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Thursday, March 7, 2013

Secrets Over Sweet Tea by Denise Hildreth Jones Book Review



From the Publisher: "Secrets over Sweet Tea follows the lives of a boisterous pastor’s wife, a polished news anchor, and a beleaguered divorce attorney as they intersect on the tree-lined streets of Franklin, Tennessee, when scandal threatens to topple their carefully constructed worlds. Jones touches on delicate social issues, such as infidelity, gossip, rape, and divorce, yet keeps her novel light with the Southern humor and charm she is known for to balance the novel’s message."

I stopped reading the book very early into it.  I am uncomfortable reading about other people’s sex lives and the first bedroom scene in this book made me feel uncomfortable.  

One of the reasons why I avoid secular fiction, in favor of Christian fiction, is that I don’t want to read about the sexual encounters of others.  This book actually contained a couple of sexual references regarding the preacher’s wife right from the get-go and that turned me off.  Some things should be left sacred and, in my opinion, writing about the sacred act of making love somehow demeans it.  I understand that this is one of the new “big things” in Christian literature---to take what secular authors have smeared and try to make it holy.  However, I wonder if Christian authors consider that they’re not just writing for happily married people.  

What about the single woman who reads this scene and inserts the face of someone she knows into the imagined scene?  That’s commiting adultery in one’s heart.  What about the unhappily married woman who uses this scene to draw comparisons to her own husband and lacking sex life?  

I understand that it is very likely the author used these scenes and descriptions to set the stage for the bigger story her book was trying to tell.  It's very possible that I am just not meant to be ministered to by this book at this time.

I am disappointed that I was not able to read the book as the description was attractive.  However, I’m not willing to let someone else’s lovemaking scene, even if it contains fictional characters, run through my mind and distort what is going on in my real life marriage.

Visit Denise Hildreth Jones at Reclaiming Hearts.

I received a free copy of this book from Tyndale House Publishers to review.  All opinions are honest and are my own.

1 comment:

  1. I totally agree with you! If authors start interject these kind of scenes in their books then what separates it for the secular fiction? A mind is a powerful thing and I do not images like that floating around in my head.

    ReplyDelete

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