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Sarah Hollenbeck’s husband divorced her for another woman. Now what can she do? All she knew involved being a wife and hostess. Quilting takes too much time and energy. Traveling meant alone and lonely. Sarah decides to join a book club—and to be a writer—of poetry. Having narrowed her work down to one club, she sets off to share her poetry—dreadful poetry. To try and atone, she brings brownies the next week and realizes the ladies in the group pity her. Embarrassed, she rushes out of the room, but one of the women, Piper, who becomes her good friend, follows her. After telling all her woes to Piper over coffee, Sarah rushes home to write what she knows. What she knows, the book tells us in streaming consciousness fashion, is adult romance.
At the book club the next week, Sarah accidentally dumps her tote bag and out fall the pages of Stollen Desire—the ladies help her pick up the pages. They read them, enthralled by the smutty romance. They want to feel guilty but can’t stop reading. Embarrassed again, Sarah says a friend wrote the book. Pushed for a name, she comes up with Raine de Bourgh. And she takes off on a path she never dreamed of traveling. Her streaming consciousness romances become wildly successful, make Sarah a ton of money. Her ex is about to be married again, so she decides to go public—on the Tonight Show, no less!
Piper, her friend, disapproves of the smut, and over coffee tells Sarah why—and leads her to Jesus. Then the fun starts. Sarah realizes that Christians aren’t supposed to write this stuff, but all she knows seems to be this—and beside, she has commitments to keep—with her publisher. She goes to church with Piper one Sunday, bumps into a man in the hall and feels instant chemistry. Smiling secretly to herself, Sarah goes to sit with Piper only to discover the man is their new pastor. All this is told in her streaming consciousness fashion.
As you can tell from what I’ve written, the book rambles on and on. I kept waiting for the point of the story, but Bethany Turner has written a rambling, streaming consciousness-type book that follows Sarah’s thoughts and feelings as she stumbles through this new lifestyle. She could be somebody we know and she’s very funny. We see her naked thoughts and are in turn amused and embarrassed by them. However, the book turns out to be a cozy romance, so you can guess the ending almost from the beginning. The situations along the way make you keep reading to see what Sarah can do to embarrass herself next. Not my kind of book, nevertheless, I finished it because I couldn’t believe what I was reading. I’d rate the book three and a half stars, but I bet most will rate higher because of the unusual style.
Bethany Turner, a new-to-me author, works as the director of administration for Rock Springs Church. She’s a three-time cancer survivor and was formerly VP/operations for a commercial bank—all before she turned thirty-five. However, God directed her to write; therefore, she chose to follow the call. Bethany, her husband, and two sons live in Colorado.
Revell, a division of Baker Publishing Group, gave me The Secret Life of Sarah Hollenbeck, but I was in no way obligated to write a review.