Terri

Title: Terri
Author: Sharon Srock
Series: Women of Valley View, book 2 (Ladies of Garfield, book 2)
Major Themes: Foster Parenting, Romance
Synopsis: Longing to have her own family, Terri decides to begin foster parenting, but when the first day ends up much more complicated than she anticipated, can she learn to rely on the Lord as she needs to?

After finishing several more difficult books, I wanted something easy to read for a change of pace, so I picked Terri. Had no idea what to expect when I went into it—apart from the fact that it would likely end up being a romance, so I was pleasantly surprised to find a story about a new foster mom—but what a story!

Terri has always wanted to have children. Now thirty, with no prospects in sight, she’s starting to get a little antsy. When she happens to come across a mention of foster-parenting, then, she is thrilled with the idea, and soon after applies. When a domestic dispute happens, and a little girl suddenly needs a new home for a while, her hopes seem fulfilled—she finally has a pseudo-daughter! Life as a parent is not as easy as she thought, however, and when she arrives home from picking up her new daughter to find the lower level of her house flooded, it’s just the beginning of her troubles.

Out of all the characters in the story, I think I enjoyed the young couple the most. They really wanted to do what was right, but due to a difficult situation and wrong choices, they ended up in a place they really didn’t want to be in. Sin does that, and it was illustrated so beautifully in their lives—both in what happened to them, and how they eventually came to know hope as well.

I felt like this was a multi-leveled book, dealing with foster parenting and the parents of foster children, learning contentment in the season you’re in, and learning to rely on God for guidance (although there might not have been quite as much of that as I would have liked—unfortunately, as happens often in real life, emotions made decisions, not a mindset focused on Jesus and kingdom work). In all, though I did enjoy the story, I think the romance ended up a bit much for me. I think I tend to prefer seeing a careful evaluation of God’s guidance in our lives over how someone might feel about someone else, and the latter seemed to be the basis for the main point of the book. So…yeah, it was a good story. I loved parts of it. But if you don’t like something that’s geared for the romance market, you may not like Terri.

The author gave me a free copy of this book, and this is my honest opinion of it.

WARNING: There is verbal fighting in ch. 1. Drugs are mentioned in ch. 1 and 19. Someone curses or swears in ch. 1, 18, and 19. The phrase “hurts like the devil” is used in ch. 8. The phrase “he’d be hanged” is used in ch. 16. The phrase “load of c—” is used in ch. 16. The phrase “that’s God’s truth” is used in ch. 16. The word “gee” appears in ch. 15. The word “blowin’ ” is used in ch. 16. There is touching or kissing between unmarried characters in ch. 9, 10, 11, 13, 15, 16, 19, 20, 23, and 24. Usually, the kisses last several sentences, and are fairly well described. One of the characters admire physical attributes of romantic interests in ch. 9. Halloween decorations are described in ch. 13.