I’m a huge Beth Moore reader. I’ve done many (most?) of her in-depth Bible studies. I’ve read her non-fiction books. I’ve attended several of her live events. If Beth wrote it, more than likely I’ve read it.
So I was super excited to be able to preview her first foray in fiction.
The Undoing of Saint Silvanus.
I expected to love it. I wanted to love it.
I was only given the first four chapters to read, so I’m going to believe I would have loved the whole book.
Jillian Slater is working as a waitress for the man she loves and lives with in San Francisco when she gets a call that the father she hasn’t seen in twenty years is dead. She’s offered a free trip to New Orleans to see her grandmother and help with the arrangements.
Jillian heads to New Orleans and promptly wants to leave.
Her grandmother didn’t know she was coming. Adella, her grandmother’s assistant, arranged Jillian’s passage. As Jillian prepares to leave, more information about her father’s death is shared.
That’s where my excerpt ended.
The opening didn’t grab me. The characters felt like cardboard archetypes rather than fully realized people living on the page. The writing is pretty good. The story has lots of backstory woven into the first pages, a no-no for current writers who are told to get to the current story ASAP and stay there.
I’ve been trying to review only books that I absolutely loved and it pains me horribly to give only three stars to this one, but I can’t give it any more without reading the rest of the novel.
If I had the whole book, I would have finished it. I don’t know if I would have recommended it.
I received a free excerpt of The Undoing of Saint Silvanus from Tyndale House and NetGalley in return for a honest review.
Writer of Sweet Small Town Stories of Love and Family 