Very whiny christian book. Much gnashing of teeth and 'why is God doing this to me?' BS.
The first half is about Romy, who is run over by a wagon and is losing too much blood. In her delirium, she says that she loves Jeremiah (who runs the mercantile), and that she wishes she could've married him. This is news to Jeremiah, who had NO inkling that Romy fancied him. But he honors her dying wish and marries her, thinking she's about to bleed to death. Of course she doesn't and is THE most gawd-awful patient, ever. ((WHY IS GOD DOING THIS TO ME!!!)) Even though she's supposedly this believer who has always had such a strong faith. Clue phone: people with a strong faith aren't like that. Hell, most NON-believers aren't like that. No wonder people run screaming from chrischuns.
Then it goes into Annie's story, and she has a big honkin' tumor in her belly, and she's been shacked up with the drunk doctor and nobody likes her, but then she's dying and suddenly the town decides she's not wicked, she's just misunderstood and no greater a sinner than anyone else, and the Doctor goes freakin' ape-ship ((WHY IS GOD DOING THIS TO ME!!!!)) and Annie dies, whining a HELLUVA lot less than the chrischun ever did.
Then it moves into Jeremiah's back story, and he abandoned his family back east with a spoiled and mentally unstable woman who screamed at him like a banshee and threw herself and his unborn child into the San Fransisco bay, and now his dad has had a stroke and is demanding he come home, and the dead chick's father wants to incarcerate Jeremiah for murder, and there's even MORE (((WHY IS GOD DOING THIS TO ME!!!)) from Romy and Jeremiah and pretty much everyone in the book but their neighbor, Owen Wilson, and that's cuz he's a happy little red race car employed by Disney, now.
Nevermind me. I'm just over here, wondering why there's a caricature of Keanu Reeves as Jee-zus on the spine of these books... cuz it seems kinda psycho. Kind of like churchianity. I think I need a good carnal, semi-smutty eBook to shake off this ghastly pseudo-holy pall.