By Elizabeth Camden
Eloise Drake has a good, safe job working as an accountant in New York City. She enjoys her job and the possibility that her supervisor might be interested in her--a good, safe man is exactly what she needs. When she is assigned to go to upstate New York to Duval Springs, a town which is going to be demolished in order to create a reservoir for New York City to have clean water, she doesn't want to go--because it will mean seeing Alex Duval, whom she hasn't seen since her guardian drove him out of town after finding out about Alex's and Eloise's clandestine relationship. Eloise goes to Duval Springs and sets about doing her work appraising the properties in the town to determine how much the City will have to pay; while running into the man she gave everything to isn't something she can avoid, she's certain that she can be mature and professional. When she actually runs into Alex, though, that becomes a lot harder than she expected. As the mayor of Duval Springs, Alex has fought long and hard to keep his home city intact; when that's no longer possible, rather than throw in the towel, Alex comes up with the crazy idea to relocate the town--he wants to move the buildings out of the valley and onto higher ground--but he needs Eloise's math skills to figure out how to make that happen. And while he's at it, he wants to win back the woman he still loves, but Eloise wants a safe life with few risks, not the risky, big dreams that Alex has to offer.
There were some really interesting elements to the plot--the idea of moving all of the buildings in town was so fascinating. I loved the fact that Eloise is a CPA at a time when few women were, and the mystery element, as someone is sabotaging the camp where workers for the reservoir are staying, was interesting.
However, there were also some parts that were disconcerting to me. Alex and Eloise had premarital sex when they were teenagers, and while Eloise feels badly about it, it almost seems she's more embarrassed and worried about people knowing about it than she is about how than the fact that she sinned, and Alex doesn't seem to have any remorse about it whatsoever. From a Christian novel, I definitely expected more about grace and repentance, and it just was really odd to me that those things weren't there. (Side note: Eloise realizes her boss in NYC won't be compatible with her because he doesn't really believe in God, but I didn't see anything that demonstrated Alex believed, either.) If this weren't a book from a Christian publisher, that wouldn't have been a problem, but I really found myself wishing for it here--not to be preachy but as a beautiful affirmation of God's grace and how He forgives and redeems.
As for characters, I had mixed feelings about Alex. I liked his passion for his town and his big dreams, but there were times when he was just rude to Eloise and didn't even really apologize for it, and I hard time with that. I'm all in favor of a realistically flawed hero, but I couldn't get behind him 1oo-percent.
Is it fair to judge a book differently because it's Christian? I don't know. If this weren't a Christian book, I'd say it's a 4-star book. As a Christian book, however, I didn't feel like there were actually enough Christian elements and even Eloise didn't really come across as more than a surface Christian, which makes it hard for me to endorse as a Christian novel. With those mixed feelings, I'll give it 3.5 stars and I hope I've provided enough information for readers to know whether the things that bothered me would detract from the book for them as well or if they'd be fine with it and thoroughly enjoy the story.
*Although this is the third book in a series, you don't have to read the other two novels prior to reading this one.
I read an ARC via #NetGalley. All opinions are my own.
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