Thursday, June 24, 2010

Beyond the Picket Fence

I’ve finally gotten around to posting about one of Lori Wick’s books! Yes!

Lori Wick writes Christian Romance, both historical and modern day, and I love both kinds. I found her books while searching through the library’s online catalog, looking for something that looked like I might like. I discovered the The Yellow Rose Trilogy , but started out reading the third book before I realized that it was a trilogy. The Yellow Rose Trilogy is certainly my favorite set so far; I’ve not read all the other ones in the library. I’ll review them another time. Today I’m reviewing Beyond the Picket Fence, and Other Short Stories.

Beyond the Picket Fence has eight short stories in it:
1. "Be Careful with my Heart",
2. "Christmas for Two"
3. The Haircut"
4. "Beyond the Picket Fence"
5. "An Intense Man"
6. "The Camping Trip"
7. "The Christmas Gift", and
8. "The Rancher’s Lady"

They are a varied lot of stories, all unrelated, but wonderfully sweet. The first one brings two people, who’ve lost their first spouses, together in a musical band at a summer camp. The third one is a retelling of an incident in Lori’s husband’s childhood. The fourth one, the title chapter, is the longest (I think) and an authoress moves to a small town, and falls in love. In the sixth one, a widowed coach reaches out to encourage one of the boys on him, a boy who doesn’t have a father, and finds himself reaching out to the boy’s hurting mother as well. The last chapter, “The Rancher’s Lady” is probably my favorite; a young Australian woman leaves the sheep ranch Australia and sad memories behind and goes to Northern California to work for a friend of her former boss’s.

I like Lori Wick’s books very much. They have such endearing characters in them, as well as good plots. I especially like reading the series, because I get to keep getting glimpses of the people in the previous books. I love the men in her stories; they are such nice guys! (Too bad they aren’t real, huh?) And the women are great, as well; such sweet women, but they aren’t pathetic limp people. The books are similar to Janette Oke’s books where religion is concerned; it isn’t overdone. And I like really appreciate it that Lori Wick doesn’t have anything more than kissing and hugging in her books; I like a romance, but not a bedroom scene.

I always smile when I read Lori Wick's books. I even smile when I just see them sitting waiting for me to read them. :)

Shasta blinked and said softly, “No, sir. I’m sorry, but I don’t know a thing about office work. Morgan said you needed a jackeroo.”

“A what?” It was Kyle’s turn to blink.

“Oh, uhm, a jackeroo, a ranch hand.”

Kyle nodded slowly. Outside of a brief conversation a few weeks ago, it had been years since he’d talked to Morgan Clark, and he’d completely forgotten the little differences in their speech. He had to say one thing concerning Miss Shasta McGregor –that accent of hers was real easy on the ears.

2 comments:

  1. So how does Lori Wick compare to Grace Livingston Hill, in your opinion? :)

    ~ A.K. ~

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  2. I like Lori Wick better than Grace Livingston Hill. Lori Wick's writing has more feeling and life, and her characters have more emotion in them... they're more vibrant. And I like her writing style better, too. :)

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