Into the Fire

Presenting a good romance, the CFBA Tour offers Until I Found You by Victoria Bylin, published by Bethany House.

Kate Darby is a Los Angeles advertising/marketing designer who needs a leave of absence from the firm where she works to take care of her beloved grandmother Leona Darby who's recovering from a stroke. Leona is a widow living in the small town of Meadows and runs The Clarion, the local newspaper her husband started, but now must count on Kate to keep it operational while Leona heals.

Helping Leona with feature articles, author Nick Sheridan plans to offer more assistance until Leona is able to resume her duties. However, Nick doesn't realize the beautiful woman trapped in the BMW hanging by some shrubs on the mountain cliff will be his partner at the newspaper because she's Leona's granddaughter. Nick saves Kate's life and loses his heart as the two of them try not to get involved while keeping the paper going strong. 

Okay, it's a romance. And romances follow formulas. Right? So really the only things romance authors have going for them are interesting, unique, quirky, or attractive characters and something to make their stories rise above the typical "boy meets girl, boy and girl suffer conflict, boy and girl resolve conflict, boy and girl attempt to live happily ever after". Christian fiction adds the spiritual dimension to the attractions, conflicts, and resolutions, and here is where a Christian romance novel either shines or fails to arouse what I refer to as "the genuine factor".  

In many ways Until I Found You is the typical Christian fiction romance, but Victoria Bylin has managed to rise above the fray and give us a good story with a very good male co-protagonist in Nick, a confused and fearful female co-protagonist in Kate, who sparks all kinds of emotional reactions from compassion to disgust, with the unusual backdrop of the California condors as the parallel plot point.

Nick has many regrets from his life during the composition of his best known California adventure manual for "real men", but the book still sells well and people recognize his name, especially men who admired his quests and conquests. From those regrets he chose Jesus and his life changed dramatically in spite of the temptations occasionally still haunting him.

Kate struggles mightily with fear, unable to realize that no matter how much she thinks she has her life under control – or that it's even an option – she is usually out of control, confused, overwhelmed, and seeking safe solutions to all of her problems big and small in all the wrong places.

California Condor #53 plays a significant part in eventually leading her to a place where she must either choose the dominance of fear and perpetual chaos or the serenity of allowing personal chains she's carried since her childhood to be loosed.   

Until I Found You presents readers with the dilemmas of accepting faith in God for what it is – the unseen, often unknown in the visual and practical sense. Kate epitomizes the young career woman striving for control of her life and losing at every endeavor to do so even when she feels secure. Nick shows the struggles of a man who indulged most of what the world offered, turning away from the familiar to the holy, and finding it harder than he imagined, especially with the addition of Kate into his life.

Although Kate drove me nuts, I loved the underlying significance of the condors and the persistence and efforts of Nick to walk his talk in the Lord. Leona is a trooper and models a woman of faith who's survived a cruel world and triumphed in Jesus. Until I Found You by Victoria Bylin is a good romance with a dual meaning title and a fantastic cover. And who doesn't love a writer who dedicates her book to another author, listing one of that author's attributes as a "Lover of adjectives"? That set the mood for me. Enjoyed this novel.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0764211528

Father, please watch over Victoria and give her lots of stories to tell. May she enjoy your abundance and continue to honor you in all she does. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.