Reviewer: Mary Lignor
Title: Rose House
Author: Tina Ann Forkner
Publisher: Waterbrook Press
ISBN-13: 978-1-4000-7359-7
Release Date: May 2009
Genre/Sub-genre: Inspirational Suspense
Year/Setting: Present
Overall Rating: 4 (for the first 100 pages); 1 (for the rest)
Sexual Content Rating: Subtle
Language (Profanity/Slang) Content Rating: Mild
Violent Content Rating: Minimal
Tina Ann's Website: www.tinaforkner.com
Hi All,
This is the probably the hardest review I've ever had to write. I have to say that this novel started off with a bang; the first hundred pages drew me in and I settled myself for a nice long read. Unfortunately, there was not follow through.
The main character, Lillian Diamon, is a recent widow; she has lost her husband and two children in a horrific traffic accident. In her grief, she visits Rose House in the wine country of California. Rose House is now a tourist attraction at a local vineyard that was built by the owner of the vineyard for his wife. It's a lovely cottage surrounded by roses and vines and the peaceful locale helps Lillian to come to an understanding of her grief. Lillian notices someone taking pictures around Rose House. She feels strange, like someone is invading her privacy and runs away - all the way back to Sacramento where she is a chef at a leading restaurant.
Here is where the story begins to pall. There are many characters introduced. Geena, Lillian's sister, who had an affair with Lillian's husband and was driving the car that Lillian's family were killed in; Aunt Bren and her husband, who raised Lillian and Geena after their parents and brothers were killed in a fire; the vineyard owners, Kitty and Blake, who own Rose House; Paige and Mark, who own a B&B in the Sonoma Valley where Rose House is located; Truman Clark, a local artist; and the list goes on and on. The action jumps back and forth between the two places (Sacramento and the Sonoma Valley) at such an alarming pace that it's hard to keep up. The story moves ahead four years, and Lillian is still blaming everyone and anyone for her problems. Truman, the artist, is romantically interested in her and painted her picture, from memory, and she constantly berates him for invading her privacy and will not let it go. Her husband was a cheater and cheated on her with her own sister and she blames everyone for that even though her husband is dead and her sister is a recovering addict. She just can't let anything go. And after a while, it gets a little boring.
As I said, at the beginning, I gave the author a good rating because of the plot. It began as an interesting and suspenseful story. Also, and this is probably only my opinion, I hate to see children killed in a book when their deaths didn't have any bearing on the story and could have been avoided. If the author wanted to kill off the bad guy OK, but, please not kids. I really commiserated with Lillian at first but, after the first hundred pages, she really became annoying and I didn't like her at all. A good analogy for this book would be the movie "Old Yeller" a wonderful tale of a boy and his dog. The first hour, boy loves dog, dog loves boy. Dog saves boy and then TURN IT OFF! In this case, close the book.
Talk to you soon,
Mary
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