Rita Saladano

No. No, and no. I was so looking forward to this as a refreshing change of pace from my more intense, historical fiction and mystery reading. Sadly, this is really just a jumbled mess of random vignettes of a small parish located in Northern Minnesota, circa 1954 when a historic weather system ( an "Alberta Clipper" like non other) blew through the area. Thankfully, it was a short story - almost a novella - and if you like to read stories that provide a fair bit of focus to time and place, popular culture and current events, this "may" be something to quickly skim through. Seriously, the whole "illicit love" relationship between Julianna and Father Briar is just way over the top drama and way too much gratuitous sex, IMO. That is not why I am dishing this one. I know that other readers may have different expectations and "tastes" - I have never been a fan of authors leveraging gratuitous sex to sell books - but I really have to draw the line at the fact that this book should have been proof read, not just run through Word's spell check. OMG, so many grammatical errors and inconsistencies! Wrong pronouns ("he" when it should be "she") are just the start of the problems. I get that authors may change their minds as they are drafting a story, but seriously, don't assign your female lead as a WWII mechanic only to suddenly, part way through the story, state that she was a nurse and then reverts back to her having been a mechanic. It is also kind of important to keep your character's names straight. At one point, the author refers to Julianna as Cassidy. No clue why. There is no "Cassidy" in the story. While some might comment that grammatical errors can happen - and I get that - but the story itself is so disjointed. Timelines do not connect, and have weird overlaps that just do not make sense. If this had billed as being Julianna's draft memoirs, then this randomness might have made some sense, especially if we are to assume the story is someone today recollecting events some 60 years in the past, but that does not appear to be the case. Lastly, I have absolutely no idea why this one is titled [Father Briar and the Angel].... I don't buy the climatic scene to explain the Angel angle for this one. I just don't.

Overall, I found this to be a very frustrating and unsatisfying read. Lesson learned: Just because a book has a lovely, professional-looking book cover image, that is no indication of the quality of the story found between in the covers.… (mais)