Waiting for a View - Review

Waiting for a View Book One of Bloomfield Series by Debby Mayne Genre: Christian, Romance

     Bloomfield is a tiny little town with a population of just under 10,000. Like all small towns, everyone knows everybody - and their business - and has for years. After a bad relationship, Sherry Butler has decided that she is better off alone. Naomi, who has acted as Sherry's surrogate mother since she was young, decides it is time to get Sherry out of her rut. There is also a smaller subplot where the president of the garden club is on a mission to increase the town's rating to a small town, which requires them to get over that 10,000 mark.

     Sherry's situation kind of got under my skin a little bit. On one hand, I can certainly relate to the whole concept of giving up. It is easy to get tired of the whole dating scene, frustrated with the inability to find a decent mate, realization that the relationships in one's past has only added to one's misery instead of increasing the happiness factor in one's life. However, Sherry has only had ONE relationship, not a string of idiots that she has had to deal with. Her ex-boyfriend wasn't abusive and it didn't seem to me to be all that traumatic to justify Sherry's fear of becoming involved. Maybe there was a subconcious fear of finding a man like her dad, but while Sherry was embarrassed by her father's alcoholism she never seemed to fear him.

     Naomi's meddling begins to get annoying, even though it is obvious that Naomi's motivation is that she truly cares about Sherry and not that she is some tyranical control freak. On the other hand, as awful as Naomi's pushing becomes I couldn't help but wish that I had someone in my life like her to give me a hand out of life's ruts. Someone who sees that you are settling for a life that you might be content with, but isn't really fulfilling. The citizens of Bloomfield may seem overly involved in each other's lives but you can feel that there is real compassion and a sense of taking care of their own, behind their actions.

     Overall, this book was a nice beginning for the Bloomfield series, which will have 9 books in the series by several different authors. I think it would be very easy to become just as involved in the resident's lives as if you were an honorary neighbor living amongst them.

     **Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book for this review, but even so this is my honest opinion.