Lori Wick lives in Wisconsin with her husband Bob. She has three children, two boys and a girl, and has written more than two dozen books.
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Stand alone works: Bamboo & Lace Sophie's Heart Pretense The Princess Every Storm Short Stories: Beyond the Picket Fence |
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I reread Bamboo & Lace last week for something like the third or fourth time. If
I have a favorite Lori Wick novel, that might be it. There's something about the blend in
it that's essentially why I read her when straight-up romances really aren't my thing.
In romances there usually has to be other things that hold me, like historical information
or fascinating character development in a totally non-romantic vein. I suppose there's something
of the latter in Bamboo & Lace, but there's also something about the romance that
makes me sigh with, dare I say it as a single person, satisfaction. Let me clarify something:
it's not just that the guy gets the girl, it's how he gets her and the path the couple
took to getting there. I'm not talking about leaping monumental obstacles and riding the
emotional rush of near-death experiences.
Nope. Not even close.
We all like our characters to be real, to be seen making mistakes and struggling through things.
Oftentimes romances seem to cheat this process, making those struggles cheap because
the only reason for their existence is a better guy-gets-the-girl story. I suppose on
some level you could classify some of Ms. Wick's books that way, but the shining difference
here is the relationship with God, family, and friends (in that order) that her characters reveal.
Conversations with God take place and personal growth without the characters being forced to
some artificially low level of relating to keep them "relevant" to the highest possible number
of people. If all characters are displayed at the lowest common denominator, how will anyone
ever know what is to be aspired to -- and this is not saying the characters should also be
unreachable in their spiritual walk. God is seemlessly woven into the lives of the characters,
Christian or not, because the mini-world of the novel created is reflected from a point of view
that is firmly planted in a Christian worldview. That worldview doesn't need the heights of
doctrine, but it does show where we stand in direct relation to God.
Ms. Wick also takes pains in the creation of relationships between family and friends, but
especially family, to show how relationships can and in many places should be even while
people are sinning and living life under the grace of God. As par the conventions of the genre
there are larger than life characters and characters of worth who exist, but are not easily found.
This might suggest that these relationships are pie in the sky that are just too much to
expect.
Yet don't we do enough already of the Everybody Loves Raymond family because
we know that's reality -- people will scrap and fight and be nasty -- and give into it,
naturally self-perpetuating it. What's wrong with shooting for a higher goal? The
pragmatists in us might say, 'get real! let's deal with what's really here', and they
are somewhat right. Reality should be faced. But reality can't be improved it
better is never expected. Reality may never look like a romance book, and in some
ways it can't (that's why they're called romances). There are good romances
and there are bad romances. The good should point to something better and something right.
Then there's no loss in ingesting the hope for better they offer, because reality
seems to offer so little hope when it's gritty sand in our eyes.
I like Bamboo & Lace and the premsie behind many of Ms. Wick's books because
they offer me hope, they encourage me to have right relationships with people and
most importantly God, and they recognize the significance of placing faith and
the actions of faith in the important issues of life without apology and with
great sincerity. I leave them encouraged and desiring a walk with God like the
characters. And any book that leads me to desire to walk in obedience is always worth
reading.
The Kapaia family learns a good deal from Lily Walsh when she comes to stay with them after her visit to her brother Jeff is turned upside down. She struggles with the cultural differences between the country in which she was raised (the fictional Kashien) and that of Hawaii. Much of the struggle exists in the need to honor her father even when his control proves unreasonable. She is strengthened by the support system the Kapaias and her brother provide so that she is finally able to confront the relational problems between her and her father while maitaining a spirit of love.
==Currently reading==
This is my second read through. I'm hoping to gain
more from it since I wasn't in the frame of mind to appreciate it at its fullest
the first time I read it.
The character encyclopedia is purely my own creation done
in my spare time. Any mistakes or omissions are my own. This is not a comprehensive
listing, nor is it intended to be.
****WARNING****
Do not use it if you don't want the stories to be spoiled. There are plot spoilers included.