretty much done here. If you like your heroines self-centered, your heroes generic, your theology complacent, and your Jews converted, then this is your kind of book. Otherwise, please join me in giving it a big fat F.
Grade: F
Book Type: Inspirational Romance
Sensuality: Kisses
Review Date: 11/05/13
Publication Date: 2013/04
I'm a history geek and educator, and I've lived in five different countries in North America, Asia, and Europe. In addition to the usual subgenres, I'm partial to YA, Sci-fi/Fantasy, and graphic novels. I love to cook.
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Recent Comments …
Yep
This sounds delightful! I’m grabbing it, thanks
excellent book: interesting, funny dialogs, deep understanding of each character, interesting secondary characters, and also sexy.
I don’t think anyone expects you to post UK prices – it’s just a shame that such a great sale…
I’m sorry about that. We don’t have any way to post British prices as an American based site.
I have several of her books on my TBR and after reading this am moving them up the pile.