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I loved Donna VanLiere’s autobiography Finding Grace and so I was excited when I got the opportunity to read and review The Christmas Secret. I hadn’t read any of VanLiere’s Christmas series, though I did see the movie version of The Christmas Shoes (and of course, heard the song.) Since Finding Grace was an almost perfectly
written book, I looked forward to reading VanLiere’s fiction. Unfortunately, I was disappointed with The Christmas Secret. Not so much with the storyline; I enjoyed that. Most of my disappointment was due to the writing itself. I think a little more editing was in order.

The book begins with a prologue in which the protagonist, Christine, recalls a particular
Christmas in her childhood, and how her adult life since then had been spent stumbling around without any direction or goal. “I got to the point in my life where I was so tired of waiting and wanted to know that my life was not just leading anywhere but somewhere,” she tells us. Christine ends the prologue by stating that with help, “I discovered the gift.” This was similar to the theme of Finding Grace, so I was drawn right into the story. But the first chapter gave me troubles. It’s subtitled “November - One Year Earlier,” which I took to mean a year earlier in Christine’s childhood, since the prologue takes place then. But no, it means a year earlier than her discovering the “gift” which is summed up in the epilogue at the end of the book. At any rate it took me three paragraphs into the chapter when Christine’s five-year-old daughter enters the scene to realize the storyline has jumped to Christine as an adult. The subtitle should have been eliminated altogether; it was unnecessary and just caused confusion.

Later in the same chapter, Christine has a flashback of a conversation with her mother. Again, this transition was a bit confusing. I think the section should have been broken with an extra line of space to better delineate that it’s a flashback instead of mashing
it between the scenes taking place in the present.

But by far the most irksome thing of the novel to me was the choice to switch from Christine’s first-person point of view to other characters’ third-person point of view. I suppose I’ve read novels before that do this, but I found it quite jarring. I would have preferred Christine’s POV to be in third-person to match with the rest of the characters.

VanLiere choses not to name the town in which the story takes place (or at least, I never saw a name), so when Christine tells us, “When Brad found a job here my mother seemed angry,” my first thought was where’s “here”? The restaurant Christine is working in when she relates this to us? The town? The state? My confusion could have been avoided by simply replacing “here” with “in this town” or by simply giving the town a name.

Some of the writing gave me a chuckle, such as this sentence: “‘Everyone clocks in here,’ she said, pushing open the door to an empty room filled with vending machines and three small round tables with chairs.” (An “empty” room shouldn’t be “filled” with anything but air.) I’m not saying the writing was bad, it just needed a little more polishing/editing.

And one last complaint. One thing about Christine’s character that bothered me no end was the fact that she refuses to allow her ex-husband visitation with their children because he hasn’t paid child support. This is the only reason she continually refuses contact. I find this vindictive and petty. Of course he should be paying child support and is a deadbeat not to. Yes, he’s a jerk to her and pulls nasty stunts of his own to get even. However, he is not abusive or dangerous to her or the children, so there’s no reason she should cut off contact between them. And since she’s desperate for a babysitter, refusing to allow him to care for the children is plain silly. She doesn’t even allow the children to know he stops by to see them. Severing their relationship with him over money is selfish. He is their father and a continuing relationship with them should be encouraged, not used as a weapon. (Besides, he’s more likely to pay up if he actually gets to see his kids.) None of the characters point this out to her; in fact they aid her in keeping the ex away from the children. Disgusting. (Okay, enough of my soapbox.)

So each of these annoyances kept me from really enjoying the book at first. However, after 80 or 90 pages (and a day or so break from reading it) I really started getting into the story. I liked the characters, enjoyed the multiple storylines and how they interconnected, found the romance appealing, guessed most of the twists beforehand (which didn’t diminish their reveals) and didn’t get tripped up with any more of the writing. Most of the mysteries are resolved at the end, and I felt satisfied after the book was finished. It’s possible I’d read the book again, and I am still definitely interested in reading VanLiere’s previous Christmas books. And I plan to watch the movie versions of the books on LMN. Overall, I’d give the book a solid ”B” grade. Well done, with plenty room for improvement.

For more information about Donna VanLiere and her books, visit http://www.donnavanliere.com.
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He is able to survive in the wilderness, but upon his arrival back to civilization, no one believes his story. They assume he is one of the terrorists that hijacked the airplane, so Young escapes to Las Vegas to determine why he was targeted and who was responsible for his ordeal. He lives as a street person and meets four people who believe his story: a sociopath, a prostitute, an alcoholic doctor and a pickpocket.

These people become his allies. They travel with him to the east coast and then to Europe. As Young continues his investigation, he discovers abuses on the part of his employer that could result in mortal danger for innumerable innocent patients. He must act quickly to expose the danger by staying one step ahead of the unknown criminals who are closing in on him and his allies.

Price: $18.95 (paperback)
Author Bio: Author of Unwanted
Inheritance, Robert B. Bolin practiced oncology in a small northwestern town in the United States for more than twenty-one years and has written several medical articles. He currently lives in eastern Oregon.

***

As a thriller, The Broken Parachute Man suffers from an identity crisis: it starts out
with a bang, but soon veers into a wilderness survival guide, then a gritty life-on-the-streets drama before settling into a detective story wrapped around a lesson
on pharmaceutical drug research and development. But in the end I liked it as a coming-of-middle-age character study.

Clyde Young is a middle-aged, middle-management type with average looks. He’s a bit
frightened of the world, unsure of himself, and is hopelessly stuck in a dull, predictable life. Getting thrown out of an airplane by terrorists is probably the best thing that could have happened to him. He survives a hard winter stranded in the mountains, learns to live on the streets, and finally pushes to discover why he of all people was targeted for elimination by a pharmaceutical company. He doesn’t instantly transform into a rough, self-assured man, but as he perseveres through each small victory, he slowly comes to realize his own strength of will. The Broken Parachute Man isn’t the best thriller I’ve read; it rarely gets you on the edge of your seat with nail-biting action, but I really liked Clyde, and rooted for him throughout the book. He was like the tortoise in Aesop’s fable; each plodding step bringing him closer to solving the mystery that started with a shove out of a plane.

The book starts out as a thriller, what with Clyde getting pushed out of an airplane and landing in the mountains and all. However, he doesn’t get rescued right away. Instead, he has to survive several months in the wilderness. This part of the story doesn’t fit the “thriller” genre, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. After he gets rescued, he ends up homeless in Las Vegas, and we see him developing friendships with other homeless
characters and learning to live in a different type of wilderness: the streets. Again, not a thriller, but it works as a drama of sorts. Finally, Clyde decides to start investigating the company he worked for, and he slowly solves the mystery, which includes an overly  complicated explanation of drug formulation. At one point near the end, Clyde says, “I think I can see the players, but the plot is too complex for me.” That’s about how I felt; there were several “bad guys” each with multifarious motives. Keeping it all straight took a bit more concentration than I prefer. The author apparently thought so too, because after the main mystery is solved, he has the characters explain the plot in detail to each other to make sure we, the readers, understand who did what and why.

The Broken Parachute Man is filled with memorable characters, though I had trouble
telling the difference between two of them: Dan and George, Clyde’s homeless buddies. I blame this on myself rather than the author, however, because he infused both
characters with their own quirks and disparate personalities. I don’t know why I couldn’t keep them straight; perhaps because both were introduced at about the same time and have rather nondescript names. The rest of the characters were quite clear in my mind, and all were fleshed out.

The book, however, contains a most egregious error for a thriller/mystery: the character Dan asserts that another character couldn’t have been responsible for a particular criminal attack because that character was already in jail. This claim didn’t sound right when I read it, so I immediately went back and read the previous chapters and discovered the criminal attack happened a full four days prior to the arrest.
Oops. Looks like the storyline was too complex for even the author to keep straight.

But the one thing about The Broken Parachute Man that really irritated me was the
author’s choice to periodically speak directly to the reader throughout the first several chapters. The moment Clyde gets a parachute strapped to him and shoved out the
plane, the author interjects the story with this: “At this time, I’m sure you, the reader, are questioning the story and wondering if I’m confabulating.” Huh? I’m in the middle of one of the most exciting moments in the book and the author yanks me out to tell me what I’m thinking? Later when Clyde wakes to discover he has survived the fall out of the plane, the author asserts, “Now, if I was a reasonable reader, at this point, I would scoff at the whole story.” Once again I’m pulled out of the adventure and told to question the validity of the events. Um, I’m reading a fiction book here. The suspension of disbelief is a given. Don’t jump in and tell me I shouldn’t trust every word. Did Tolkien constantly interrupt his readers to say, “I’m sure you’re having trouble believing in the existence of hobbits.” Or “As a reasonable reader, you’re probably scoffing at the idea of a magical ring.” Absolutely not. When I’m reading Lord of the Rings I totally believe in hobbits, elves, wizards and powerfully evil rings. Thankfully the author quit jumping in with unwanted opinions after the first few chapters.

Overall, The Broken Parachute Man is a lousy thriller, but the characters were so lively
and sympathetic, I didn’t much care that the plot was a convoluted, slow-paced mess. I’m unlikely to read it again, but I’m don’t feel cheated for having read it once. Experiencing Clyde Young’s transformation into a hopeful, confidant individual was worth it.

Buy The Broken Parachute Man: A Novel of Medical Intrigue
Visit the authors website at http://www.robertbolin.com