3 out of 4 stars
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Lilly of the Mountains by D. L. Yoder is a story of betrayal, resentment, forgiveness, reconciliation, mystery, and romance. The story took place in the early 1940s in a small town of Clayton, Colorado, and had a flavor of the Wild West with horses and guns and the beginnings of city life. Charlie Crandle’s wife, Lindsey died leaving a young daughter Lilly to bring up. Circumstances forced Charlie to make arrangements for his daughter Lilly to marry Levi Perkins, who was much older and a lot richer than Lilly. Little did anyone know just how bad this decision to marry Levi would be and that Lilly would suffer emotional and physical abuse from Levi. How did Levi acquire his riches? Why did he make so many enemies? Why were there no shed tears at his funeral? Where did he hide his money?
The first half of the story will answer all of these questions. The second half of the story switches modes as Lilly tries to find meaning in life, service to mankind, and to find true love. As she works through forgiving her father, Levi, and others, she helps others to also start a new life and to forgive themselves.
The author developed several characters besides Lilly, Levi, and Charlie. Some of them were the gossips of the town, the homeless men at the mission, and a mysterious Marcell, who seemed to have insight into people’s lives.
I best liked the mystery that surrounded the death of Levi and the hideout of all his money. The first half kept me reading to find out all the answers to my questions. I also liked the character of Lilly, as she was quite the survivor and fighter. However, the second half of the story seemed to have an almost completely different story as Lilly got involved in mission work and fell in love with a street preacher, Jason. I was a bit surprised at the big difference between the two halves of the story, simply because I was not expecting it. The many errors, such as misspelled words, missing quotation marks, and a need for capitalizations, I found in the book made me cringe and took away from some of the easiness of reading the book. I also did not like how some of the characters and results seemed to just drop off and disappear. I kept asking myself what happened?
Overall, I thought the book was entertaining, and the author used descriptive words to build characters and settings, which I could picture in my mind. I rate Lilly of the Mountains 3 out of 4 stars. I deducted one star for the book having more than ten errors and for non-closure of some characters of the story. However, I enjoyed reading the story for the most part, and it deserves more than two stars for having a good plot and interesting characters.
This book would appeal most to people who enjoy a bit of mystery and romance with Christian influences on people’s lives. This is not a typical romance book filled with a lot of sexual scenes, so if you are one to like that type of book, this may not be the one for you.
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Lilly Of The Mountains
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