Searching for Sara Review

Searching for Sara by Nona Mae King is a Christian historical romance. It is set in the early 1890’s. The story is about Sara Little, an English servant who dreams of a better life. When she gets the opportunity to be sponsored to go to America and make a new way for herself, she sets out on the journey that will change her life forever. Her sponsors are Christopher Lake and his wife, who’s death leaves him a widow and single father before Sara completes her journey to America. Now he is left to fulfill their dream of helping the less fortunate make better lives for themselves on his own and he does not hesitate to offer his aid when Sara arrives.

I gave this book a 2 out of 5 stars. There were quite a few grammatical mistakes throughout the book that I found distracting. I also wasn’t fond of the overly common descriptive phrases and use of expressions we hear everywhere. I prefer description (especially of feelings both emotional and physical) to be more original and creative, or straight to the point.

Sara’s character felt very caricature ‘British’ (using stereotypical British words, etc.) versus a real honest representation of a British person. She also didn’t seem realistic in how shy/ hesitant she was (it felt over the top). Christopher’s character seemed to seesaw between the grieving, angry at God husband and the calm, content, kind-hearted business man/ sponsor in the first ¾ of the book. In the last section he was seesawing between the grieving husband and the man falling in love. He just didn’t really make sense to me and I couldn’t follow his emotional progression very well. I don’t mind a nice story of second love, but I don’t feel it was handled well here (or maybe that it wasn’t expressed well). I see potential, but that is about it.

The idea of this story was interesting and I was really looking forward to reading it. Unfortunately it didn’t rise to my expectations or hopes. There were a couple interesting twists the author did, but I’m not entirely sure how I feel about a few of them. By the end of the book, the romance seemed to become the plot, even though there were other plot developments throughout the story that could have been followed, but were left uncompleted. I do believe those plot holes will be developed in future books, but I have no desire to read them. I would have found the story more satisfying if those other plot aspects had remained the focus (the romance remaining a subplot) and had some resolution for those, instead of a rushed romance at the end of the book.

Overall, there is a lot of potential in this book, but I don’t think potential alone makes it worth reading. I am sadly disappointed as I think the set up for this book could have been something that I really enjoyed.