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Book Review of River's Edge (Cape Refuge, Bk 3)

River's Edge  (Cape Refuge, Bk 3)
Barbllm avatar reviewed on + 241 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1


This is the third in Blackstock's Cape Refuge series. She writes a decent mystery and the ending is brilliant, but her characterizations occasionally fall flat. Morgan really annoyed me in this book, because she behaves as a super-Christian with no faults at all. She's totally emotion-driven and apparently doesn't understand the basics of logic or reasoning. Not all Christians are like that. Meanwhile, her sister Blair (a better overall character) has taken over the newspaper and is writing about the murder of a prominent local politician's wife, but this causes her to clash occasionally with Matthew Cade, the police chief and the man she's deeply in love with.

There's an interesting subplot about IVF and infertility, which bored me since I had two kids the good old-fashioned way and I have married friends who are childfree. I have never understood women and men who put having a baby as the be-all, end-all of their lives. I certainly don't know any Christians who think that way. Some Christians deliberately decide to forsake having children in order to share in missionary work, but Morgan's job on this earth is, apparently, to be a mother. At several points in the book, I wanted to reach into the pages and slap her.

Sheila Caruso is another fairly well developed character. She's a reformed (?) drug addict who's released from prison early and is attempting to start a new life at Hanover House with her children, Sadie and Caleb. She behaves in a fairly predictable manner, but she's at least realistic.

The book is far more plot-driven than message-driven, but there is good counsel on why Christians avoid psychics and mediums and what it means to engage in spiritual warfare with the weaponry Paul described in Ephesians. All in all, a satisfying read.