Book Review Stepping To A New Day

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Stepping to a New Day cover

THE BOOK

• Paperback: 304 pages

• Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks (June 28, 2016)

In Henry Adams, Kansas, you can’t start over without stirring things up . . .

Many a good woman has had to leave a no-good man, but how many of them took a backseat to his six-hundred-pound hog? On her own for the first time, Genevieve Gibbs is ecstatic, even if certain people preferred the doormat version of Ms. Gibbs. Finding someone who appreciates the “new” her has only just hit Gen’s to-do list when T. C. Barbour appears in her life.

A tiny Kansas town is a far cry from his native Oakland, California, but it’s just the change T. C. needs. While helping his divorced nephew acclimate to single fatherhood, T. C. lands a gig driving a limo for the most powerful woman in Henry Adams. It’s a great way to meet people—and one in particular has already made the job worthwhile. All it takes is a short trip from the airport for Genevieve to snag T. C.’s attention for good.

But it wouldn’t be Henry Adams without adding more drama to the mix. When Gen’s ex Riley returns with his hog in tow, it sets off a chain of events that can ruin everything—unless the residents pull together once again to save the day.

Purchase Links

HarperCollins | Amazon | Barnes & Noble

The Author

Beverly Jenkins has received numerous awards, including five Waldenbooks/Borders Group Best Sellers Awards, two Career Achievement Awards from Romantic Times Magazine, and a Golden Pen Award from the Black Writer’s Guild. Ms. Jenkins was named one of the Top Fifty Favorite African-American writers of the 20th century by AABLC, the nation’s largest on-line African-American book club. She was recently nominated for the NAACP Image Award in Literature.

Find out more about Beverly at her website and connect with her on Facebook and Twitter.

My Review

If you are a fan of Beverly Jenkins, run, do not walk to your library or book store to find a copy of this book! If you have never read one of her books (and I have found out that there are quite a few), I suggest you run in the other direction.

Struggling with this story, I felt like I had tuned into a television program for the first time – one that had perhaps been running for quite some time and that I had never watched before. I do not watch TV, so I am imaging this scenario! By about page 27, so many characters had been mentioned who did not actually appear in this story and so many past incidents had been alluded to, that I thought I would scream if it happened again. Well it happened again on the next page, so I gave a mental screech and carried on. Some of these characters sounded quite interesting and I would really have like to read about the 600 pound hog on a home wrecking rampage – but this, sadly, while mentioned at least half a dozen times, was from a previous book, I can only presume.

This story was not particularly joyful or sad. It was not suspenseful or frightening. There was no rollercoaster ride to a climactic conclusion. It was rather the continuing saga of characters I had never met before who were not particularly appealing to me as I had no relationship with them. The characters were not well developed for me – but as Ms Jenkins is so prolific, I must presume she has developed them over the course of her body of work.

Fans, please enjoy the latest book in this series. New readers of Beverly Jenkins, do not start here, you will be disappointed.

Enjoy the Rest of the Tour

Tuesday, June 28th: A Tattered Copy

Wednesday, June 29th: Gspotsylvania: Ramblings from a Reading Writer Who Rescues Birds and Beasts

Thursday, June 30th: The Book Diva’s Reads

Friday, July 1st: Chaos is a Friend of Mine

Tuesday, July 5th: Luxury Reading

Tuesday, July 5th: What Will She Read Next

Wednesday, July 6th: Queen of All She Reads

Thursday, July 7th: My Journey Back

Friday, July 8th: The Englishist

Monday, July 11th: Back Porchervations