All in Good Time

Sigh, I had high hopes for this book, even though it was a Christian romance (admittedly not my favorite genre). In 1887 a young woman opens a safe house for former prostitutes in Denver, sounds promising right!?! Wrong, it fell just short of the mark. It took a lot of will power for me to finish this bad boy.

The whole theme of "all in good time" is POUNDED into your skull throughout the novel. We get it! God works in His own time and you need to be patient! For example:

* Dessa is eager to open up "Pierson House" a safe place for former prostitutes and women who want to turn their lives around. Instead of waiting for enough donations to buy a house, Dessa rushes ahead to get a loan so she can buy a house she's had her eye on. She quickly realizes that she should have waited, what if she can't make the loan payments?

* Dessa rushes into an agreement with Turk Foster, a slick businessman who owns the theater (i.e. illegal gambling hall and saloon) in the bad part of town to tost a benefit for Pierson House. She realizes to late that her donors will be upset by this collaboration and will stop donating to her cause.

* Dessa is quick to judge Henry Hawkins, the bank manager. She quickly writes him off as a mean ol' Scrooge who cares only for money. She and Henry are surprised when they both start to fall for each other.

*Dessa offers to help two young Chinese immigrants who are going to be sold into prostitution without asking anyone for help and without thinking about the consequences. As a result there is rioting and Pierson House is at stake.

Basically, Dessa is far too hopeful about everything and always gets into trouble. After a while, you just stop caring. The only characters I really enjoyed in this novel were the women and girls that stayed at Pierson House, Remee (the older haughty former prostitute), Jane (the sixteen year old that attempted to hold up a bank to get money), Nadette (a ragamuffin who keeps bringing people for Dessa to save, but won't stay herself), and the Chinese sisters Liling and Mei Mei.

It's a decent story line but I was more invested in the minor characters than I was in Dessa or Henry. Not to say it was badly written, it was just a bit repetitive in the problems.

For fans of historical and inspirational fiction.

I received this book for free from Tyndale Press in return for my honest and unbiased opinion.