Book Review- When Morning Glory Blooms

This week, the

Christian Fiction Blog Alliance

is introducing

When The Morning Glory Blooms

Abingdon Press (April 1, 2013)

by

Cynthia Ruchti

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: 

Cynthia writes stories of hope that glows in the dark, merging her love for storytelling with inextinguishable hope for inexpressible hurts.

Cynthia spends her days diving into words, worship, and wonder and celebrating 40 years of marriage, three grown children, and five outrageously adorable grandchildren. One of her greatest joys is helping other writers grow in their craft. To that end, she served as the assistant director and a faculty member of the Quad Cities Christian Writers Conference, has served as worship and devotions staff for the Write-to-Publish conference, and teaches at other conferences as opportunities arise. She speaks to women’s groups, at mother-daughter banquets, and for women’s refresher days and retreats. It is her delight to serve on her church’s worship team. Rather than “busy,” she likes the term “active.”

For 33 years, Cynthia wrote and produced the radio broadcast The Heartbeat of the Home. The scripted radio drama/devotional broadcast aired on as many as 50 radio stations and two cable/digital television stations over the years. Cynthia was the editor of the ministry’s Backyard Friends magazine, a twenty-page, twice annual publication that reached 5,000 homes, churches, and parachurch outreaches.

ABOUT THE BOOK

Becky rocks a baby that rocked her world. Sixty years earlier, with her fiancé Drew in the middle of the Korean Conflict, Ivy throws herself into her work at a nursing home to keep her sanity and provide for the child Drew doesn't know is coming. Ivy cares for Anna, an elderly patient who taxes Ivy's listening ear until the day she suspects Anna's tall tales are not the ramblings of dementia. They're fragments of Anna's disjointed memories of a remarkable life. Finding a faint thread of hope she can't resist tugging, Ivy records Anna's memoir, scribbling furiously after hours to keep up with the woman's emotion-packed, grace-hemmed stories. Is Ivy's answer buried in Anna's past? Becky, Ivy, Anna--three women fight a tangled vine of deception in search of the blossoming simplicity of truth.

If you would like to read the first chapter of When The Morning Glory Blooms, go HERE.

MY REVIEW-


When Morning Glory Blooms is a story of three women, three different eras, and three different situations.

I found it hard to get into Becky's story because the author kept on switching from things the woman said, did, and things she thought. I had to reread some passages a couple of times to understand what was going on. The huge amount of similes throughout the book, and especially her part, was quite distracting. To the end of the story I never fully comprehended what was the purpose to her story. So many issues and the lack of any type of conclusion made for my least story of the three. 

Ivy, the pregnant young woman whose boyfriend was overseas fighting in Korea was my favorite story. From the first pages of her part your heart went out to her. She is a lonely young woman who is afraid of the future, afraid of being rejected, and who desperately needs love and friendship in her life. I enjoyed seeing what love and God can do to transform a humans hurting heart through her. My favorite story had the least amount of parts and the most acceptable ending of the three. 

I enjoyed the many lessons taught through Anna's portion in the book. The lessons varied from hope, redemption, the consequences of deceit, and depending on Jesus. I enjoyed my time reading this story and would give it a 4 out of 5.