Book Notes: July 6, 2022 - Withered Rose by Valicity Elaine

 Welcome back! Today's offering is long, so there's just one review. If you wish to comment, I ask that comments be kept nice and courtesy is maintained. I've done my best to keep my own comments on this well-written book honest and courteous, since I value those qualities in those I invite into my life. This is probably the longest review I've ever written and my stomach is in knots about it. I can be blunt with my honesty, but I hope the author, if she sees it, will understand it comes from my own perception of life as a Christian and I only mean to share my own thoughts. Let me get on with the review. 

Withered Rose (Withered Rose #1) by Valicity Elaine

Withered Rose by Valicity Elaine
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I'm not sure what happened and why, when I posted my review through my Kindle app, it never showed up here on Goodreads. I'm seriously tired of waiting. It's been long enough. What I'm posting here will, therefore, be a little different than what shows up on Amazon.

I love Valicity Elaine's writing. She's an author extraordinaire. Her way with words easily puts you into the story, helps you relate to or picture the characters easily, and keeps you riveted to the story. I dislike that everything I've read by her is part of a series and requires you to keep reading further installments to finish the whole story, but that's just a personal preference. The three stars I gave this book are completely due to her skill as a writer.

Now, the reason I could not give five stars to this story follows. I'm not a huge fan of mafia tales to begin with. I took a chance on this one because it was marketed as a Christian mafia story and I was intrigued by how this might be achieved. In a nutshell, I wasn't so satisfied with how the story panned out on that front. For those who normally look for a Christian book to read, they expect there to be certain limits that are held to. Implications of what usually would show up as graphic in a secular novel, are generally accepted, I think, but this book really, really pushed those limits further than I like to see. Also, for those who care about this part, there are a couple mild curse words, but again, they fit the characters who are using them, though I'd have expected them to come from /different/ characters than who they actually did come from.

Not only that, the ending was so upsetting to me. I hoped for something solid, some kind of indication that all would be well in the end, but that didn't happen since the story doesn't end. I cannot tell you how extremely disappointed I was at the end of this book. It's not my cuppa, so I won't be continuing the series, so I'll never know how the story ends for these two main characters. I can imagine how I would hope it to end, but I won't be continuing this series.

However, if you do enjoy mafia tales and you're looking for something with less gratuitous violence, sex, and rough language, then I'd recommend it to you. It just pushed the boundaries too much for me and I think it would be better marketed as just a mafia romance story written by an author who is a Christian, so it's a bit cleaner than one would expect.

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Extra Thoughts on This Book

I must confess some of these thoughts might be repetitive, but I'll try to edit the repeats out. I've had this blog post ready to go for a while but since Amazon is dragging their feet about posting my review to Goodreads, I went ahead and re-reviewed it. If you happen to see my Amazon review and my Goodreads review, there will be some differences, mainly in length. 

This book is marketed as a Christian mafia suspense romance. The author did a great job writing her disclaimer and it's accurate. There are some intense scenes, but no graphic sex, gore, or language. I found this in a limited time free collection. I'd read books by this author before (I Am Man is a wonderful sci-fi book by this author). I don't read mafia themed books or watch movies within that realm, but this was a 'Christian' mafia romance book and I knew the author so I thought I'd give it a try.

I stayed up until 3:30 in the morning trying to get to the happy ending. I still wasn't done but I couldn't stay up any longer. I finished it later when I woke up that morning to find....

There wasn't any kind of ending. A cliffhanger? Really? And while I was very impressed with the writing and the plot, it was far too dark for me to consider reading more.

Clean? Technically... I guess. There were some intense scenes, a bit of nudity (handled pretty well, IMO, but still) and some harsh, crude language (though not overdone). I don't think you could write mafia thugs without some of this thrown in for believability's sake.

But then the question becomes...what's the eternal value for the author? How about for the reader? I didn't get much eternal value from it...only knots in my stomach and sorrow in my heart for the MCs. How far is too far when it comes to pushing the boundaries on Christian writing, movies, and other media?

This was not a romance. It was more of a drama. The knots in my stomach are why I usually say no to drama and dark work. I have enough troubling things to deal with in my life without trying to tackle the problems of imaginary characters, too.

I do want to stress how good this author's writing is. I do believe she'll go far with her writing. I wish I could've given the book more stars but it just really wasn't for me.

Thanks for reading today's post. If you enjoy mafia stories, I hope you'll give this one a chance. It really is well-written. I hope you'll share your thoughts, but please do keep them courteous and kind. Awful comments which are posted only to incite a riot will be deleted.

I hope you'll join me again on Friday. Camp Nano is still going strong and I'm making progress on Surge. I'll also have another kitten update for you. 

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