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Genre: Contemporary Romance, Inspirational, Romance
Theme: Small Town
Archetype: Neighbor/Roommate
This RITA® Reader Challenge 2017 review was written by Samantha. This story was nominated for the RITA® in the Romance with Spiritual or Religious Elements category.
The summary:
Can love grow in the shadow of a broken past?
Here is Samantha's review:
Katie Stone is back in Fairfield, the small Georgia town in which she grew up, after four years away to help her parents deal with her mother’s recent MS diagnosis. The problem is that Katie doesn’t want to be back home because she’s filled with all sorts of self-loathing and guilt over the wreckage she left behind when she hightailed it out of town in the middle of the night after doing the very horrible, no good, very bad thing that shall not be named (until the book is almost over . . . more on this later, obviously).
Since Katie’s been gone, Asher Powell, son of a preacher man and holder of an unexplained “computer” job that seems to take up none of his time and yet pays well enough that he can casually drop thousands of dollars of deck furniture, has moved into the house next door to Katie’s parents. Asher is a sad person because he had a bad breakup a year ago and his ex-girlfriend and her father spread “terrible lies” about the relationship that got Asher fired from his volunteer gig at the church where his father preaches.
The first thing you should know about My Hope Next Door is that it is an inspirational with a heavy focus on religion. The only other inspirational I’ve read is a book I picked up after reading a positive RITA Review on it last year: A Noble Masquerade, which is a light-hearted historical that is like any other historical except no sexy times and some occasional prayer.
This book is not lightly inspirational. Christianity and the church are central to the story, and the characters are moored in Southern Christian culture. If that is not something you are looking for, this book is not for you. There are some things that arose from that worldview that bothered me, such as Asher’s ex-girlfriend being described as a “woman who made Jezebel look like a saint” and problematic language about treating everyone you date like someone’s future spouse (because treating someone poorly is an affront to their future spouse, and not, you know, just a shitty thing to do to another human being?). Also, I appreciated that there was an emphasis on Christians being multidimensional people, but I wish that had extended to the non-Christians, who were universally portrayed as deeply unhappy. However, when I think about why I struggled to get through this book, those things were really mild annoyances.
The biggest problem with My Hope Next Door is telling and not showing. This tendency really undercut the romance for me. Katie and Asher’s early interactions revolve around Katie going over to Asher’s while he works on his deck and the two of them falling into long conversations, but very little of these interactions actually made it to the page. You’ll get a brief conversation and then the book tells you that they talked for hours and that, for the rest of the week, the same thing happens. I live for good banter in a romance, and here I got only a small amount of boring banter, which, for me, is a deal breaker.
The real emotional heft of this book resides in Katie’s redemption arc. But the book’s insistence on telling the reader that Katie was bad girl without really explaining what she did or went through (until the very end of the book) meant that it was hard for me to get a hold on who Katie was back then or how that impacted her in the present. There is a bunch of talking around Katie’s past, and what details the reader does get are inconsistent. At the start, Katie’s past is painted as more youthful rebellion than hardened criminal, with references to TP-ing houses and drinking a six-pack with her friends by the river. At some point near the middle of the book, it’s casually dropped in that Katie is an addict (presumably to some non-specified drug(s) and maybe alcohol? The explanation here was severely lacking). I’m by no means an expert on addiction, but I’m pretty sure that if Katie went into recovery four months before (I’m just assuming she got clean at some point, but that’s conjecture because, again, Katie’s past is not well defined) that it would be kind of a big part of her life at the point the story is taking place. By the time I found out what happened that caused Katie to leave Fairfield and have all this guilt, I was so tired of the runaround that it didn’t pack much of punch, just relief that we were finally done talking around it with Katie’s sad, cryptic thoughts about how she can never be forgiven for her sins.
Finally, we need to talk about Asher. I generally liked Asher – he’s a nice guy with a bitter edge from people always expecting him to be bright and happy because his dad is the preacher. But Asher’s backstory with the church and his ex-girlfriend soured me on him. In a nutshell (I don’t really consider this a spoiler because it’s dealt with fairly early in the book, but if you really don’t want to know, skip the rest of his paragraph), Asher and his ex, Jillian, dated for a few good months, and then, when he told her he might want out, she stripped naked and tempted him into sex. After a few more months, Asher realized that sex didn’t fix anything, so he dumped Jillian. Jillian and her father (yeah, her dad getting involved is pretty creepy) tell everyone at church about Asher and Jillian sleeping together, and I assume from Asher’s anger, because it wasn’t really spelled out, that they told people she was a virgin and he seduced her. Asher then gets run out of his volunteer job at the church even though he was the virgin who was seduced, not Jillian. At the start of the book, a year has gone by and Asher is just rejoining the church and dealing with his guilt over giving in to Jillian’s temptations. Ugh, was this really necessary? Even if the author wanted to do this whole guilt for giving into the temptations of sex before marriage, did it have to involve a villainous harlot who sunk her claws into him and tempted him with her body? It’s the evil-ex trope served with a heaping side of puritanical sex guilt, and it caused such forceful involuntary eye rolling that I think I sprained something.
My Hope Next Door is not a bad book, and, although I know I’ve sounded pretty down about it, there were moments that were touching (such as when Katie accepts that her ex-boyfriend isn’t entirely bad and Katie’s final redemption moment where she is forgiven by this sweet old lady Katie stole from). Nevertheless, the inconsistent and secretive characterization of Katie’s past, the general tell not show of it all, and Asher’s Jezebel ex undercut the heart of the story and made this a real slog for me to get through.
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Not plot-related but I absolutely hate that everytime a fictional character needs a mystery illness for tragic purposes, it’s MS. The way it’s treated in books and tv shows is usually cringeworthy, and the way characters handle it is even worse.
/minirant
I’ve never been a believer. Even as a child I argued why I was the only one going to church on Sundays and stopped doing so as soon as possible.
That said, I have HUGE issues with the concept of virginity being important/preferable in the 21st century. We have accurate DNA testing available today. This whole guilting thing has got to stop. There is nothing wrong or abnormal about exploring your sexuality.
The idea that a person, most especially a woman, is somehow diminished if they’ve dared to have sex outside marriage makes me stabby. So of course she’s a Jezebel because she seduced him. Hell, I’m surprised she was named Jillian rather than Eve. Or was that too obvious?
There’s at least one woman (!) who gives abstinence talks at schools who likens non-virginal girls to used gum and asks the boys whether they want something in their mouths that someone else has already chewed (#!$@).
Speaking as someone who never wanted children and didn’t particularly care whether I married, according to these people I should have remained celibate? Don’t think so.
Definitely not the target audience for this…
I’m awed that you finished the book. It would’ve hit the wall when I reached the chapter on his ex’s villainous tempting of the poor man with her sinful vagina.
I’m firmly in the camp of respecting the values and (nonviolent) traditions of all religions (and I’m a Jew who married into a seriously fundamental Christian clan, so I’ve had practce). But I honestly don’t think there’s a more damaging idea for women in modern culture than this pervasive Biblical holdover of the eternally innocent man and the women who either cause him to sin or are canonized for their virginal virtue. It informs how we teach our sisters and daughters about sex, about men, about how to behave, about good girls and bad girls. It affects how women give consent and how men hear it. And it’s frankly irresponsible to continue to perpetuate such ideas, especially disguised as sweet, palatable, inspirational fiction.
I’m as open to reading Inspies as I am to any other genre. But they need to have what I look for in all my fiction, not just romance: strong, intelligent women whose self-worth is based on attributes like kindness and bravery and strength, who support and uplift other women, and who own their sexuality when falling in love.
Sorry for the digression. But with the lack of respect we get from the political world, the least we could do is make it up in the fictional one.
Thanks for the review, Samantha. Very insightful.
BTW, I also read and enjoyed A Noble Masquerade after the RITA review last year. Based on your review, I will not be reading this one.
Now, here’s what I would really like to see: An inspirational story in which the heroine’s wicked past, the past hurts suffered by the hero, and the badness of any and all current villains … have nothing to do with sex.
But in the meantime I’ll continue to scan the skies for wingèd pigs.
Yeah, I’m definitely not the target audience for an inspirational romance. I got interested in one once (the name escapes me now) because I heard that it was about a believer falling in love with a non-believer and people raved that this book handled the non-believer’s questions and eventual conversion (because obviously) in a really great, nuanced way. So I downloaded the sample chapters and couldn’t get past where the hero catches a glimpse of the heroine and literally refers to her as a “temptress” and makes an allusion to Delilah (of Samson and Delilah.) All of the yikes.
Also, I find the Amazon reviews for most inspirational novels are SO SANCTIMONIOUS, which, unsurprising but also deeply, deeply annoying.
“… holder of an unexplained “computer” job that seems to take up none of his time and yet pays well enough that he can casually drop thousands of dollars of deck furniture.” This made me laugh out loud. Thanks for the review!
I’m not religious at all but come from a very conservative evangelical family so I honestly avoid inspies because it feels like a flashback to being a teenager. I’ll occasionally pick up a historical one if the story sounds good but the contemporaries seem so preachy about sex. There are definitely more nuanced ways to handle it, too. Why is there always a terrible ex who lured the pure innocent into sinful abandon? Couldn’t you write a story in which two people fell in love and had sex and later broke up for other reasons that still explores the main characters feelings about the sinfulness of their actions without demonizing their partner? Eh, maybe I’m just really the wrong audience for these books.
Great review! Nicely done in putting in perspective what was well-written and what just didn’t sit well with you personally.
I’ve read some good historical Christian romances that were light on “preaching” and much more about the character looking to her faith for help during a tough time. The romance played out like a PG rom-com: no sexy times at all, with a final tearful declaration of love.. first kiss… and then fade to black at the end.
The Messenger by Siri Mitchell and The Apothecary’s Daughter by Julie Klassen stand out in my mind as strong heroines framed by a fascinating historical story. I read them and was surprised they were classified as Inspies.
Oooo! Seconding the rec of the Apothecary’s Daughter! I love Julie Klassen. (The Silent Governess is also good, think PG Amanda Quick.)
Why did Asher have to re-join that church? He couldn’t have joined another church and (usually there is more than one church near practically anywhere.)
The “puritanical sex guilt” with double standards is making me mad. I suspect we’ll have flashbacks once it’s been a year with soon to be President Pence.
I went to a hardcore Southern Baptist school and have many relatives who still practice , so I know the culture.
If the church in this book is mainstream at all, the reason for Alex’s dismissal from a volunteer job is hooey. I was expecting Jillian to accuse him of rape or child abuse. You might get some gossip, especially if Jillian is making accusations of ‘seduction’, but it would be equally (if not more) against Jillian.
Here’s another trope I don’t like (along with women slapping people): People who can drop everything and go off to help relatives cope with a disease diagnosis. Don’t people have to work? I did caregiving for Mom with her ovarian cancer, but she lived in the same town.
I would understand the set up more if Kate was going up every weekend or something to help, but being able to just drop everything isn’t realistic.
I’m SO CURIOUS what Jillian’s “big, deep dark secret shame” is…was it there in the review or did I completely miss it? Obviously it’s a huge spoiler, but it doesn’t sound like anyone on this thread is dying to read this book, either (myself included).
@Demi I totally second! Please spoil away!
It’s in the last paragraph.
@Demi and Lizzy
****SPOILERS****
Katie stole a priceless heirloom ring from a sweet old lady she was working for, pawned it, and used the money to buy drugs that she knew were sketchy (I think they were cut with something weird, which made them affordable for her?). Then she went over to her friend’s house, who she knew was a recovering drug addict, and he took the drugs from her. If I remember correctly, she didn’t mean to give them to him, but he stole them once they were in his house. The friend then took the drugs, went to the hospital, and started a downward spiral into drug addiction that ruined his marriage. The friend and his ex-wife are actually the couple in the next book in this series (not that I will be reading it…).
I would love to read a book where one character is a believer, the other is a non-believer, their relationship arc is about how to build a relationship on this premise without either of them trying to change the other, and they both end the book with their believer/non-believer status unchanged.
It doesn’t sound like this is the case here, but in general if a heroine’s ex who had more sexual experience than she did pressured her into sex when she tried to leave him, then used the fact that she’d had sex with him (in a community where she could be ostracized if he tells people) to pressure her into staying, we’d think that was a shitty thing for the ex to do, and blame the community, not the heroine, if she has internalized the slut shaming. And we wouldn’t have a problem with her being mad at the ex for pressuring her into sex.
I know it’s not an exact parallel because in evangelical communities men tend to have more power, especially when it comes to sex. And the author seems to have a problem not with the hero being pressured into sex, but with him having sex. Still, using sex to manipulate a person seems shitty.