Stay and Read

Thursday, February 11th, 2010 | Posted by: Philip Persinger

In Book Two of the Tales of Dunham series, Moriah Jovan confirms that she intends to stay just enough out of genre to confuse everyone. Having read both books, I would call them either (Insert your qualifier here)-Romance Novels or Mormon Bodice Rippers.

The good news for a manly man like me is that the book has enough value-added depth to make it eminently readable. In fact, within the first hundred pages, the book was promoted from an “on the bus” read to an “at home” read.

While Stay includes the original wrecking crew from The Proviso, the baton has been passed to a new generation. The Karate chopping, high-financing, power-brokering sextet of Book One are much more like Olympians this time around, looking down on the mere mortals slugging it out on the Trojan plane with the occasional god-like poke or wink to give assistance to favored combatants. The central characters are two spiritual orphans, adopted by the ubiquitous Knox Hilliard who despite his fire-breathing reputation, acts much more like a mentor or Dutch Uncle.

This is a perfect Book Two of a series. The pyrotechnics of the first book have been replaced with a more intimate conflict. While the personalities are still heroic, they are fighting with one hand tied behind their backs, because they each are slugging it out harder with their own selves than any outside enemy.

The domestic shift of this book is made clear when the patron saint of Book One, Ayn Rand, is replaced with Laura Ingalls Wilder. It is an elegant move. The internal personal debates and struggles become more powerful than the battles waging around them. Yet ultimately, despite the noise, the political, media and familial wars, this book is about healing.

The even better news is that seven pages out, I did not know how it would end and could not wait to find out.