Susan May Warren- Christian Fiction Romances

Lovely_Ink · Post by **Lovely_Ink** » 09 Jun 2014, 12:06

I recently finished "It Had to Be You" by Susan May Warren. I will preface this by saying that yes, I'm a Christian and yes I like Romances but I am not exactly a fan of Christian Romances. Often times they promote this pious and chaste lifestyle that nowhere reflects the actual life that I live.

That being said, I LOVED THIS BOOK! Right from the prologue I was captured by the words and the wishes of a mother for her daughter. Eden Christiansen is a young woman from a large family who has always found herself living in the shadows of the ones she loves. In her mind, nothing that she has ever done stands out against the stellar lives that her siblings and friends live. Her job is OK but not her dream job; her looks are average; and her social life is nothing special. She is existing but not living.

Jace Jacobsen seemingly has it all. He's a star athlete, captain of the team even and makes tons of money. Women throw themselves at him and he has a reputation that is known everywhere. What people don't know about are the secret struggles that he lives with every day and there's no way that he can share them and keep his nice secure future in tact.

Eden and Jace are brought together through their circumstances and through their dealings with one another they learn to overcome their shortcomings and celebrate the lives that they live. Yes they fall in love but more importantly the begin to accept God's great love for them in spite of their faults.

I love that the author uses scripture in a very practical way. Nobody is perfect and the author does a great deal of explaining grace and mercy in a way that give us all hope. This is not a preachy book... it's a romance; a romance between a man and woman and a romance between God and us. I'll definitely be reading more of this series.

Reading lady · Post by **Reading lady** » 04 Aug 2014, 13:27

I agree that she is a great author. I haven't read this one but I am definitely going to look for it.

Have you read Melody Carlson or Karen Kingsbury. Also great authors. Actually there are many great Christian authors out there. I'd be happy to give you a list of others if you are interested.

Lovely_Ink · Post by **Lovely_Ink** » 31 Aug 2014, 20:28

Reading lady wrote:I agree that she is a great author. I haven't read this one but I am definitely going to look for it.

Have you read Melody Carlson or Karen Kingsbury. Also great authors. Actually there are many great Christian authors out there. I'd be happy to give you a list of others if you are interested.

I haven't read anything by Melody Carlson or Karen Kingsbury. I'll check them out and I'm always open to recommendations. Thanks.

Iam_fay · Post by **Iam_fay** » 13 Sep 2015, 01:15

I totally agree. I like her Deephaven series. I would love to collect all of them for my own library!

Acwoolet · Post by **Acwoolet** » 05 Oct 2015, 20:02

Thanks for the review! I'll have to check her out! I also really enjoy Karen Kingsbury.

kderse · Post by **kderse** » 26 Jan 2016, 10:52

Here is my review of a good Christian Fiction book not sure if you could count it as a romance but I would recommend the series.

Her Mother’s Hope by Francine Rivers is the first book to a two book series that may leave you in tears. These books are stories between mother and daughters over a couple generations. Marta leaves Switzerland determined to find her own life. She goes through Germany and eventually ends up in California with children and husband along with her. Through her experiences in life she comes to the conclusion that only the strong can survive this life. Her oldest daughter is determined on being a nurse and serving others. During WWII her daughter Hildie marries and starts having children of her own. She doesn’t want her daughter to ever doubt her love but life is putting many obstacles in her way. Each woman must confront their faults so that their daughters can find where God wants them in this world.

I would recommend this to teenagers and adults.

This book was very slow compared to her others. It is not as great as her other books which may be the reason why I struggled to get through it. Originally I would say I wouldn’t recommend it but the sequel is so good that you must read this one as well. Even if it is a bit painful at times. I would recommend having both books available because like many of her series once you finish one you want to start the next one immediately. Once again though the author portrays the characters so well that you get quite annoyed with them. There were several times I just wanted to jump through the book and shake the characters to show them what they were doing to their daughters.

This book is a good reminder that if we do not deal with our pasts our parenting styles will be affected and so will our children. My mom is not the perfect mom but one thing I appreciate about her after reading this book is that she never pushed me to do anything. Yes, there were times when she mentioned she would love for me to follow in her foot steps and become a nurse. She quickly came to realize though that is not who I am. She then let me go out and find what I was good at. I did not make the right choice and she probably knew it but also knew I had to find that out for myself.