5.0 out of 5 stars Where Love Once Lived, January 29, 2012
By Carol A. Brown
Amazon Verified Purchase
You might expect Where Love Once Lived would be a contemporary romance and you would be sort of right; it is a romance, but don't be fooled by the surface presentation. There is much more to this story than losing the love of one's life only to find it rekindled thirty years later!
A very serious subplot is the loss and then the restoration of faith in God. Brian, the main character drifts away from his faith after he thinks he has caused a pregnancy. He takes on a loveless marriage and throws himself into the business he builds--he does the right thing. He's that kind of guy. After "his" child leaves home he ends the marriage and returns to the Austin, TX area in the hope of rekindling the love he walked away from thirty years prior. In the course of finding his old love, his faith is also renewed.
A second sub-plot, and the one that impressed me the most powerfully, is the importance of communication and the peck of trouble we can cause ourselves by not communicating--with each other and with God! This theme was so strong for me that the other themes only surfaced as I thought about the story in retrospect! If Brian had communicated with Karen (life-long love) he would have discovered that she carried his child, not the other woman. If Karen had communicated with Brian it is possible he could have been saved thirty years of a loveless marriage. If both Brian and Karen had not assumed that they knew what the other was thinking...if children had communicated with parents, with God...and so it went over and over again. I wanted to shake the characters! So many actions were based upon incorrect assumptions and none of them double-checked their assumptions! No one clarified! Arrgh! This story illustrates eloquently the sad consequences of the lack of and breakdown in communication. Lack of communication makes relationships a risky business.
Where Love Once Lived is the prequel to Vengeance Squad so you learn why the bookmobile and we are also introduced to Liz, the highly sensitive librarian who is able to sense things about people and hear from God. She is a prominent figure in Vengeance Squad. Where Love Once Lived keeps you on the edge--there are so many things that can go wrong--and often do! In the end God wins, but how He does that you will have to read for yourself!
Author Sidney Frost does a good job of pacing the tension, almost resolution, and then tension again. I liked the application of Christian values to issues as they arose. A good clean read--I would recommend the book to anyone who enjoys romantic fiction.
p.s. For visually impaired Kindle readers, if you use the largest font you may find the formatting
compromised.
Go to Amazon.com to see review: http://www.amazon.com/review/RWL1MBB7AZBH4/ref=cm_cr_pr_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=1451511817
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