Love Inspired, $4.99, ISBN 0-373-87285-2
Romantic Suspense, 2004
Cynthia Cooke’s Peter’s Return is an ex-back-to-sex story, but because this is a Love Inspired story, we can forget about the sex part as good Christians don’t ever do that kind of thing. Hence, sorry, folks, the title of this story isn’t a double entendre of any sort.
This is also the fifth entry in the Faith on the Line series, and since I have not read any previous entries, I can only deduce that the overlying story arc is a bunch of CIA people trying to nab drug cartel boss Baltasar Escalante.
Baltasar has a son that’s dying of AIDS… I guess the author didn’t get the memo that AIDS as a punishment for disbelievers and sinners is such a tired and outdated trope by now. Anyway, he makes it a habit to kidnap doctors to help his kid, which is how our heroine Dr Emily Armstrong, a pediatric hematologist, and her colleague Dr Robert Fletcher find themselves enjoying the hospitality of that Venezuelan King Koopa.
Fortunately for her, her ex-husband Peter Vance is undercover and dealing with Baltasar, so yay, God is clearly working overtime to save His favorite gal. Will He be able to help her realize that she’s wrong, wrong, wrong to decide that she knows better than a man and she should go back to her man?
That’s one of my main peeves with this story, by the way. Peter doesn’t have to waver in his convictions: he’s an undercover agent, so he’ll do this thing, thank you.
On the other hand, Emily is assailed by self doubts. Oh, maybe she’s wrong to divorce Peter because she couldn’t take his dangerous job anymore! Maybe she should have been a better person! She’s clearly in this pickle because of something she did, is it because she didn’t put her faith in Peter and God? On and on she goes, making me wonder whether it’s normal for Christians to gaze at their navels so much when their lives are on the line.
My issue is this: why is it that the hero can be resolute in his choices, but the heroine has to instead do mental flailing like fire ants have found their way into her bloomers?
Even more bizarre is how there is not a single display of attraction between the two leads. I know, I know, this is what it is, but come on, these two characters don’t even act like they want the other person even a little. For a romance story, this is akin to a chicken sandwich without the chicken.
Fine, maybe the suspense elements can compensate in bringing in the entertainment… oh wait.
This one relies heavily on each side making dumb blunders to keep the story going. There is no reason why Baltasar should parade Emily while dealing with Peter, for example, or why that villain needs to explain his motives and plans to anyone that will listen so damn much. On the other side of the fence, Peter acts on his impulses far more than proper for an agent of his supposed caliber, and the plot is powered by lucky happenstances and deus ex machina.
I know, the latter can probably be excused given that this story is, after all, about God guiding his fave babe back under the wisdom and thumb of his fave dude, but it doesn’t make for an exciting suspense story when both sides are racing to see which side hits the bottom of the barrel first. Baltasar gets away in the end, but that’s more because the series needs to keep going instead of any cunning on his part.
A more minor peeve, but still a peeve, is that the author doesn’t restrict the eye-rolling monologues to Baltasar. In the opening scene, for example, Emily thinks that she and Robert are being kidnapped, and like any sane Christian would, launches into a long and lengthy account of her past with Peter. Judging from Robert’s responses, he’s familiar with that story, so this whole conversation is a blatant wall-breaking effort to get the reader up to speed with Emily and her man.
Well, that or like any annoying gnat that can’t get over their ex, Emily babbles about Peter all the time to anyone that would listen, and Robert is just going uh-huh whatever while imaging her being boiled alive in a pot or something.
At any rate, this story contains way too many conversations that are just unnatural efforts to dump exposition onto my head, and I’m sure the author could have helped me catch up with her in far more elegant ways that don’t feel like pauses in the story for the characters to look straight at and talk to me.
Also, the author doesn’t know when to stop. The main characters love to paint themselves the victim all the way to the bitter end, and it’s tedious. Emily is constantly whining about how she is so, so wrong to doubt God and Peter and whatever, and how this means that she is somehow deserving of all the worst brick bats life can hurl at her unless God shows her a sign that she’s okay in His book.
Likewise, Peter keeps finding excuses to whine that he has failed to protect Emily and this is so, so bad and, at the last minute, pulls out one last drama to give him the excuse to ditch Emily. Note how he doesn’t beat himself up at the idea of divorcing Emily—clearly, only Christian women have the privilege to doubt their actions, worth, and place in the world.
So, in the end, Peter’s Return has no romance and no credible suspense plot to compensate. I don’t think anyone can blame me for asking what the point of this whole thing is.
