Thursday, February 12, 2015

Review: The Color of Heaven by Julianne MacLean

Series: The Color of Heaven series book 1
Publisher: Blue Ocean
Publication date: Jan 23, 2011
Genre: Mainstream Contemporary Fiction
Rating: 3 Stars

Sophie Duncan is a successful columnist whose world falls apart after her daughter's unexpected illness and her husband's shocking affair. When it seems nothing else could possibly go wrong, her car skids off an icy road and plunges into a frozen lake. There, in the cold, dark depths of the water, Sophie experiences something profound and extraordinary--something that unlocks the secrets from her past, and teaches her what it means to truly live.





"The good things comes in waves, along with the bad."


My Review:


While I really LOVE Julianne's historical romances, this book was a new venture for me. I think this is the longest it's taken me to read a book. part of that is I was reading at work, but normally if I'm really into a book I can't put it down.  It's definitely not a romance but more of an inspirational novel. It's a story about survival. How we can endure the tragedies in our lives and still have our happy endings.  It's very emotional and deals with some heavy situations. 

I normally don't read first person viewpoints so that was a bit of a turn off to me. When I read I want to know what everyone is thinking and feeling. In some novels it works and I can see why this was written in that viewpoint, but I felt uncomfortable reading this one. The characters lacked depth to me. There was so much potential but somehow it just read like a list of events. Yes it had emotional aspects, the tragedy of her daughter passing, being one, but it just felt like it could be more somehow. Some of the word choices you could tell come from Julianne's Canadian background although the story was set in Chicago and Boston for the most part. "Making grade" just confused me, maybe it's the Southerner in me though. Do Northerners say that? I'll have to ask my husband :)

Sophie is supposed to be the person the novel is about but I felt that it was her mother, Cora, whose story was the predominant one. I was confused for 3/4 of the book but when one detail was brought out it cleared up most of it. 

This could definitely be a book club read. I still have so many questions running through my head after this. It's certainly a book that encourages you to think about life in a new way.

Julianne MacLean is a USA Today bestselling author of over twenty historical romance novels, including The Highlander Trilogy with St. Martin's Press and her popular Pembroke Palace Series with Avon/Harper Collins. She also writes contemporary mainstream fiction, and her 2011 release THE COLOR OF HEAVEN was a digital bestseller. She is a three-time RITA finalist, and has won numerous awards, including the Booksellers' Best Award, the Book Buyers Best Award, and a Reviewers' Choice Award from Romantic Times for Best Regency Historical of 2005. She has a degree in English Literature from the University of King’s College in Halifax, and a degree in Business Administration from Acadia University. She lives in Nova Scotia with her husband and daughter, and she is a dedicated member of Romance Writers of Atlantic Canada.

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