My Surrender by Connie Brockway

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Well. I wrote a review, but it never got posted. Let's try this again.

This is a romance book, but it is also a book about choices and sacrifice.  At least three of the characters in this book had to make choices and sacrifices that destroyed their reputations and their credibility to achieve a goal.  As this book begins, I saw Charlotte on the crux of changing her life irrevocably.  And it only gets more hairy. I asked myself why it bothered me that she was going to do what she did.  Should I have worried so much about that. Reputation is important, but is it that important to me that I truly regretted what Charlotte did, even knowing why.  I was involved in this story, but not necessarily in a good way at some places. I guess that's makes a book successful for me. When I read this book, I wasn't just marking time. I was feeling a lot, and suffering along with Charlotte.  She showed courage, and that courage translated to me as I read.  I don't look at fiction books as a guide for behavior, but I do believe that almost every book I read has some gem that I can ponder and let it help me in some way.  That might sound strange to most people, but not to me.  It is rarely a literal thing.  Most often, it is an encouragement in my own walk of life.  From this book, I took the idea that I had to take advantage of the adversity I face to let it build me up instead of tearing me down.  That courage is not being unafraid or uncertain. Courage is doing in the face of that fear.  And the fears are many in life.  If we let one fear overtake us, we will fall beneath so many. It's a domino effect. The reasons don't have to translate directly to my life.  But deep down, that human experience always does.

As far as the romance, I felt the potency of it.  Charlotte and Dand, both seemingly hardened to such a thing, found love together.  A common goal brought them into each other's sphere, and love found its way into both of their hearts.  I like to think that a mutual respect was the foundation to that love. When others around them saw little but the facade they projected, they looked deeper and saw the whys and not the whats.  Considering the path that their lives had been forced into by circumstance, that was a rewarding thing in this book.  

Overall, although I didn't like some of the aspects of this story (It has me wincing emotionally in parts), I loved the romance between Charlotte and Dand, and I loved their characters, and their willingness to sacrifice so much for doing the right thing.  That's the core of this book, and that's what calls to me as a reader.  So I count this as a well-written, enjoyable read.



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