Book Review: For the Record by Regina Jennings

Some of you might suspect the truth--I really like novels and movies with marriage-of-convenience/accident stories, or stories where someone has to pretend to be another's fiance for some outlandish reason and then, of course, they fall in love even though it wasn't in the plan. (Like Hitched for the Holidays, among many, many others)

For the Record by Regina Jennings isn't one of those stories. So it took me a little of a running start to get into it. But once I did, the story unfolded a worth-while romance between two characters who were not looking to get hitched at all.

The setting is Pine Gap, Missouri, back in the day of outlaws and sheriffs. Betsy is an independent-type, 24 yr. old girl. Unlike most independent stereotypes in fiction, she is not anti-family. Rather, she has spent the last however many years raising her cousins after their mom died, and now that her uncle has remarried, she finds herself a financial burden on the family. She wants independence so she can be her own mistress--a reasonable enough desire for a girl in her mid-20s that has managed a house before.

The rest of the plot-line you can get from Amazon, but basically it includes a deputy running from unfounded accusations, a gang of masked vigilantes, and a web of uncertainty about who are the good guys and who are the bad guys.

Part way through my reading today, as the circumstances got even more complicated and dire, I had to remind myself that the author would make sure that everything turned out okay in the end. Sometimes you have to with suspense! And she did. :) The beauty of fiction. The beauty of "love wins out in the end." I hate the oh-so-predictable miscommunication in many novels for the purpose of creating relational conflict. You know the kind I mean--so-and-so has a secret and so-and-so has a secret, and both secrets get revealed suddenly and unexpectedly, and now both parties are so mad that they won't get to the truth of the matter, and you want to yell at the characters to stop and JUST COMMUNICATE! It's like seeing an impending train wreck from afar and cringing as you watch it happen. This story, fortunately, wasn't like that. You could still see the impending disaster, but when the inevitable occurred, you saw the hurt, you saw the doubt, but, in the end, the characters acted like reasonable human beings. Actually, they acted quite stellar.

Overall, I enjoyed the novel. I enjoyed the characters. I enjoyed the halting-developing romance. Finishing For the Record was a sweet way to end my Saturday.