And on another nearby island . . .

My other most recent read has similarities in terms of setting and background to

Driftwood Lane

, which I reviewed in my last post.

This novel, also a contemporary Christian romance, also occurs on an island off the Coast of Massachusetts near Boston.  However, in this case the entire island is fictional as is the nearby town of Cape Light.

This book is a collaboration of two authors, who as nearly as I can tell have written two series in this fictional area:  a Cape Light series and an Angel Island series.

This book, The Wedding Promise, is the second of the Angel Island series.  An interesting side note is that this is one of two series Christian romance books I have read in the past year in which I found the second book of the series far more enjoyable to read than the first and that in both such cases these series were a two author collaboration.  [The other being the Davis Bunn/Janette Oke series beginning with The Centurion’s Wife.  In that case I found both book two and three more enjoyable than the first book].

In addition to the off-the-coast of Massachusetts setting, the two books share that the female protagonists initially arrive at the island community as the result of the decease of a relative and resolution of the deceased relative’s affairs.  In this case, there are no children involved but as with

Driftwood Lane

, the primary setting location involves a place of public lodging:  in this case a full-service Inn versus a Bed-and-Breakfast.

The matter of the deceased relative factors in The Wedding Promise as well, but it is more in the background than in Driftwood Lane because of the fact that all that history is more set up in the first novel of the series.

The Wedding Promise uses conflicts that arise around the determination of a young couple other than the male and female protagonists to have their wedding at the Inn, despite the Inn’s deteriorated condition and the female protagonist’s inexperience.

Authors Thomas Kinkade and Katherine Spencer deftly build and resolve the conflicts in very organic ways, culminating in the literary epiphany that the male protagonist is hiding something.

In an unusual but effective move, the authors do not leave the full realization of the male protagonist’s mysterious past unidentified for long.  And they effectively use the “show don’t tell” principle by revealing the nature of the male protagonist’s secret through actions that speak far louder than words.

As with Driftwood Lane, the authors pack a good deal of action and resolution into the last few pages of the book.

In this case, however, as part of a series, although the romance advances towards the end of the book, we are still left without a full realization of the male and female protagonists’s romance as the book reaches its conclusion.  That is left for additional books in the Angel Island series.