Book Review: Dreaming of a Father's Love by Sharon A. Lavy

Dreaming of a Father’s Love

By Sharon A Lavy

Story and Logic Media Group (December 26, 2012)

ISBN 978-0615724362

ASIN: B00ATTLBO6

Price e-format: 6.99

Print: 15.99

 

Enjoy the trailer:

Old Order Fiction

From the publisher: Sara Brubaker was two years old when a German Baptist couple adopted her. She has become a beautiful woman, and works as a secretary for Alexander's. Now she's torn between wanting to live in the normal world of fun and fashion, or joining the Dunkards to truly belong with her adoptive family. Birdie Alexander thinks if she works at the family business hard enough and long enough she will gain her father's love. Can she learn a thing or two from the German Baptist secretary? Irene West is Birdie's lifelong Sunday school friend. Irene misses having a father figure around, and is very boy crazy, which causes Birdie to struggle with the friendship and Irene to struggle with life. Will Birdie overcome her self-righteous nature before it's too late—for Irene?

 

Sharon Lavy’s debut novel is a trip back in time. I hate to admit it, but I knew all the Helen Reddy songs that Birdie sings.

Dreaming of a Father’s Love is a many-layered story of finding love, or realizing that it’s been there all along, for Lavy’s characters. Growing up in the crazy early 1970s when women were beginning to assert themselves was tough enough in the general population, but when you belong to a fairly strict mainline faith, it’s even harder. Birdie wants to make choices about her future for herself, but it’s difficult with a father she feels is over-critical and harsh when he really wants the best for her. During the summer after high school graduation all the dreadful events that happen to her family and friends could have sunk her, if not for the deep-seated faith which was her foundation. Dealing with a love triangle, figuring out how to help or deal with her friends, both old and new, and her family help her realize her place in the community in which she lives and wants to stay.

 

Lavy’s story is told in many and occasionally dizzying viewpoints, so readers will want to pay close attention to who belongs to whom. I enjoyed the snippets of life in that era, as well as getting to know a little more about the various faiths in their culture. It was sometimes hard to cheer for Birdie and her decade-older love interest, Dax who was searching for missing family, as their lives and romance seemed to move along pretty quickly from a standstill, but I adored the house and history behind (and inside) that Dax bought and restored. Hopefully future books from Story and Logic Media Group will take a bit more care with proofreading to avoid missing punctuation as I found, but didn’t mind too much, in the e-version supplied by the author.

 

Readers who enjoy a trip down memory lane to the tumultuous seventies and a really special house restoration layered with a search for one’s identity, will find Dreaming of a Father’s Love a fascinating read.