It was a match made in heaven. Or so everyone
thought. Sadie Mae Cummings is all set to marry her childhood sweetheart, Kyle,
when she is assigned to tutor Lincoln, the new college football running back.
This sophomore phenomenon has all the girls on campus knocking on his door. But
Sadie isn't interested in his advances.
Lincoln’s
overblown ego doesn't take well to being shunned, and he resolves to make Sadie
his own. He pursues her relentlessly, until finally Kyle finds himself shut out
of Sadie's life, with their shared future crumbling around him.
After two years,
Sadie’s relationship with Lincoln ends, and she is left having to put the
pieces of her life back together. She desires nothing more than to recapture
her relationship with Kyle. He has stayed true to the dreams they had planned
together, living the vision even without Sadie by his side.
When she moves
back to her hometown, she labors to rekindle their love. But things have
changed, and Kyle has moved on. Sadie quickly discovers how hard it is to
rebuild burned bridges.
Follow Sadie’s
story as she fights for a chance to restore broken dreams. Will love endure?
This
inspirational romance by E. C. Jackson is book two of the Hope series and is a
standalone book.
E. C.
Jackson began her writing career with the full-length play Pajama Party. For three and a half years, she published the
Confidence in Life newsletter for Alpha Production Ministries, in addition to
writing tracts and devotionals. Teaching a women’s Bible study at her church
for eleven years led naturally to her current endeavor, writing inspirational
romance novels. Her mission: spiritual maturity in the body of Christ through
fiction.
Connect with the Author here:
This book was well written with engaging characters.
I enjoyed getting to know the main characters, Sadie and Kyle, as well as their
families and friends.
I had mixed feelings about the heroine in this book,
Sadie. She was obviously a sympathetic character, a young woman who was
basically good with good intentions. Unfortunately, like many Christians, because
she was overly trusting and saw the best in people, she did not exercise
caution when dealing with a man she should have avoided like the plague. After
he compromised her, instead of ending any contact with him and doing what she
had to do to repent, she compounded her mistake by adopting the philosophy of “I
did something terribly wrong, but I’ll get myself out of it by me making it
right.” She continued her destructive behavior. She allowed her nemesis,
Lincoln, to control her life and almost destroy her relationships with family
and friends for two years before she finally reached out for help, broke the
tie, and returned home.
The bulk of the story involves Sadie working through these
issues and dealing with her relationship with her former sweetheart, Kyle. My annoyance with Sadie was not because she
made bad choices, but because she thought once she determined to turn her life
around, the consequences of her choices should immediately go away. She adopted
attitudes like, “Although I made a mess of my life for two years, now I’m done
with that and I’ll never do it again,” (desire and hope, yes, but no proven
track record) and “I’ve decided God wants us (her and Kyle) to marry because
that’s what I want,” and “If you really forgive me, you have to take me back
and continue the relationship we had before as if I had never messed up these
past two years.” I didn’t buy it. I wasn’t sure if she would come to understand
she needed to ask God to guide her life and accept His answer, no matter what
it may be rather than her deciding for God what other people should think, feel
and do. In the end the story worked out well with both Sadie and Kyle
understanding themselves better and the lessons to be learned.
Kyle was a very likable character who also had his
challenges and choices to make. He was dealing with the death of his father and
taking over his father’s position of church pastor while dealing with his
feelings about Sadie and another woman he had come to know during the two years
Sadie was out of the picture.
Sadie does have cause to interact with Lincoln again, and
she does so with Kyle by her side. The way the author handled that situation
was very well done.
This story has a strong Biblical message throughout the book about forgiveness and love for those
readers who enjoy Christian romance. Overall I liked this novel.
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Robyn, your insightful review inspires me to keep writing. Thank you for spotlighting A Living Hope.
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