The Second Coming of Lucy Hatch by Marsha Moyer

On vacation I also read this interesting book. I feel like I should critique this book in two parts: the part I liked (aka the first part) versus the part I didn't like (aka the last/middleish part). First of all this story is about a 33 year old girl named Lucy Hatch whose husband of 14 years dies in a farm machinery accident. She goes to live in her small home town in Texas to be near family and tries to build a new life on her own while dealing with her husband's, who she says that she never really loved and who never really loved her, death. She meets this guy named Ash and they fall in love and etc etc. He helps her come to know who she really is and live life in a different way yadda yadda yadda.

Ok, so I liked the premise of the story: a girl suffers a life changing experience and tries to get back on her feet. Tangent alert---->She gets a job at a flower shop which I think would be the greatest job ever! If I ever get the opportunity to have a part time job that I'm not depending on to be financially stable I would LOVE to work in a flower shop. How much better could life get? You get to work amongst heavenly smelling flowers and can use your creative juices to make something beautiful. Plus you can deliver flowers to make people happy, because we all know that flowers make everyone happy, at least a little bit. ahh, I think that would be so wonderful.

Anyway, I liked where the story was going, what with getting the job and trying to find herself. I even liked the love interest, Ash. For me the story fell apart as soon as Ash and Lucy actually got together. It got way too intimate and focused on sex for a good chunk of the second half of the book. I had checked out the sequels from the library to bring with me on the trip, and from the book summary on the back cover they sound like they could be good books. But I don't want to read them because I have a suspicion that they'll be like the first: a little good story, a lot of unnecessary and inappropriate spice.

Overall I probably wouldn't recommend this book to anyone. It could have been really good but was ruined by explicit romance. And I totally did NOT get this from the romance section, it came from general fiction at the library. I'll have you all know I've never actually read a romance novel, and after reading this book I'm convinced that I shouldn't. I should probably stick to Young Adult fiction; it's more fun and generally clean.

Overall rating: 2 out of 5