MONDAY'S CHILD by Clare Revell

Publisher: White Rose/The Wild Rose Press
Date published: April 27, 2012
ISBN 9781611161724
Contemporary Romance Suspense
E-book
Obtained via Publisher
Reviewed by Helen


Sara Barnes’ husband of just three days is murdered on their honeymoon. She is shot in the leg and the attacker makes it clear he’ll be back to finish her off. When she’s finally released from hospital she’s placed in the witness protection program. Sara hates being confined to the house, not allowed to go anywhere or even to use the internet. And she misses Jamie, the only man she’s ever loved, intensely.

Lieutenant Luke Nemec has been sent from the US to Britain to help solve a case. The last thing he expected to have to do was babysit a witness while he worked on his own case’s paperwork. The case gets more complicated, people can’t be trusted, and Luke and Sara are falling in love.

This book had me on the back foot right from the start. I was expecting the rhyme to be the well-known one “Monday’s child is fair of face… etc” but it was “Monday’s Child must hide for protection...” which I’d never heard of before.

Time and time again I felt that one or another of the characters acted quite stupidly (they are hiding from a killer). Each time it was explained away eventually, sometimes just a few pages later, other times many chapters later, but I was left wondering after a while if it was meant to show their character, or just excuses to make the plot go the way the author wanted it to.

There were also inconsistencies in the story. This book is “Inspirational lite”. That is, their faith is very much a part of their characters and their lives, but the rules are not nearly as strict as for some Inspirational books. After all, they are sharing a house alone together, he sees her partly undressed, they kiss and so on. But still, sometimes they say grace, sometimes they don’t. She sees him sitting in his bed reading his Bible, but doesn’t guess he’s a Christian.

Regarding the editing, there were a number of stupid, unnecessary apostrophe errors the proofreader ought to have caught.

I liked Sara’s feisty do-it-herself attitude, but also felt she needed to get a reality check from time to time. I liked Luke all the time. He was caring and considerate, although at times confused.

This is an objective review and not an endorsement of this book.