Softly & Tenderly by Sara Evans with Rachel Hauck

Synopsis:


Happily married and owner of two successful boutiques, Jade longs to begin a family with her husband, Max. But when she discovers that Max has an illegitimate son, who he wants her to help raise, Jade’s life is turned upside down.

She flees to her childhood home, a rambling Iowa farmhouse with enough room to breathe. There, while her mother’s health grows fragile, and the tug of her first love grows stronger – Jade begins to question everything she thought she knew about family, love and motherhood. In the wide-open landscape, jade begins to see a future that doesn’t rest on the power of her past but in the goodness of God’s tender mercies.

This is the 2nd book in a 3 books series. The first was The Sweet By and By. I didn’t read the first book and thus going straight into book 2 took some effort in knowing about previous events that was vaguely mentioned in book 2. It would have been great to follow the series starting with book 1 but even without reading the 1st book, Softly & Tenderly manage to hold its own.

I enjoyed the book. I like all the characters portrayed - their complexity and their simplicity. I especially like Jade’s mother-in-law, Jane whom I think is really an amazing woman. She does what she does out of love and protection for her family but not everybody will be able to identify with what she did and not everyone will approve. There’s a lot of Jane in the world we live in. I also like Jade’s ex-husband, Dustin whom I thought through his action at the end of the book shows that he’s a real man! I would have loved to read more about him.

Jade is also an interesting character and I thought that Jade is such a pretty name and such I didn’t like it when her mother called her Jade-o. I would have loved to get to know her better.

This Songbird Series is written by Sara Evans and Rachel Hauck. The first book that I read from Rachel Hauck is Dinning With Joy which I also enjoyed. The concluding book to this series entitled Love Lifted Me will be available end of year 2012. I can’t wait to read it.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze.com book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own

Comments

  1. EspanaMay 31, 2012 at 4:57 PM

    A wonderful sequel that lives up to the first book and even more! After reading the first book, I was hestitant because I loved it in so many ways - can the second live up to how much I loved the first. It did and even more, it made me excited that there are rumored to be two more books in this series.

    As the first book centers solely around Jade, the main character, I think the strong suit for this book was to share the central focus on Jade, her mother and her mother-in-law. Each of these three women had a journey in this book and there were similarities in each of their struggles. The reader was able to get to go both mother figures in a deeper way - some of the story was even told from their perspective.

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