Book Review: The Promise of Forgiveness by Marin Thomas

The Promise of Forgiveness by Marin Thomas

Berkley (March 1, 2016)

Women’s Fiction

BLURB:

A novel of love, forgiveness, and the unbreakable bonds of family from award-nominated author Marin Thomas . . . When it comes to family, Ruby Baxter hasn’t had much luck. The important men in her early life abandoned her, and any time a decent boyfriend came along, she ran away. But now Ruby is thirty-one and convinced she is failing her teenage daughter. Mia is the one good thing in her life, and Ruby hopes a move to Kansas will fix what’s broken between them. But the road to redemption takes a detour. Hank McArthur, the biological father Ruby never knew existed, would like her to claim her inheritance: a dusty oil ranch just outside of Unforgiven, Oklahoma. As far as first impressions go, the gruff, emotionally distant rancher isn’t what Ruby has hoped for in a father. Yet Hank seems to have a gift for rehabilitating abused horses—and for reaching Mia. And if Ruby wants to entertain the possibility of a relationship with Joe Dawson, the ranch foreman, she must find a way to open her heart to the very first man who left her behind.

REVIEW:

She was tired of running. It was time to stand her ground and reach for the happiness that she’d denied herself for so long.

When I first started reading this novel, my impression was this is a weird small town that didn’t offer much but strange/creepy men and wondered what really was up with the lack of females. I had just finished reading a few contemporary romances so I guess my reading frame was still in that genre. It did not take me long into the book to really get into this story. The author wrote the setting so that I could picture it, actually even taste the dusty land. The author wove the town around lies, secrets, cheating, threats, and grudges and I couldn’t get enough of it. The flawed characters added to the story and were intriguing. The lead female is not your typical lead; she’s no sweet thing, she’s rough around the edges, has had a rough life being a single parent but she a good person with a good heart and she won me over. Poor Hank with his shattered heart as he waited over 30 years for his true love to return to him. This is a novel of betrayal, acceptance, trust, and growth. A wonderfully done novel on healing and forgiveness. Very enjoyable!

BUY LINKS:

Amazon: http://a.co/hQq2Acp

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

A small-town girl goes off to college to play basketball only to discover by chance that she likes spinning stories as much as she loves shooting baskets. Then real life happened; she married and entered the workforce. It wasn’t until she gave up her career to stay at home and raise her children that she rediscovered her love of writing and set about penning novels that open the heart and heal the soul.