This Fine Life

Sometimes I read a book simply because it's there. Eva Marie Everson writes the kind of stories that allow me to do just that. I've had This Fine Life on my kindle for a while and needed a "palate cleanser" book--one that will allow me to escape for a while between two heavily-themed novels. This didn't exactly fit that bill, but it did give me a great escape for a while. One thing I truly enjoyed about the book is the way that Mariette grows as a person and then as a Christian.

Mariette has graduated from high school and her mother is pushing her to marry the "right" man and her father wants her to go to college. She is having a hard time choosing what to do with her life until she meets Thayne Scott in the stairwell of her father's factory. She not only falls in love, she falls hard--and so does Thayne. After her parents refuse to allow her to see Thayne anymore, the two of them elope. The rest of the book is about her growing relationship with Thayne and her new relationship with God. There is so much more to the story of their growth than what I have described here.

Mariette and Thayne make a couple that the reader wants to befriend. Her parents are easy to understand and yet somewhat misguided in their ideas. I understand a lot of Mariette's feelings of not fitting into her own life and it was a great privilege to see that an author understood the feeling herself.

I have loved Eva Marie Everson since I read the Potluck Club novels she co-wrote with Linda Evans Shepherd. This one is definitely a five-star book, two thumbs up, and a fine life.