Welcome to the May 2023 edition of An Open Book, hosted both at My Scribbler’s Heart and CatholicMom.com!
I haven’t seen my husband picking up many books lately, but he’s apt to snag titles from the kiosk in the narthex of our church, and that’s where he got Converts and Kingdoms by Diane Moczar. It’s an accessible look at the bond between the Catholic Church and Western civilization over the centuries that examines the Church’s survival amidst the various forces and factions that have opposed it through the ages.
I wrapped up my string of contemporary rom-coms by reading Courtney Walsh’s My Phony Valentine. Having grown up an ice hockey fan in Pittsburgh during the pinnacle of Mario Lemieux’s career, I have a soft spot for professional hockey players. I was predisposed to like Dallas Burke, the considerate and misunderstood hero of My Phony Valentine. Dallas enters a contractual fake relationship with small-town chef Poppy Hart, an earnest, guileless woman who can’t help falling for Dallas from the start. Through their arrangement, Poppy gains exposure for her business and Dallas’s bad boy image gets an update. But these two have more in common than they expected, both having lived with the consequences of bad decisions and people’s unjust judgments. (I collected my recent rom-com reviews in a Relevant Fiction Reviews post.)
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