Book Review~The Writing Desk by Rachel Hauck
The Blurb
Tenley Roth’s first book was a runaway bestseller. Now that her second book is due, she’s locked in fear. Can she repeat her earlier success or is she a fraud who has run out of inspiration?
With pressure mounting from her publisher, Tenley is weighted with writer’s block. But when her estranged mother calls asking Tenley to help her through chemotherapy, she packs up for Florida where she meets handsome furniture designer Jonas Sullivan and discovers the story her heart’s been missing.
A century earlier, another woman wrote at the same desk with hopes and fears of her own. Born during the Gilded Age, Birdie Shehorn is the daughter of the old money Knickerbockers. Under the strict control of her mother, her every move is decided ahead of time, even whom she’ll marry. But Birdie has dreams she doesn’t know how to realize. She wants to tell stories, write novels, make an impact on the world. When she discovers her mother has taken extreme measures to manipulate her future, she must choose between submission and security or forging a brand new way all on her own.
Tenley and Birdie are from two very different worlds, but fate has bound them together in a way time cannot erase.
My Book Review of The Writing Desk by Rachel Hauck
Some books just grab you from the start. I will be honest. This was not the book. But read on…
Maybe it was because I started this book on a night when I was already tired, or maybe it was because I didn’t expect the point of view of each chapter to switch between so many characters, so I was a little confused the first few chapters. I have a problem with not paying close attention to characters’ names, and that caused an issue for me for about the first three or four chapters. Not the writer’s fault. Mine completely.
But, oh my!! Once I figured out what character I was reading about, the story clicked for me.
The Writing Desk is told in the third person point of view, but the writing so beautiful, I truly felt like I experienced what that characters felt, saw, and experienced. The lost love, the fear, the anxiety… Will Birdie and Eli make it? Will Tenley and Jonas? And what the heck does she really see in that boyfriend of hers anyway?
Another factor I truly loved about this book was the Christian elements. While there were several mentions of God, as Rachel Hauck is a Christian writer, I never gathered the tone of preachy or in your face Jesus. Because while I love God just like the next born and raised Bible Belt, southern girl, no one wants to be preached to or at.
Rachel Hauck is becoming one of my favorite authors. This is the third book of her’s I have read, and I look forward to reading more. Great books, like this one, encourage me to truly dive deeper and work harder in my own writing.
If you are looking for a Christian romance that mixes past and present day, with a slow-burning need for you to not stop turning the page, this is your book.
I can’t wait to find other authors like her.
Until next time! Go read something.
Erin