Title: Preacher Man

Author: Laurie Larsen

Publicher: The Wild Rose Press

Genre: Inspirational White Rose

Length: 236 pages Sweet

1-60154-324-7

Blurb:

Regan Samuels is newly single and doing her best to raise her teenaged son in the city. She gives the adult dating world a go, but finds she'd rather trade in her stiletto heels for fuzzy slippers. Will she ever find love again, and if so, after the disaster of her first marriage, would she know what to do with true love if it ever found her?

Excerpt:

Regan Samuels is thirty-six, divorced, has a secret too terrible to speak of and a teenage son, Luke, who likes to make things difficult for his mother as well as everyone else.               Rick is the ex-husband who wants to have his cake and eat it. I think most of us have met a 'Rick'. Nothing wrong with him that a large dose of cyanide wouldn't put right.

Add to the mix a minister of God, the very handsome, muscular preacher man, Josh, Regan's man-mad friend Liz, stir well and there you have all the necessary ingredients for a good book.

Preacher Man is well written and the main characters are finely drawn but there are also characters whose only role seems to be to flit across the page leaving not a ripple in their wake. Others pop into the story and, just when you're getting to know them, pop out never to be heard of again.

I also found parts of the book a bit too sugary for me and, at times, the storyline slipped away and disappeared to suddenly reappear as a sermon. I couldn't make up my mind whether this was a story of a man, a woman and a young man beginning to bond and love each other or was about the struggles our 'heroine' had to find faith in God.

It is an entertaining read, however. Throughout the book there runs a very strong moral sense of faith and of love, both human and Divine. A clear message is sent out that God watches over us; that He loves us; that all things are possible and that love conquers all.

Another factor is that Laurie Larsen also includes young people who want to follow the straight and narrow and become honest and caring adults (although I would make them clean up after themselves). It makes a nice change to read about teenagers who want to help people instead of hurting them, especially these days when criminal youth, drug dealing or taking, etc., are lauded by authors and reviewers alike.

As I said earlier, this book is well written and it is worth reading. If you want to know what the secret is, you'll have to read the book – my lips are sealed.

Reviewed by Andrea

WRDF Review