The Widow’s Suitor

by Rose Ross Zediker

February 1, 2014 · Love Inspired Heartsong Presents

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This RITA® Reader Challenge 2015 review was written by RevMelinda. This story was nominated for the RITA® in the Inspirational Romance category.

Here is RevMelinda's review:

The Widow’s Suitor is a quick and easy read, a sweet and simple inspirational romance with a straightforward plot, some drama and excitement, and easily recognizable character types and conflicts. Ultimately, though, it wasn’t for me.

Our heroine, Cora Anderson, is a young (twenty-something) widow living on a South Dakota homestead with her mother in law Bertha. Cora’s husband Hank (Bertha’s son) has died some seven or eight months before, and the two women are trying to “prove up” their homestead as Hank intended, raising sheep on their land as well as taking in laundry from local workers to make a little extra money.

In the first few pages of the book, just as Cora goes into labor alone at home, a “handsome stranger” arrives to drop off his laundry. He’s our hero, Luke Dow, new in town and hoping to build a hotel to serve the railroad. Bertha arrives back home in time to deliver the baby, but not before Luke and Cora have made an impression on one another: before the day ends, they have made eyes at one another over the baby’s head, he is musing about how pretty she is, and Cora finds her heart “pitter pattering.”

As the book continues, Luke and Cora begin to fall in love with one another. Their romance is hindered by Bertha’s insistence that Cora accept the courtship of another man, their villainous older neighbor Clement. Cora also becomes aware that Luke is not a Christian—that he in fact has antipathy towards any belief in God–and she feels that she cannot/should not love a man who is not a Christian. Their happy ending comes after various dramatic developments as they thwart Clement’s nefarious schemes to marry Cora and take her land, and after Luke comes to terms with his difficult childhood and changes his mind about the existence of God.

I have to admit that I found this book difficult to engage with. I found the characters to be stereotypical and two-dimensional, particularly the villainous Clement who all but twirled his mustaches as he carried out his “evil plans” (that’s a quote from the book, by the way). Cora was sweet and pretty but her background and motivations are never really explained, and she seemed to get over both her bereavement and her childbirth experience pretty quickly (as evidenced by the pitter-pattering heart on the day she delivers her dead husband’s child!).

Another thing I found difficult about this book was the spiritual aspect—the novel’s portrayal of faith as a simple, unquestioning piety had me rolling my eyes over and over again. For example, in the first few pages, as Cora (alone at home in the middle of South Dakota, remember) is stricken with the “intense pain” of labor that is coming on “fast and hard,” she takes time to pray:

“Cora bowed her head, knowing full well one should come before the Lord on bent knee, but under the circumstances she hoped the Lord would forgive her this one transgression.

‘Most merciful Father, help me bear the pain of childbirth. Please get Bertha home before the baby comes. Amen.’”

Really? In the midst of childbirth you worry about not kneeling to pray? (Perhaps this was intended to be humorous?) I found this to be unrealistic, overly simplistic, and almost smarmy.

(Note: when I myself was in the throes of childbirth some years ago, I (already a minister by that point in my life) clung to my husband’s hand and howled, “Oh honey, maybe there really is no God!” So that’s where I’m coming from.)

I suppose what bothered me most about this scene was that I felt Cora’s prayer wasn’t a genuine expression of what a woman would do in that situation—instead, it seemed more like this was the author’s idea of what a “good Christian woman” should do in that situation. And I felt this over and over, throughout the book—that the religious expression and dialogue of the characters amounted to pat phrases (or, in some cases, evangelical jargon) put in their mouths by the author for some purpose outside the story, instead of arising out of their particular and individual characterizations and motivations.

More than that, when reading bits of Cora’s internal dialogue –for example, like this one: “The Good Book said not to yoke yourself with unbelievers. Even though her heart felt differently, being a child of God she needed to obey His word”—instead of gaining some kind of insight into Cora’s character and inner conflict, I felt as if I was being instructed in appropriate Christian behavior. As if, instead of a fully developed character, Cora was a placeholder, or a mouthpiece for “today’s lesson.”

I admit I am not a regular reader of inspirationals and am not familiar with all their conventions, so this may be par for the course in this particular corner of the romance world. My yearning for more complex characterization and more sophisticated theological expression may also be unrealistic given the length of the novel. At any rate, although it was certainly sweet and not without some charms, I couldn’t really engage with this novel’s characters or spirituality, and it just didn’t work for me.