Book Review: A Passion Denied

Lessman, Julie. 2009. A Passion Denied. (The Daughters of Boston #3). Revell. 466 pages.

Oh to be a calculating woman! Elizabeth O'Connor sighed.

A Passion Denied is an aptly named novel following the non-romance-romance of Elizabeth ("Beth" or "Lizzie") O'Connor and John Brady. If you've read the first two books, you'll remember John Brady as the soldier-friend of Collin, the man who would eventually (with plenty of twists and turns) become Lizzie's brother-in-law. John became a family friend. And it didn't take long for Lizzie to see him as a mentor, a best friend, though she was just a child (13) at the time and he a man of the world. (Not that he was a man of the world. By the time Lizzie met him, he was a man of God. A man who embodied everything a godly man should be. She's had him on a pedestal for years and years and years. But John was never always perfect. He's carrying some shame and guilt and fear. He wasn't perfect then, and he isn't perfect now.

Lizzie loves John. John loves Lizzie. The problem? He won't admit it. He won't act on it. He's stubborn and foolish and just downright silly. Not that Lizzie isn't these things either. She's silly and immature in a way. Unfortunately in my humble opinion, she decides that Charity is a good role model. That Charity's recommendations of how to hook a man and reel him in would be the right way to go about it. Hint: Her advice isn't all that biblical. Charity isn't a P31 woman by anyone's standards. Faith seems to have mellowed out to such an extreme that she's behind Charity's forward-flirty-push-him-to-the-limits-do-anything-and-everything-to-make-him-notice-you tactics. That and Charity's good-old use another man to make him jealous ploy.

The soap opera continues in A Passion Denied. This family saga is so much more than just an adventure in Lizzie's life. It focuses on the whole family: Marcy and Patrick, Collin and Faith, Charity and Mitch. In this latest adventure, John's past is catching up with him just in time to be part of a love triangle. Yes, John has a secret twin brother, Michael, a man who is his opposite in many, many ways. A man determined to use Beth to manipulate his brother. (And he's not the only competition either!)

So did I like it? Yes. Mostly. There were a few places where I wanted to scream at the characters--be it Patrick or John or Charity or Beth--that they were being stupid. That they were making a mistake. The book mirrored a soap opera in that effect too--I almost always have that response at the television as well. But despite all that--or maybe because of that--I had to keep turning the pages to see how it would all unfold.

© Becky Laney of Operation Actually Read Bible