Cassidy - Lori Wick

The first Lori Wick book I ever read was Sophie's Heart, and I remember thinking 'wow, this writer's incredible. What attention to quality and detail!"

I've changed my mind.

On the one hand, Wick is prolific, versatile, and does have an enviable ability to come up with new and interesting plot ideas. However, I'd love to sit down with her and give her some brief lessons in research, consistency, and characterization.

Don't get me wrong, Cassidy isn't completely unfortunate. Wick's gift for originality and interesting plotlines comes to the forefront yet again. The book itself is the story of Cassidy, a young woman who has mysteriously come alone to the small Montana town of Token Creek to open a dress shop. She's befriended by various members of the town, and but works hard to keep her past a secret. There is the inevitable love story with the local man, which is threatened by the disappointingly lame secret from Cassidy's past.

So why did I read it, and why have I read it a second time? The answer again goes back to Wick's skill in spinning plots. In this case, it's a series of interesting subplots, including Theta Holden, a woman who has been permanently brain damaged after a severe beating from her husband, and Jessie, owner of the local dry goods store, who is a single mother with two young children. In the Big Sky Dreams trilogy (watch for reviews of the other novels soon), Wick does take a darker, and possibly more realistic turn, in her content, than she ever has before. Spousal abuse and abandonement, and violence are present, in ways that they haven't been in her previous work. The next books get even darker.

I know people who like Wick's work for the spiritual message, the content of which she does very well. However, she presents it in sermon form, so much so that the story gets interrupted by what feels like a dry Sunday-morning sermon. There are ways to present spiritual truth within a story without preaching, but it's rare that Wick's work evinces any of this.

Whether or not this book is recommended depends entirely on what you want out of a read. There is something about Wick's work, in spite of its flaws, that is compelling. Do you want to think, or do you just want to relax for a little while? That will determine whether or not you want to read this. And right now, I'm waiting for the painfully slow Canadian postal service to deliver Jessie.