Tuesday, May 10, 2022

A Beauty Refined by Tracie Peterson

 Phoebe Von Bergen is visiting Helena Montana with her domineering father who is in search of sapphires from the recently developed saphire mines.  Phoebe is used to using her beauty and wealth to get positive attention from men, but has never really cared for any of them.  Then she meets Ian Harper, who is a local lapidary.  She is impressed with the kindness he shows to a young boy and to his mother and her friend.  As Pheobe's father conducts his questionable business dealings, Phoebe finds she has much deeper connections with the people in this small town than she could have immagined.  She also comes to realize that her father is much more sinister than she had ever allowed herself to imagine. As she becomes more distanced from her father, she finds herself growning closer to Ian and his friends and family. Could they be her family, too?

I am not sure why I read this book. The writing is so bad.  The dialog is stilted, the characters are cookie cutter, and everyone's reactions to crisis is so unnatural.  It really is like a meladrama stage play.  I was looking for something light to read after The Slow March of Light, and just picked this one because I knew it would be clean.  I think I had forgotten how much I had been disappointed in the first in the series.  Yet, I stuck it out.  I guess the story was engaging enough to pull me through, (though, I did finish two other books while trying to get through this one).  I need to remember how bad the writing is and not mistakenly check out the third one. (2016, 318 p)

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