Anchor in the Storm by Sarah Sundin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Sarah Sundin is one of those authors who is an “automatic read” for me. Even though I don’t love all of her books, I usually enjoy them. This one was no exception!
The relationship between Lillian and Arch was nice to read – their romance was slow for the first part of the book, and Sarah Sundin writes romance like no other. Many of her romances are just sweet – not nasty and all about physical stuff. This one was definitely one of those sweet ones. I loved the scene where Lillian and Arch went ice skating! Another element I enjoyed with their relationship was the fact that they were both flawed and weak, and they both realized that and grew from that knowledge.
The mystery element of this book was better than the first one in the series. I feel as if this mystery were a little simpler, and that’s good for me, because I can get confused if I’m tired or read too quickly. Or if my mind just wanders during one scene, and that’s the scene where everything’s explained. Anyway, this mystery wasn’t entirely predictable, but it was much easier to connect the dots. I will say that one part of this plot was very predictable – especially if you’ve read a lot of this author’s books – and I was annoyed before it even happened. This incident affected most of the second half of the book, so I was over that whole deal.
The moral/themes of this book were relatively strong – trusting the Lord to be an Anchor in the midst of storms (the title, right?), being strong in the Lord even when we’re weak, and trusting the Lord to use you in different ways than you’ve expected. Although the Gospel wasn’t a huge part of the book, there were definite Christian morals presented, and both of the characters were Christians.
This wasn’t my favorite Sarah Sundin book, but I enjoyed it quite a bit. I’m looking forward to finishing the series!
Vanessa Hall 