Book Review: "When All My Dreams Come True" by Janelle Mowery

Summary from BN.com: Bobbie McIntyre dreams of running a ranch of her own. Raised without a mother and having spent most of her time around men, she knows more about wrangling than acting like a lady. The friendship of her new employer awakens a desire to learn more about presenting her feminine side, but ranch life keeps getting in the way.

Ranch owner Jace Kincaid figures the Lord is testing his faith when a female wrangler shows up looking for work. Bobbie has an uncanny way of getting under his skin, though, and he's surprised when she finds a home next to his heart. But when his cattle begin to go missing and his wranglers are in danger from some low-down cattle thief, can Jace trust God, even if it may mean giving up on his dreams?

I am probably not the right audience for this book. This was one of those books that I just didn't really enjoy. I couldn't get into the story, I didn't feel anything for the characters and I pretty much found myself not really connecting with anything. This story is supposed to be a historical romance. I say supposed to be historical but except for mentions of having to wear long dresses and not having electricity, I felt everything to be incredibly modern. The way people talked and acted made me feel like I was reading something set in the 21st century. The romance didn't do anything for me at all. I felt no chemistry between the two main characters. Truth be told I actually found them quite boring.

The main thing that bugged me about the book was that I found the story to be incredibly preachy. I felt that every other chapter there were people constantly trying to get Bobbie to become a Christian. They didn't really have good reasons for doing it nor did they really show good examples of faith either. Then there quite a few sermons that I skimmed through because I don't like reading pages of sermons in a fiction book. I'm not sure who the intended audience is for the book. If it's intended to be Christians, then all the pages about becoming a Christian and all the sermons seems to be repetitive and something to skip over. If non Christians read the book, then they will probably want to skip over it as well because it feels very proselytizing. I hate to say this, but this was one of the preachiest books that I have read in a long time. I had thought that Christian fiction was moving away from being this overtly religious and to see it like this was slightly disappointing. This is not to say that I think that faith should not be included in Christian fiction. What I want is realistic situations involving faith and not feel like I'm going to Sunday School.

The only thing that did spark my interest is that Bobbie is respected for being a rancher and her skills are looked upon favorably by the men. While there's some resistance in the beginning, she proves herself to them and they accept her into their group. Therefore it's nice to see a woman who can do a man's job, get respect and still have her femininity. However, this bit is not enough to save the story for me. There were just too many things that I didn't like about the story. This type of book may be good for others, but it's the type of Christian fiction that I am not a fan of and am choosing to stay away from.

When All My Dreams Come True by Janelle Mowery is published by Harvest House (2011)

This review copy was provided by a publicist