Paige by Annette Lyon

Paige by Annette Lyon

After a bitter divorce from her unfaithful husband, Paige moves from Utah to California with her two little boys and vows to make a fresh start. She finds a job at a dental practice that helps her get back on her feet, but it’s the friends she makes at her new book club who help her realize how strong she is and who give her support to carry on as she faces the challenges of being a single mom. She also meets Derryl, a wonderful, kind, attentive man who treats her right—something her ex never did. Yet, Paige struggles to figure out who she is as a woman rather than a wife, how to help her boys adjust to a broken home, and whether she can ever trust a man or love again. As Paige leans on the book club ladies and Derryl’s ever-present care, one thing becomes clear: healing from the past requires more than a change of address.   

After reading two other books in the Newport Ladies book Club I not exactly sure what to say about Paige. The plot is much similar to the other two books in that many of the major events are the same, and several others were hinted at in the storyline in Daisy’s novel. The book is different in the fact that Paige is a divorced LDS woman having a hard time finding a place to fit in, and so she joins the book club to find friends. She becomes close to Daisy, who also knows what it is like to be a single mom.

She also starts dating a non-member named Derryl who serves as the love interest in the book. He is kind and handsome and endearing, but I was kind of disappointed not necessarily in the fact that Derryl and Paige didn’t get together, but in that he seemed kind of pointless to the plot. Since Derryl and Paige don’t get together his sole meaning in the narrative to teach Paige that she needs to break up with him so she can spend more time on herself, spend more time with her kids, and aim for marrying a Mormon. Except for these are all the kind of surface answers that were basically no brainer from the beginning.

So, I am disappointed in the fact that the character arc in this story fell flat for me. I feel like the book ends where it should have started at the beginning.  The story  made me feel like the character just ran in a huge circle, and didn’t really make any real forward progress at all.

Despite my complaints Lyon maneuvers her character smoothly across all the major plot points of the series with perfect timing and transitions.  Paige is a good character, and the conflicts she faces are well developed and engrossing. I cared about her as a person, and empathized with her as a mother, and enjoyed reading her story.

For more info on the series visit the Newport Ladies Bookclub Blog

Band of Sisters by Annette Lyon

Band of Sisters by Annette Lyon

“When the war on terror calls their husbands to duty, five LDS women are left behind to fight battles of their own: Kim, newlywed and pregnant, frightened of what the future might bring. Brenda, struggling to manage three unruly boys and a crippling bout of depression. Jessie, secretly grappling with mixed feelings about her crumbling marriage. Marianne, wrestling with a rebellious teenage daughter. And Nora, the seasoned Army wife with perfect hair, an immaculate home—and an ill-tempered mother dying of cancer.
Knowing the separation of deployment is extremely difficult, Nora gathers the wives every week to share lunches and burdens. In good company, they worry over safety in the field and stability at home and offer one another counsel and comfort.

But as their personal crises build, each woman faces the risks of forming deep bonds of trust. And when tragedy strikes, they must confront the painful realities of war that pull families apart and bring friends together as sisters.” (Summary from Author’s website)

I read this book just at the right time. I have been feeling lately that I’m in a huge reading rut. I don’t know if I’m just burned out on YA novels or what, but I’ve been frustrated with the books I’ve picked up lately. So, I feel very happy to be able to say that I really enjoyed reading this book! It took a little while for me to get to know the characters and their situations enough to keep them straight, but once I got into the story I was hooked.

Each of the five women are at a different stage of life, ranging from a newlywed 20 year old on her first pregnancy all the way to a classy older woman experiencing her grandmother years. The woman in between these two extremes of the age line experience the struggles that come from rearing infants, toddlers, and teenagers. In short, these woman’s stories individually and collectively explore a lifetime of experiences. I related most with the 20 year old, Kim, who was just starting out her life as a mother and wife. I remember so clearly what that first year of marriage was like, and still feeling like a teenager almost.

I think this aspect of the book results in a work that would lend itself to being re-read every few years. I wonder to myself which character I would relate with most in five years, ten years, fifteen? It would be excellent for Relief Society book clubs, which often have women of all ages reading the same book. It was refreshing to read a book that looked at life from so many different perspectives.

Each woman struggles with their husband’s deployment in their own way, and the book focuses on the struggles that they each face. The author takes great care in showing that each woman has a burden to bear, and their own hang-ups. Sometimes it is easy for the woman to judge each other and evaluate who has got life easier, but in the end they all have trials. They all wonder how they are going to survive the year, and make it through each day.

It is rewarding to watch these woman band together and form a little support group for themselves, but the book isn’t just a pep talk on how to get through a hard life. It really does deal with serious issues, and is sometimes a little depressing. Don’t go into it expecting a fluffy, chick-lit, type novel. Although the book is sad it is ultimately uplifting, and enjoyable.

Check out Annette's website or blog to find ways that you can help families affected by military deployment.
Annette Lyon's website
The Lyon's Tale

Spires of Stone by Annette Lyon

Spires of Stone by Annette Lyon

When the Adam brothers, Ben, Claude, and Philip returned home from their mission the first thing the do is visit their old bishop and his two daughters. Ben is painfully reminded of his catastrophic relationship with the oldest, Bethany. Years apart have not softened the bitterness that they feel towards ones another, nor their verbal sparring. Philip hopes to build his new photography business fast enough to court the younger Hansen sister, Hannah. Yet, he watches as his older brother Claude takes a liking her, and feels that he doesn’t have much of a chance to win her over.

This book is the third in Annette Lyon’s Historical stories based on temples. Spires of Stone focus on the building of the Salt Lake temple and is also loosely based on Shakespeare’s romantic comedy Much Ado about Nothing. I liked this one much better than At Journey’s End, and I couldn’t put it down. Seriously, my husband kept giving me the look, the one that said I should stop reading and start working on school stuff, but I couldn’t. I got so caught up in the story and characters that I just read the whole afternoon away. I really liked Philip and found his goals to set up a photography studio very interesting. I really like that Claude, though he plays the role of villain, gets the chance to redeem himself. Not only once, but several times. In fact, sometimes you just want to hit him upside the head.

Ben and Bethany have the classic Pride and Prejudice sort of romance. They hate one another and get in bitter verbal sparring matches. Then you slowly learn about their past and how things fell out between them, and realize that if they could both put aside their past hurts and pride that they could love one another again.

I really enjoyed this one! I think I’d recommend this one the highest out of the three novels that I’ve read of the series. There is another about the Manti temple called Tower of Strength. You don’t have to read them in any order to understand the plots. The books have characters in common but each novel is stand alone.

Annette Lyon’s Author Website

Visit her blog the Lyon’s Tale

At Journey's End by Annette Lyon

At the Journey’s End by Annette Lyon

Abe Franklin has never felt comfortable among Mormons, being an adopted Indian has made life hard for him, and he always feels like an outsider. After a mob of saints hangs a black man before he can go to trial for shooting a bishop, Abe decides he has had enough of the hypocrisy and longs to get out of Utah. He convinces his mother to come with him when he finds them a new home, but she gives him one condition. He must find them a place where the saints are strong. So, Abe sets out to California, and finds himself, through an unlikely series of events, settling in Snowflake, Arizona.

There he finds a young school teacher named Maddie, who catches his eye when she recites a poem. She struggles to let go of the love she had for her fiancé, who was murdered, and love the man she is currently engaged to. She must decide if she will settle for a good marriage of convenience or take another chance at romantic love. Abe and Maddie form a bond, but Abe cannot make the mistake of falling for a good Mormon girl twice. He knows that his feelings about the church will lead to their eventual misery. So, unless Maddie can help Abe realize, despite the harshness of his upbringing and bitterness toward the saints, that he believes in God they will both lose love for a second time.

I had a hard time getting into this book at the beginning. I suppose I didn’t relate to Abe and Maddie as well as I did to Lizzy in Lyon’s previous book House on a Hill. Abe seemed to be too modern minded for the historical time period and that threw me off. His first point of view chapter felt too preachy for me to really get sucked into the story at the start, but I ended up enjoying his character later on. I also felt for Maddie as she tried to heal from the death of her fiancee. While on the surface this seems like the typical LDS romance plot—girl converts boy to gospel and they marry—Lyon’s characters have layers that made it feel unique and fresh. I liked the fact that Abe wasn’t converted the “traditional” way, as in reading and praying about the Book of Mormon. He had a unique history and set of challenges to overcome in order to accept the gospel and the conflict was interesting. The author spent of lot of time building an honest emotional bond between Maddie and Abe that really makes their love story special to the reader.

In contrast to House on the Hill, this book in not about the construction of the St. George temple, but about those who sacrificed to travel to the first completed temple to make sacred covenants there. Some humorous anecdotes about the building and history of the temple are shared, but they dance in the background of the story. This ended up being an enjoyable read for me, and I’m glad I finally sat down and read it since I read House on a Hill ages ago. In would recommend both books to readers interested a good, clean historical romance.

Visit Annette's Lyon's website to find out more about her books.

She also has a fabulous blog at Lyon's Tale.

First Impressions

First Impressions
This is a little series that details my experiences reading books for an hour a day in the library. I read the book either until I became disinterested in it or until I finished it.

Lost Without You by Annette Lyon
This book I think passed the hour test four times. So I was really interested in it for a while. The book is the story about a college girl, who breaks up with her boyfriend Christopher. Only to find out that he has bi-polar and sometimes goes suicidal and crazy when he goes off his meds. She is relieved that she found this out and stays away from him after that. The second plot line revolves around a handsome cop that seems to always find her in interesting predicaments. They feel a compelling attraction for one another and date until she finds out that he was a widower. She then has a major crisis over whether or not she can marry him now. She wants to be the only love of the man she marries, but knows that he loved his first wife. She confused about what she should choose and when Christopher begins to harass her she isn’t sure what to do.

So you can see I initially liked this book, but I mostly didn’t finish it when she started getting all angsty over the whole widower thing. I mean it is a valid concern, but the whole thing seemed so fake to me. I’m not sure why, but I really couldn’t relate to the characters situation anymore. It seemed that it took her way too long to get over this problem. She even stops seeing him over it. Plus, I was much more interested in the Christopher plot line. I got bored so I eventually picked up another book to try out and never felt compelled to pick this one up again. So I guess the characters really didn’t interest or stick with me that much.
Annette Lyon blog Link:http://blog.annettelyon.com/

She also has a very nice web page: http://www.annettelyon.com/