The Bachelor Club: Joyful Noise / The Rescue / Right for Each Other / Stealing Home

by Janet Spaeth, Bev Huston, Janet Spaeth

The game four young men started as children has turned into a competition to see who will wait the longest to get married-and collect a hefty chunk of invested money. Will Adam's penchant for rescuing lost strays put an end to his membership in the club? Can Will give up dating and hide from love on the baseball diamond? When challenged out of his circumstances by a pretty game show hostess, can Isaac free himself to live again? Will Joseph's lovely music teacher catch him in a web of deceit? Who will pick money over love?

Genres: Christian Fiction, Christian Romance, Romance, Christian, Fiction

352 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

About the author

In first grade, Janet Spaeth was asked to write a summary of a story about a family making maple syrup. She wrote all during class, through morning recess, lunch, and afternoon recess, and asked to stay after school. When the teacher pointed out that a summary was supposed to be shorter than the original story, Janet explained that she didn’t feel the readers knew the characters well enough, so she was expanding on what was in the first-grade reader. Thus a writer was born. She lives in the Midwest and loves to travel, but to her, the happiest word in the English language is home.

Reviews

[Toby · Rating 3 out of 5]

When i think of a really great love story i pretty much expect mushy, gushiness throughout the whole thing...this books contained four mini stories that were all related between four best friends. With it being cramped for page space, i wasn't exactly getting the love fulfillment that i was looking for.
but,
even though it wasn't exactly what i was looking for it was a pretty good book and having Christian backgrounds really helped make it more enjoyable. I liked that all four of the best friends were sure to pick a girl that was a believer in Christ and strong in her beliefs.

[Emslo · Rating 3 out of 5]

A couple of the short stories in this collection felt very abrupt in their "happy-ever-afters" but my favorite was Right for Each Other, a sensitive portrayal of someone with debilitating anxiety in a sweet love story.

[Meredith (Austenesque Reviews) · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a Christian Novel that is broken up into four short novellas (90 pages each). They are light, romantic stories that are not heavy or preachy but have subtle, moral undertones. I enjoy reading these kinds of books a lot and was curious to read this one about four little boys who start a club when they are 8 years old and vow to never marry. (One of their dad's convinces them to change "never marry" to "not get married until they are 30." The boys decide to contribute half their allowance to the club and consider this their "prize money" and if anyone breaks their vow of not getting married they lose their share of the prize money. (This is what occurs in the prologue of the book)

The book actually starts about 20 years later and they are all grown men who so far have remained bachelors. Here are the four novellas.

- Rescue Me: Adam Chambers has followed his love of animals and became a Veterinarian. He was in love once, but she left him behind to pursue a career in acting. Amy is now back and he doesn't know why, what he does know is he lost his heart to her once and will not let him happen again especially since he is turning 30 in two months and will win the prize money.

- Stealing Home: Moving to a new town Will meets a young boy who shares a love of his favorite past-time, baseball. He soon discovers that young Joey has no father figure in his life and is being raised by his older sister, Charisma. What Will doesn't know is that Charisma remembers him from their college days and how he dated all her friends except her. Charisma guards her heart safely because she had a crush on him back them.

- Right For Each Other: Isaac shows up at a TV studio for an interview as a writer and gets mistaken as a contestant for a "couples show." He has no idea how to answer any of the questions about his supposed fiancee but he does know that he is attracted to the host of the show Brooke Hart. The problem is that she thinks he is already in engaged to someone else. Or maybe the problem has something to do with a traumatic incident in Isaac's past.

- Joyful Noise: A new voice teacher comes to town and helps out in the church choir which badly needs some help. Joseph can't carry a tune and very rarely does he inflict his singing on people. But when the new voice teacher, Rosa announces to the church that she will be teaching voice lessons he impulsively signs up. Perhaps his motives for doing so were to spend more time with Rosa and not learn how to sing. . .

The stories were heart-warming, realistic, and charming. I am giving this book four out five stars though because I wished the stories went a little bit deeper. Maybe 80-90 pages isn't enough, sometimes I felt they ended a little too abruptly. If you like a good, clean love story give this book a try.

[Jazzy Gonzalez · Rating 4 out of 5]

People say that variety is always better; and The Bachelor Club proves it! Four different authors offer four diverse love stories that all connect to a brotherhood pact called the Bachelor Club. The novel is told from an omniscient point of view that makes the reader not want to leave the page. The Rescue tells the tale of two former lovers that were separated by the pull of Hollywood, and later reunited by the call for help of the returning girlfriend who is being black-mailed by her money-hungry manager. Stealing Home is a tale of two stranger's love brought together by her son's love for baseball. Right for Each Other takes the reader on a two people's love game that leads me to the perfect match. The Bachelor Club in the book's context was a pact of $10,000 four men made in college to not get married until they were 30 years old. In the end, all of these saw their love more important than any pact or amount of money.

I adored this story because it gave four different outlooks of love in an omniscient sense, therefore I did not read some emotional girl on a seek for love, but instead a spiritual-leading quest for a spouse. Christian romances inspire me.

I did not enjoy the mediocre endings however. The climax of the story was near the end, and then they just lived happily ever after. The story had no real follow-up or explanation; so I thought that was a little elementary.

[Leslie aka StoreyBook Reviews · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is 4 short stories based on one concept...4 boys start a Bachelor's Club and vow not to get married before they are 30. Jump forward 20 years when they are all very close to 30 and see how they meet the women of their dreams and can they make it to 30 before getting married?

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love this one. Four light-hearted, Christian novellas about men who find out that being a bachelor isn't all that they thought it would be when they were kids.

[Sandy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Short cute stories. Of course there were times I was like really a week and you're already getting married but I guess they kind of got too move fast since there are 4 stories in this book.

[Megan · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had a hard time with the ending of each part. It just seemed rushed to me. I know they're novellas but it still bothered me.