I feel like I've been ultra-lucky lately because I have read so many Christian fiction books that have really good, decent male leads. Sometimes the love interest in a volume is a bit too stuffy or sanctimonious for my tastes, but I haven't bumped into one of those in a while and Blake Garrett in this book continued that streak. He was delightful...so much so that I feel him and Adriane Darcy were equal characters in this book instead of him being a convenient foil.
In this volume, there are two majorly competing newspapers in the town of Louisville, Kentucky (which I learned was actually a major city at the time when this book was written). Adriane Darcy is the daughter of the Tribune editor and has grown up in the press room. Blake is the editor of the Herald (though not the owner). Tension is supposed to ensue here, and it does....but it was the type of tension that tingles with sparks that let the reader know that it is not going to progress into Pride & Prejudice territory with both characters loathing each other until the end. Blake and Adrian only have a couple of terse exchanges before we learn that they are basically compatible people...but there are other problems.
Namely, the fact that Adriane is engaged to another man named Stanley Jimson (who you never like much, so don't feel sorry for him in the end!). Stanley's father is a political big whig running for office as part of the "Know Nothing Party" and, unfortunately, he mostly owns the Tribune because Adriane's dad needed to borrow money from him at different times. Problems, problems, problems. What should she do? Marry Stanley to pay her father's debt and save the paper or do what she wants to do with her life? And will that even matter after....I'm not going there!!!!
I really enjoyed this book, and loved the character development with Adriane and Blake (as mentioned above) and the texture added to secondary characters such as Grace (an abolitionist, feminist teacher Adriane attended school under), Beck (works in the tribune press room), and Duff (who brings tips Adriane way and is out to help cash a serial killer who is slashing women in Louisville).
This book has some unexpected twists in the last 1/4 to 1/2 and ties up every subplot in the volume quite nicely. I highly recommend it!
Words Spoken True is available as of February 2012 at your favorite bookseller from Revell, a division of
Baker Publishing Group.
Disclosure: I received a review copy of this volume.
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