Beyond a Broken Dream: A Christian Clean & Wholesome Contemporary Romance

I only give it 4 start cause I wanted more! Love love these books

Intriguing read!

First, I wanna say I love the premise of the story. A live in nurse taking care of a little girl with leukemia, falling in love with the girl’s widower father and teaching them both about God is an absolutely beautiful concept. (Could be biased there as my folks met in similar circumstances minus the cancer and mansions. There was a “love triangle” though. lol) And I genuinely enjoyed Heather’s interactions with Evelyn.

The story as a whole does have quite a few issues though.

The way Michael and Heather’s first interaction didn’t make much sense to me. I can understand Michael being resentful towards God, but considering he’s a businessman and the fact his daughter could die without a live in nurse, I would figure he wouldn’t have the outburst he did there. I don’t know much about how live in nurses and their options in that scenario, but I’d figure Heather would have every right to leave at that point. If that outburst happened later on in the story, I think it would have had more impact.

I also feel the story is bogged down by lots of unnecessary side characters who don’t add a whole lot to the story. Charlie just disappears from the story after Michael got shot, and there were twin boys mentioned that only appear once and were never seen again. Cynthia was also rather one dimensional as an antagonist.

I feel if you focused a lot more on the dynamic of Michael, Heather and Evelyn and cut some side characters out, I think the story would have been stronger for it.

The writing also seems repetitive in a lot of areas. “Wetness” when referring to tears is a big example. And being told Heather and Evelyn have a mother and daughter relationship four to five times was a bit grating. And large swaths of the story was spent with Heather and Michael ruminating over their feelings for each other and repeating the same thing over and over. Some editing and more variety in word usage would be great.

With all that said, there were scenes I genuinely liked. I did enjoy the theme of God having control and having a plan for everyone.

And I actually liked the ending. While I think Michael getting burned not long after he survived being shot is a bit over the top, I do like Heather choosing to love him anyway and offer to care for him. Very much in character with both her and God. Other people complain that it isn’t a one hundred percent happy ending, but most people in the Bible didn’t have perfect endings to their stories either. I can appreciate you not going for an overly perfect ending.

All in all, I pray you will continue in your endeavors and improve as a writer. God bless.