RITA Reader Challenge Review

Keeper of the Stars by Robin Lee Hatcher

This RITA® Reader Challenge 2017 review was written by Julia S. This story was nominated for the RITA® in the Romance with Spiritual or Religious Elements category.

The summary:

Penny Cartwright found it difficult to understand why her younger brother would choose to join a country singer’s band rather than return to Kings Meadow after college . . . and the separation strained their relationship. Then a car accident made certain her brother could never return.

Trevor Reynolds has chased stardom in Nashville for more than a dozen years, but it remains out of his reach. After an accident kills his young drummer, Trevor goes to Kings Meadow to keep a promise—and perhaps to discover what truly matters in this life.

Thrown together by circumstances, Penny and Trevor must learn to give and receive forgiveness. And if they do, perhaps something beautiful can rise from the ashes of heartbreak.

Here is Julia S.'s review:

Keeper of the Stars was thoroughly unobjectionable. I want to be able to give it higher praise than that, but I cannot do that and still be honest. The thoughts and actions of the characters, their faith expression, and the plot of the book- there was absolutely nothing about which one could object. While this might sound appealing, it was actually just really bland. Reading the book was like eating a dinner that’s not bad or good, it’s just calories. Just like all dinners, books of this nature may appeal to some people and not to others.

The book opens on Brad Cartwright’s funeral. His dad, Rodney, and his sister, Penny, are grieving. Brad’s bandmate, Trevor, appears at the funeral and Penny slaps him. Out of nowhere. While it would not be untrue to say that grieving people do unreasonable things, this comes out of nowhere for the reader and for Trevor. It’s a hard introduction to the female protagonist.

Trevor has moved to King’s Mountain for an unspecified amount of time because Brad encouraged him to do so- implying that meeting Brad’s father and sister would be helpful to all of them and helpful to Trevor’s newly deepening faith in God. Brad and Penny had a falling out that is never fully fleshed out (to my way of thinking) beyond her objection to his becoming a musician. Penny blames Trevor for drawing Brad into that life.

Brad’s life and last wishes function as a kind of deus ex machina in the book. His requests of his father and of Trevor spur on their actions. Each of them recognizes that Brad makes the request, but seeks out Divine approval or guidance for how to deal with their on-going feelings about the ranch, Penny, or other life events.

Within the book, people drink “beverages.” Trevor is offered and accepts a Coke at one point. Otherwise, at parties, adults fetch and drink beverages or drinks without clarification as to what they are drinking. This leaves the reader to substitute a glass of lemonade or a glass of Chardonnay in the hand of the characters. While this blank slate might help include regular readers who do not drink alcohol, I found myself annoyed by the lack of detail. Just tell me it’s a soda or ice water or sparkling cider. The lack of specificity felt more glaring than if the gathered adults had responsibly shared beers or ginger ales.

There was similar lack of specificity on the physical intimacy between Trevor and Penny. They kissed deeply, the scene closed, and she descended the stairs smiling the next morning. Did they or didn’t they? While I don’t need everything spelled out for me, I felt frustrated in that the parameters of this inspirational were not defined. Please draw a scene for me wherein Trevor and Penny embrace deeply, kiss all the way to the door, and then they both lean heavily against it, on opposite sides, aware of their desires and the parameters around those desire, placed by their faith practice.

Speaking of the faith practice, most of the characters seemed to practice a lived religiosity in word and deed. For a Christian novel, mentions of Jesus were slim to none. This always sticks out to me because, while almost all Christians are Trinitarian, Jesus is very often the foundational element of the faith. His absence in lived practice always raises my eyebrow. Due to Penny’s clear grief, frustration, and control issues, I had expected a larger crisis of faith on her part. However, her stress peaked and then ebbed.

This book, on the whole, came across like a closed-door contemporary with faith elements. It was well-written, but not particularly memorable. As I said in the beginning, it was thoroughly unobjectionable.

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Keeper of the Stars by Robin Lee Hatcher

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  1. DonnaMarie says:

    What’s the saying? Damned by faint praise.

    Your review, OTOH, is well thought out and insightful. Thanks Julia.

  2. LauraL says:

    What DonnaMarie said.

    Perhaps the lack of beverage details was to avoid offending both drinkers and abstainers thus keeping the book further unobjectionable.

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