If you don't want to read a book by Deborah Smith, don't read the the first sentence because, after you do, it's all over.
I ought to know. I did not want to read A Gentle Rain. It wasn't that I don't like Smith's books.In fact, like would be the Grand Arch Duchess of understatement. Blue Willow was my first. Then there came--among others--A Place to Call Home, Sweet Hush, Stone Flower Garden, Legends, On Bear Mountain, not necessarily in that order. I don't remember the order because I have read and reread her books.
Then, why, you ask, if I had such a love affair with this author, did I shun A Gentle Rain? I knew it would be a good story becuase it always is. I knew the writing would be like magic.
But it just sounded so sad.
Kara learns upon the death of her parents that she was adopted. If that was not shocking enough, she finds out her birth parents are mentally handicapped and working on a ranch in Florida. Ben was orphaned at sixteen and left with a little brother with Down's Syndrome and few options for taking care of him. Now years later, he has populated his ranch with a cast of handicapped workers who need more from him than he does from them.
In the fall, I always get a hankering for Deborah Smith. I don't know why. Maybe it's all those apples in Sweet Hush. Anyway, I thought, "I will just look inside." And I did.
This is the kind of book that you close and lay next to your heart because you want the words to seep in and mix with your blood like some kind of literary IV.
I used to wish I could write like her. I don't anymore. I've learned that a writer shouldn't want to write like anyone else. Voice is personal. Mine may be worse than most and a little better than a few, but it is my own.
And Deborah Smith's is her own. Her characters have such distinct voices, that I am not sure her dialogue even needs tag lines.
A Gentle Rain should be required reading for the world at large. And small.
Have you ever resisted a book that turned out to be a book of your heart?
Wow. This sounds like a book I would not be able to put down until I'd finished the story. And then I'd be mad it was over. It happens a lot...I can't just read a book over weeks like most people. And I know it took them a long time to write and make it just right. But dangit! I have to know right now how the story will end! So thank you for sharing this review. I've never read any of her books, but I will now. Probably at the speed of light, too.
ReplyDeleteAs for books of the heart, yes, I've got them. A particular Samantha James book comes to mind, A Promise Given. More so I have read scenes of the heart. But this last book I read of Jill Shalvis, The Sweetest Thing? It was one of the few books I've ever read over several weeks. Not that it didn't hold my attention. It was just too much for my heart...circumstances, characterization, I'm not sure. But it hit me in a way no other book ever has. Curious. I wouldn't say she's that kind of storyteller, but it did it for me. Usually it's a book more on the lines of SE Phillips. Though Linda Howard does it to me too....and I finally figured out why....she writes Norma Jean-isms. My siblings should probably read her for that.
Like Lesia I tend to read a book in just a gulp or two. I don't know that may not be the best way for a book to find its way to my heart.
ReplyDeleteOf course, I have been reading a lot of erotica lately so the heart isn't so much the body parts involved.
Good point! Hahaha....
Delete