Escape to Sanctuary

I'd give this 3 1/2 stars if I could, but 4 stars is fair enough. This is my first Heartsong Presents novel, and I'm encouraged. I thought it was well-written and enjoyable. A few of the things I liked: I liked the first half of the book very much, and was quite excited to see how things would turn out. The religious aspects of the novel were mostly done well--they seemed to fit in with the storyline and did not feel "tacked on" or shoe-horned into the story. The characters are all religious and it's a natural part of their lives, and discussing God's plan for them is normal. The religious discussions didn't seem stilted or artificial. There were several good lessons to be learned from the story, about how to deal with hardship and suffering. If a serious Christian reader would be concerned that spending time with a novel such as this might be a waste of time because it would contain too much "fluff," I would not worry. There are plenty of good Christian morals and lessons contained within. There was a gentle sense of humor in the book that was needed and charming. The characters were likable. What I didn't like: The last half of the story started to stray a bit for me. I was anticipating a natural progression of the love story, and that didn't seem to happen. All of a sudden, the hero and heroine are in love. I didn't feel like they actually spent enough time with each other to know this. There is a minor "villain" in the story, in the form of a young man who is an atheist. This is not a problem in itself (and we should not expect political correctness in such a novel as this) but it still bothered me. The man was described as an "arrogant young man" and there was a needless (and meant to be insulting) reference to him being short in stature. I just didn't *like* this. This "arrogant" stereotype does not fit all atheists. A bit of tweaking of his character (so it wasn't quite as unflattering) would have made a world of difference to me. [Spoiler] The "arrogant young man" does reaffirm his faith at the end of the book, and this was fine (he was raised with Christian values but strayed--this is often happens in real life, and I know a few "former atheists" like this), but still, the "atheist as minor villain" plotline did not sit well with me. The ending was rather abrupt. I was left thinking to myself, "What a strange ending!" It was a happy ending, and everyone was happy as expected, but it was just different than your standard "let's wrap everything up" ending. It felt like there needed to be at least another page or two before really finishing up the story. I did enjoy this story, and considering the reasonable price, I'd say it's not a bad way to spend a few hours. But it has flaws. [Spoiler] I would love to see the reformed atheist and the ex-fiance of the hero (a "red-haired Jezebel") get together. I was sort of hoping that there would be some hint of that at the end of the book, but alas, no.