Review by naniminna -- For the Love of Suzanne
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naniminna
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Review by naniminna -- For the Love of Suzanne
[Following is the official OnlineBookClub.org review of "For the Love of Suzanne" by Kristi Hudecek-Ashwill.]
2 out of 4 stars
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For the Love of Suzanne is a romance novel written by Kristi Hudeck-Ashwill that takes place both in the year 2014 and the year 1860. The main character Suzanne is being abused by her husband Beau in the present time, and at the beginning of the novel she is revealed to be pregnant because he has raped her during the time he was beating her. Instead of getting the opportunity to woman up and leave his cruelty, she is saved by the fact that he dies during a work accident. He has left her with nothing except the trailer they bought together and Suzanne will be raising this child on her own, even though she has family in New York who has asked her repeatedly to come live with them.
On a drive to clear her head Suzanne magically ends up in 1860 and crashes her vehicle. At this point, she nearly dies when her car explodes, but thankfully she is saved by a man named Cody who is half Indian and half white man before it actually does. Cody is going to take her to be a slave to his leader and Chieftan Tall Deer, and his son Walking Bull, who he knows burns, rapes, gouges, and scalps their slaves because he freed one that nearly killed herself in the river previously without their knowledge. He changes his mind after finding out she is pregnant and has a husband. After having decided that he has fallen in love with Suzanne he takes her to live in a whore house commonly known as the Saloon in a white man fort instead. Ultimately, Cody's goal is to bring Suzanne to her own time again before she goes into labor, but through his own foolish and selfish decisions, he causes the deaths of too many people to count and all so he can bang the white girl with the golden hair.
I wanted to give this book a higher rate than I am going to. At first, the story felt original and enthralling and like I just couldn't put it down. After a while, the book became repetitive. Every time an interesting character came into play that would have downplayed the romance of the main characters and put the focus on a side plot, that character was quickly killed. I'm not even kidding. Nearly every single character seems to die unless they are from the present. Only 6 characters besides the main characters in the historical portion of the book are not killed. I felt there were other ways these characters could have been dealt with. Like falling in love with other characters or being a part of a family. I suppose that would have been too difficult though to expand on for the author, which is probably why it never happened. It's a shame because Kristi really did give herself a great foundation to work with.
In addition, somewhere in the middle of the book, the characters kept thinking so negatively to themselves about love and their personal lives. You would read nearly the same paragraph every couple of chapters. If you wanted to know how little the main characters think of themselves you will have it engrained in the back of your head before you hit halfway through, so don't worry! Finally, my biggest issue with the book was the religious cop out. God saves the main characters and takes away the big climax of the book.
For these reasons, I am going to give this book a 2 out of 4 stars. If there hadn't been so many writing cop outs and more development on side characters and a reasonable way to end the hard times in the past era, I would have given 4. There was so much potential in this book. I was so excited reading it at first. I just wish that more work had gone into the plot.
******
For the Love of Suzanne
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2 out of 4 stars
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For the Love of Suzanne is a romance novel written by Kristi Hudeck-Ashwill that takes place both in the year 2014 and the year 1860. The main character Suzanne is being abused by her husband Beau in the present time, and at the beginning of the novel she is revealed to be pregnant because he has raped her during the time he was beating her. Instead of getting the opportunity to woman up and leave his cruelty, she is saved by the fact that he dies during a work accident. He has left her with nothing except the trailer they bought together and Suzanne will be raising this child on her own, even though she has family in New York who has asked her repeatedly to come live with them.
On a drive to clear her head Suzanne magically ends up in 1860 and crashes her vehicle. At this point, she nearly dies when her car explodes, but thankfully she is saved by a man named Cody who is half Indian and half white man before it actually does. Cody is going to take her to be a slave to his leader and Chieftan Tall Deer, and his son Walking Bull, who he knows burns, rapes, gouges, and scalps their slaves because he freed one that nearly killed herself in the river previously without their knowledge. He changes his mind after finding out she is pregnant and has a husband. After having decided that he has fallen in love with Suzanne he takes her to live in a whore house commonly known as the Saloon in a white man fort instead. Ultimately, Cody's goal is to bring Suzanne to her own time again before she goes into labor, but through his own foolish and selfish decisions, he causes the deaths of too many people to count and all so he can bang the white girl with the golden hair.
I wanted to give this book a higher rate than I am going to. At first, the story felt original and enthralling and like I just couldn't put it down. After a while, the book became repetitive. Every time an interesting character came into play that would have downplayed the romance of the main characters and put the focus on a side plot, that character was quickly killed. I'm not even kidding. Nearly every single character seems to die unless they are from the present. Only 6 characters besides the main characters in the historical portion of the book are not killed. I felt there were other ways these characters could have been dealt with. Like falling in love with other characters or being a part of a family. I suppose that would have been too difficult though to expand on for the author, which is probably why it never happened. It's a shame because Kristi really did give herself a great foundation to work with.
In addition, somewhere in the middle of the book, the characters kept thinking so negatively to themselves about love and their personal lives. You would read nearly the same paragraph every couple of chapters. If you wanted to know how little the main characters think of themselves you will have it engrained in the back of your head before you hit halfway through, so don't worry! Finally, my biggest issue with the book was the religious cop out. God saves the main characters and takes away the big climax of the book.
For these reasons, I am going to give this book a 2 out of 4 stars. If there hadn't been so many writing cop outs and more development on side characters and a reasonable way to end the hard times in the past era, I would have given 4. There was so much potential in this book. I was so excited reading it at first. I just wish that more work had gone into the plot.
******
For the Love of Suzanne
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon
Like naniminna's review? Post a comment saying so!
Latest Review: "The Banned Book about Love" by Scott Hughes
