Longing

I just want to express my deepest apologies to all who may have been waiting for my review on Longing by Karen Kingsbury. Once again, the busyness of life just pulled me away from this blog but I am back! Before I begin I need to give a shout out to NetGalley, especially Zondervan Publishing for granting me a copy of this book and I was not required to write a positive review.

Many of you might be familiar with Karen Kingsbury through her bestselling series of the Baxter Family and many other stand-alone novels. Longing is the third book in the Bailey Flanigan series. If you want to know more of those series visit this website: http://www.karenkingsbury.com. In Longing, we see Bailey Flanigan and Brandon Paul relationship getting very serious. Bailey’s first love, Cody goes through a devastating loss of a very close friend. Bailey and Cody still have very strong feelings for each other and they both are longing to forget the past and answers that will help them move forward – “Will they be able to still find a way together after more than a year? And if they do, will their brief time together be enough to help them remember all they’ve been longing for?” – Karen Kingsbury.

I have been a team Cody fan from the very start when Karen Kingsbury introduced the Flanigan Family in the Baster series; so I wasn’t very pleased when I was seeing Bailey and Brandon’s relationship getting so serious  as I still held hope that Bailey and Cody may still find their way back to each other.

After reading a majority of Karen Kingsbury’s novels and series, I was very inspired so my standard that I had set from all her books are pretty high and she has always been able to exceed that in every new book she writes. Though in this book I was very disappointed that this book fell quite short of those expectations. There seemed to be something missing; I didn’t really find this book special or one of a kind like all her other books. It honestly felt like just another Christian romance novel – an ordinary books. I wasn’t very pleased with the ending, it seemed very abrupt and although, yes there is one more novel left in the series – usually she leaves you at a cliffhanger, making you anticipate the arrival of the next book. I didn’t feel that way at all. Another thing I didn’t like was the overuse of the term, “baby” – mainly said by Bailey’s boyfriend, Brandon. The endearment was so frequently used that it became very annoying.

This is my first negative review and I just want to make a few things clear. This is an expression of my thoughts and you all are definitely entitled to disagree with me. I truly do adore Karen Kingsbury as she was the first author to introduce me to Christian fiction novels and I am every grateful for that! I am still excited to read the final book Loving in this series, it is being released in March of 2012.

I am still waiting to receive my copy of His Steadfast Love; I have not yet gotten it in my mailbox so please stay tuned for that review! Also, I know I previously said that I shall be reviewing Lonestar Angel but I have chosen not to do so. Feel free to tell me your thoughts if you’ve read the novel 🙂 Have a blessed weekend y’all!

Until next time,

– Manuela