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Loree Lough

Autor(a) de Dream Seekers

80+ Works 2,539 Membros 73 Críticas 2 Favorited

About the Author

Image credit: Loree Lough, best-selling author of more than 110 award-winning books.

Séries

Obras por Loree Lough

Dream Seekers (1998) 269 exemplares
Fire by Night (1998) 235 exemplares
From Ashes to Honor (2011) 105 exemplares
Season of Love (Anthology 4-in-1) (2011) 85 exemplares
Honor Redeemed (2012) 75 exemplares
An Accidental Hero (2003) 60 exemplares
Beautiful Bandit (2010) 48 exemplares
Suddenly Reunited (2000) 41 exemplares
An Accidental Mom (2003) 34 exemplares
Suddenly Married (1999) 30 exemplares
Suddenly Home (2001) 29 exemplares
For Love of Eli (2013) 28 exemplares
Jake Walker's Wife (1999) 27 exemplares
Out Of The Shadows (2002) 25 exemplares
His Healing Touch (2002) 21 exemplares
Priscilla Hires a Husband (1996) 20 exemplares
An Accidental Family (2011) 19 exemplares
James's Joy (1996) 16 exemplares
Suddenly Daddy (1998) 16 exemplares
Unbridled Hope (2011) 16 exemplares
Drewry's Bluff (1995) 15 exemplares
Suddenly Mommy (1998) 15 exemplares
Emma's Orphans (1997) 15 exemplares
Bridget's Bargain (1997) 15 exemplares
Soft Beats My Heart (1997) 11 exemplares
Kate Ties the Knot (1997) 11 exemplares
Follow The Leader (1995) 10 exemplares
The Wedding Wish (1998) 9 exemplares
Montana Sky (1996) 9 exemplares
All He'll Ever Need (2019) 8 exemplares
Pocketful of Love (1994) 8 exemplares
Home to Stay (2020) 7 exemplares
The Firefighter's Refrain (2016) 7 exemplares
Sweet Mountain Rancher (2015) 7 exemplares
Once a Marine (2015) 6 exemplares
Loving Mrs. Bontrager (2021) 5 exemplares
Pocketful of Promises (1995) 5 exemplares
Spirit of the Wolf (2012) 5 exemplares
Sealed with a Kiss (1999) 5 exemplares
50 Hours (2017) 4 exemplares
Devoted to Drew (2013) 4 exemplares
First Responders (2013) 3 exemplares
Raising Connor (2013) 3 exemplares
Altar-ations (2010) 2 exemplares
Saving Alyssa (2014) 2 exemplares
A Promise to Jake (2013) 1 exemplar
Wrong Church, Wrong Wedding (1998) 1 exemplar
Love's Sweet Attack (2009) 1 exemplar

Associated Works

Etiquetado

Conhecimento Comum

Membros

Críticas

As I've been combing through vintage (and maybe vintage-adjacent) ChristFic novels a good deal lately to find ones to try, I pretty much jumped at this one. It's especially rare to see brown faces featured on the covers of these older books. Also, though it's a small thing, the fact that this title uses "Soft" instead of "Softly" heightened my interest as a book title geek.

Yet, it seemed to me that the further the story went along, the more the characters' actions/behaviors, their styles of speech and expressions they would use, and what they would specifically say didn't have the truest ring to it all. At first I figured I was just having trouble getting a clear sense of the characters' personalities, but the characterizations and their development felt a little off and scattered. Also, the various pieces of commentary on race, racism, and social responsibility in the story seemed to be shoehorned in, in a rather unnatural, didactic sort of way.

I didn't find out until after I stopped reading that this book with a chiefly Black cast of characters—a story that endeavors to present different aspects of the Black experience—was apparently written by a ChristFic author who isn't Black, using a one-time pseudonym.

Do I think that authors must only ever create characters with whom they share the same race/ethnicity? Personally, no. I don't. But I also think it depends on the writer as a person, the particular story, the story's purpose, and the characters' specific roles, among other factors to consider. It seems that in this case, the author used Black characters (and a Korean character with a pretty caricatural feel) to present a social lesson to, in significant part, point out what's wrong with the Black community. It wasn't anything I've never heard before, but the blanket criticisms came off as deficient in empathy—and underinformed. Criticisms that may be the easiest to make about a disadvantaged community if you've lived outside of their experience as a people and have gotten an oversimplified, incomplete picture of their collective story. A collective story that's long, layered, and complex.

From what I can tell, this novel was an inappropriate setup for the racial messages in it. It seems to me that for an author apparently writing outside of their race with the use of Black characters, at the least, the author could have left out the particular racial and socioeconomic commentary in this book, and the plot about familial and romantic love and healing wouldn't have lost anything it needed.

Speaking of the plot, I'll admit I thought this book would be a romance, given the publishing imprint. But it isn't. It's a contemporary family drama written from the perspectives of three main characters, not solely a romantic couple. While the novel's overall premise is interesting, the story develops awkwardly.

Different important events and turning points in the various characters' lives rush by in the background, including key stages of the romance. Because the author would "tell" a bit about a turning point after the fact rather than "show" the process to the reader as it happened, it felt like the story kept having to play catch-up after sudden changes in the characters.

On a more minor note, using exclamation points in a novel's narration comes off as a storyteller shouting at the reader. It can be funny in comedies, but otherwise in adult fiction, it tends to feel over the top when a narrator exclaims (!) parts of the story, as it felt to me in the case of this novel.

I got almost 3/4 of the way through this book before I decided not to finish it.

However, I did have a favorite part, when the heroine reflects on the way she once handled being jilted at the altar. Her untypical choice on that score made me smile.
… (mais)
 
Assinalado
NadineC.Keels | Jul 26, 2023 |
 
Assinalado
WBCLIB | 2 outras críticas | Feb 27, 2023 |

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Associated Authors

Estatísticas

Obras
80
Also by
2
Membros
2,539
Popularidade
#10,115
Avaliação
3.8
Críticas
73
ISBN
181
Marcado como favorito
2

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