Review: Tempting Hymn by Jennifer Hallock

4.5 stars
Release date: 24/2/16

I received an ARC of this book from the author in exchange for an honest review. My opinion is my own.

I have to admit, I was nervous about Tempting Hymn, because Hallock has set herself a mammoth task: telling the romance of a 'fallen' Filipina nurse and an American missionary workman recovering physically from illness, and mentally from the death of his wife and children, in only 152 pages. Even though I have read and loved both of Hallock's prior two works, where she tackles similar storylines in comparative depth, I'm still impressed at the way she has pulled it off. 

Like the first novel in this series, Under the Sugar Sun, which I reviewed at the beginning of last year, Tempting Hymn manages to give adequate breathing room to the harsh historical realities of American colonial rule in the Philippines, while delivering a romance that is sweet, realistic and - above all - emotional.

Readers of Under the Sugar Sun will remember Rosa, the nurse assigned to care for Georgie's erstwhile fiance, Archie Blaxton. After the events of Under a Sugar Sun, Rosa gave birth to an illegitimate half-American son, Miguel, and was ostracised both by the people she had lived alongside her whole life, and the missionary community for whom she worked as a nurse. Despite the fact that she wants nothing more to do with American men, caring for missionary Jonas Vanderberg gives her a final chance to regain her nursing position at the local hospital, and give Miguel the life he deserves. 

Having lost his wife and daughters to cholera, Jonas has nothing left to live for. The surly and insistent Rosa is only prolonging his misery, until he realises the unjust way that she has been treated. There's fight left in Jonas yet, but a perceived connection between Rosa and another American man will only hinder Rosa's attempts to get her life back on track.

The Rosa from Tempting Hymn is very different to the Rosa shown in Under the Sugar Sun. Partly, that's because she was irreparably changed by the events described there, but also because her side of the story humanises her. As a heroine, she's at once heartbreaking and eminently relatable. The way the world has treated her hasn't left her much room to be emotional, so she just gets on with what she needs to do. 

Jonas is a salt-of-the-earth kind of guy. He decided to enter the mission field to impress his wife's well-to-do family, because, while he may not be an educated man, he can build anything, and the missionary movement needs jacks-of-all-trades as much as they need fancy preacher men. While I had initial concerns that his faith wouldn't sit well with me, the religious aspect was something that I valued most about this book.

As romance readers, we most often see representations and explorations of Christian faith in inspirational romances, but I want to make clear that Tempting Hymn is not an inspie. For a start, Rosa and Jonas would never cut it as a couple in an inspirational romance, because Rosa is Catholic, and she has no interest in converting. Secondly, I think Hallock's implicit focus here is the way religion is an ambiguous force. While Jonas is a man of God from the 'love thy neighbour' school of thought, the missionaries are able to justify the wrongs of colonisation because they are saving the heathen Catholic Filipinos, just as people - both Catholic and Protestant - use religious doctrine to ostracise Rosa (but not the man who got her pregnant, because of course not!). 

In this - and in other aspects of the book - Hallock highlights the way that repressing and proscribing sexuality adversely affects both women and men. Rosa and Jonas' tentative first love scene, where they are figuring out one another and themselves, was exquisitely done. In fact, all the sex scenes here are insanely hot, just like in Under a Sugar Sun. 

Ultimately, just like in her other books, Hallock doesn't pull any punches in Tempting Hymn, with either the romance or the historical detail. She does her setting and her characters justice, delivering a story that is raw and unflinching, but never too dark, because it has an engaging and touching romance at its core. 

Review: Time of Grace by Gabriella West

3.5 stars

Time of Grace was a richly detailed romance, set against the backdrop of World War I and unrest in Ireland. 

After her brother's death on the Front, Englishwoman Caroline takes up a position as a governess in Ireland with a family of the Anglo-Irish ruling elite. Stuck midway between the family and the servants, her only friend is an outgoing maid named Grace, and, over time, Caroline comes to realise that she is attracted to her. As the boundaries of their friendship blur into something more, Caroline and Grace must contend with their different stations, backgrounds and ideologies, Grace's involvement in the Irish nationalist movement and the prejudices of their time. 

For me, the stand-out aspect was way that West conveyed the zeitgeist by weaving in so many different social developments of the time: Irish nationalism, female suffrage, World War I and the attendant changes to post-Victorian society, including social liberalisation and destratification. Caroline is a character who is often in her own head, and so we get to see her think through all these things, alongside her reflections on her sexuality. 

Having said that, my enjoyment dropped off somewhat as the book pregressed. The writing is very straight-forward, and while this didn't bother me initially, it became a bit info-dump-y as the plot reached its denouement in the Easter Rising of 1916. So, while I loved the historical detail, I also think it went a bit overboard towards the end, when the retelling of the Rising seemed to eclipse Caroline and Grace's romance. 

Maybe it was just a disconnect between me and Time of Grace. I'm primarily a historical romance reader, and perhaps this book leans more towards 'historical fiction with romance' rather than pure 'historical romance'. It does not adhere to some modern romance genre conventions, and is in some ways is more stylistically similar to the old school saga romances. Caroline and Grace's relationship is very on-again, off-again, which - while very understandable given their circumstances - meant that the book was essentially split in to three acts: first, Caroline and Grace together at their post, Caroline alone back in England, then the two of them reunited in Ireland. The whole book was also written in Caroline’s POV and I sometimes wished that I had more insight into Grace's thought processes, or that I could see her without Caroline’s lens of fear and middle class English morality (although she does come to challenge this). These things did my head in a little bit, particularly towards the end, but I do wonder if someone who does read more widely would have a different reaction. 

Readers who are pedantic about editing should also be aware that there are some issues with the Kindle text, particularly the placement of text that isn't speech inside quotation marks. As my engagement with the book waned, it became more frustrating to have to re-read a passage to ascertain where speech ended and prose began. 

Overall, though, the touching romance between two very different women, the impeccable sense of place and the chance to learn about the Irish revolutionary period made Time of Grace well worth the read.