Finished Sa 9/2/23
This is a trade paperback that Janny loaned to me and it is one of her favorite books.
The book is Romance/ Christian Fiction for women. The writing is on the level of Harlequin Romance.
The novel is set in the mid 19th century and concerns a woman who is stuck in a very 'G-Rated' sex work. She is called 'a soiled dove' which was an authentic term for a sex worker in those days. Basically, she hasn't had anyone in her life that treated her decently and she has been used by everyone except for Michael.
This guy is portrayed as a 'man of god', but to me he seemed like a 'stalker on steroids'. The theme of the book is that Michael has been told by god that Angel is the woman for him. Many times she leaves him, but he follows her to 'The Par-a-dice Club' (her whorehouse and it's run by a mustache twirling villain) and brings her back to his poor farm. Angel doesn't want anything to do with him and kind of wants to use him until she can get set up on her own. I was totally behind Angel in this endeavor and I was hoping that she'd drop hardheaded Michael and strike out on her own. Of course, Michael's wishes prevail and they fall in love and Angel raises a big Christian brood with 'the stalker'.
It's an easy read and I don't think I've never read anything where I was rooting for the characters but diametrically opposed to what the writer was trying to project.
A critique from the internet:
"Faith-based audiences are turned off by too much uncomfortable content. The romance fans are annoyed that so much time is spent on faith and the consequences of sin that they don't get as much of the fun in the romance as they want."
I felt that although much of the action took place in houses of prostitution the description of sex was positively nil. I don't know how you could be offended by any of it unless you were under eight years old, insane, or a Christian prude.
The novel is a reimagining The Book of Hosea from the bible.
I noticed that this was made into a movie in 2022.
Part of a Washington Post review for the movie:
"Redeeming Love is an incident-rich saga populated by cardboard heroes and villains and outfitted with greeting-card sentiments and cartoon villainy."
This sums up my feeling about the novel completely....
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