A Desperate Hope - Christian Fiction Review

A Desperate Hope by Elizabeth Camden
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Eloise Drake's past comes back to haunt her as she must return to the town so near where she spent much of her childhood and the man she fell in love with so many years before. Her relationship with Alex Duval ended badly 12 years ago, but Eloise is bound and determined to keep her heart safe and follow the rules as she works for the state on a project which will demolish the town Alex grew up in and is currently the mayor of.

I really wanted to like this book, but there were too many big problems for me. As a clean read fiction I'd give it a solid 4 stars. The characters are interesting, if infuriatingly hard-headed, and the emotions are definitely rampant with everyone involved. I don't think the characters really grew enough for my liking, but I had a really big problem with people overlooking big sins and character flaws.

I will preach God's grace until he takes me home, but if that's the only part of the gospel that you get then you're in big trouble. Eloise and Alex had some youthful transgressions which are more or less brushed off as just that. I don't want characters to live in guilt, but Alex, at least, didn't even acknowledge that what they had done was wrong. It seemed justified because they were in love. The same goes for Eloise's guardian. He's not a good man. He has some redeeming qualities and acts at the end, but there seems to be no repentance for any of the characters. They brush off their sins as everyone makes mistakes and as long as you do some good deed here and there then you're all right. A very works based religion.

So if you read the book as a clean read romance then you'll probably enjoy it. If you're looking for even a hint of biblically based spiritual truth then you will not find it here. The Christianity is sparse and seems thrown in to appease the publishing house, but it would have been better off left out all together.


I received a free copy of this book from Net Galley in exchange for my honest review.

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