Monday

A Mile Apart by Sarah Jae Foster

 MY REVIEW

The title really says it all. The two most unlikely characters are thrown together and fall in love. Of course he gets sick and she has to nurse him back to health. His little boy is thrown into the mix, and the boy tugs at her heartstrings.

This is a fairly well written novel, but the premise is really unbelievable. Why would a woman whose husband has died stay in a crude, rude place like a mining town? No reason is given. Also, it is clear the author did zero research about mining towns and how men treated women in the Old West. Men had respect even for prostitutes!
A good woman commanded even more respect. Those men would never have treated her like is depicted in this story. I started to lose interest after that.

The general rule that the first man the woman comes in contact with and has conflict with is the man she falls in love with is broken in this book. The reader is not told the male friend (and protector) is too old to be the love interest until much later in the book.

Because the characters are so well developed, the storyline falls apart about the middle of the book when you suddenly realize [spoiler alert...maybe] who she's falling for and who is falling for her. Makes no sense, because there are really no reasons given for falling in love that I could tell.

The story starts to get boring about 1/3 of the way into the book, so I might have missed the reasons given because I started to skip around a bit. In my experience in reading thousands of books (no exaggeration) when a book falls apart, it just doesn't get better as you go along.

You might like it. I did not because things didn't seem believable, and I get really tired when an author tries too hard to make two people fall in love for no reason.

ABOUT THE BOOK
She was guided by prayer…and a little boy

Eden Montgomery arrived in the lawless territory of Whistle Creek as a newlywed, but she quickly lost her husband to his mistress…gold, and the claim he called The Golden Angel. When a premature blast at the cave killed her husband, and took the life of her unborn baby, Eden closed the mine…for good. Now she runs the local supply store, and in her bitterness, looks down on the men who shirk familial responsibilities in pursuit of something as meaningless as gold.

Joseph Benton knows the crime, filth and disease of a mining camp is no place for a child. So when his young son Christopher suddenly arrives at his tent, he turns to Eden Montgomery to care for the boy. But the uppity and righteous Eden refuses. Joseph is shocked at what he thinks is her lack of maternal instinct. Now he’s torn between his need to strike gold…and his desire to be a father.

When a ruthless speculator encroaches on the camp, threatening Joseph and the other miners, Eden knows she must do the one thing she vowed never to do…for the one man she vowed never to love.

No comments:

Get widget