Redeeming Claire (Love Inspired (Numbered))

Rating:
Summary: She¿s Not Cut Out to Be a Pastor¿s Wife, or is She?
Review: Claire Waters doesn't like children, doesn't like the settled down kind of married life either. Her best friend has twins, they are a handful and all she wants is away from them. Her father is disappointed that she hasn't married and she'd like to get away from him for a while too. So she decides to look up fun loving Tony Karelli, who she hasn't seen in a couple years.

Tony has just graduated from seminary school and has accepted a position as pastor of small town Millville, outside of Des Moines, Iowa. He wants to do a good job, believes he can too. Then his land lady asks when his fiancée is going to arrive. It turns out that there had been a mix up. The town wants a married pastor and somehow they'd gotten Tony by mistake. Tony is just about to tell her about the problem, when happy go lucky Claire shows up on his doorstep. Even though she'd walked in on the middle of the conversation, she quickly gets the gist of what's going on and to Tony's horror, plays along at being his fiancée and before long she has the whole town eating out of her hand.

So what is it going to cost Tony when the truth comes out? What's it going to cost Claire? Even as Tony is contemplating these questions, he finds himself falling in love in this inspirational romance that had me hook, line and sinker from page one. This is simply a wonderful story and one that you shouldn't miss.

Rating:
Summary: highly enjoyable
Review: For those of you who have read "The Marrying Kind" you might remember Taylor's old friend, Tony, and the "baracuda" that Nick was trying to escape named Claire Waters. For those of you who haven't, you'll love "The Marrying Kind", but you don't have to read it to enjoy "Redeeming Claire".
In this book Claire wants her dad off her back about something so she decides to look up Tony and "convince" him to pretend to be her fiance. When she arrives she is surprised to find that Tony is a minister and that his parshiners think he has a fiancee. Claire takes advantage of the situation and off it goes.
This story is absolutly hilarious, but it has some serious points involving a girl who gets in over her head. Claire has a lot of growing up to do and . . . well, read the book. You'll see what I mean.

Rating:
Summary: highly enjoyable
Review: I really enjoyed this book. It seemed realistic and you could relate to the people. I especially loved the old lady who loved to gossip and how people effectively cut her off. I would recommend this book to anyone. It dealt with what new christians deal with when first going back to church. It showed how God does the changing and people should not judge.

Rating:
Summary: A Christian's Viewpoint
Review: With the purpose of getting back at her father, Claire pretends to be engaged to Tony, a recently hired pastor. He goes along with the charade because part of the reason he was hired was due to the fact that his parishioners mistakenly thought he had a fiance. They fall in love...obviously...and Claire "grows up."

I have both good and bad to say about this book. First of all, on a good note, it kept my attention the whole way to the end. All of the books I have read of Cynthia Rutledge are pretty well written as far as not being boring the reader, and they are not at all hard to get into.

Now what I didn't like: (If you don't care about moral issues in choosing which books to read, it's okay to disregard this section of my review.) I was highly disappointed in what Cynthia seemed to consider acceptable behavior, especially for a pastor who is supposed to be an example and leader to his congregation. He had barely enough qualms in deceiving everyone around him to appease the author of his being in the wrong. He also liked very, very passionately kissing his Non-Fiance an awful lot (even before they developed feelings for each other) for a man who was supposed to be mature and self-controlled, not to mention a witness to others - including a teenage girl who needs guidance. I know this isn't even close to a big issue in secular books, but when published under a Christian series, I believe that authors should be careful as to what types of behaviors they are endorsing. While Cynthia's actions are extremely selfish and comparatively far worse, at least the author points out the error of her ways and does not think of them as acceptable.

Okay, that's it. Like I said, if you want an easy read, go ahead. Just don't take it as a sign that it's okay as a Christian to act in certain ways...And this is the end of my review.