Book Review: The Art of Rivers

The Art of Rivers: A Coastal Hearts novel 

By Janet W. Ferguson

Contemporary Christian Romance

About the Book

Rivers Sullivan bears both visible and invisible scars—those on her shoulder from a bullet wound and those on her heart from the loss of her fiancé during the same brutal attack. Not even her background as an art therapist can help her regain her faith in humanity. Still, she scrapes together the courage to travel to St. Simons Island to see the beach cottage and art gallery she’s inherited from her fiancé. When she stumbles upon recovering addicts running her gallery, she’s forced to reckon with her own healing.

After the tragic drowning of his cousin, James Cooper Knight spends his days trying to make up for his past mistakes. He not only dedicates his life to addiction counseling, but guilt drives him to the water, searching for others who’ve been caught unaware of the quickly rising tides of St. Simons. When he rescues a peculiar blond woman and her sketch pad from a sandbar, then delivers this same woman to his deceased grandmother’s properties, he knows things are about to get even more complicated.

Tragic circumstances draw Cooper and Rivers closer, but they fight their growing feelings. Though Cooper’s been sober for years, Rivers can’t imagine trusting her heart to someone in recovery, and he knows a relationship with her will only rip his family further apart. Distrust and guilt are only the first roadblocks they must overcome if they take a chance on love.

my thoughts

‘The opening lines describing how Rivers views the world in vibrant colors hooked me immediately .Such vivid imagination and description of feelings. It’s one of the best opening paragraphs I’ve read in recent memory.

Such beautiful prose flows from vibrant and happy to dark and depressive and them back again. It’s that spark of light that keeps you reading, that beauty of sunlight at the end of a dark forest.

The romance, similarly, drew me in right away . Then again, I’m a huge sucker for brooding, deeply broken heroes. Cooper fit that bill. He was broken, broody, struggling, yet handsome and heartwarming and immediately protective.

Some of the plot was unexpected. Where I expected two broken people to harbor secrets from one another, as that’s such a natural thing to do, they were so vulnerable and open from the beginning. That was refreshing.

This book doesn’t shy away from proclaiming the gospel. More so than a lot of Christian fiction books I have been reading as of late. Which is also refreshing, if you like that kind of thing. The multiple character journeys throughout expertly showcase God’s redemption and grace.

I thoroughly enjoyed this beautiful story of God’s redemption and healing, and second chances in romance.

Have you read The Art of Rivers or anything else by Janet W. Ferguson? ‘

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