Review on A Vision of Lucy

A Vision of Lucy by Margaret Brownley

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Margaret Brownley, can we please do lunch? I know, a strange way to start out a book review, but sometimes after reading a good book, that’s how I feel and after reading A Vision for Lucy, and discovering that this author is full of humor and spunk, I just know she’d be a hoot to go to lunch with! I could ask her my plethora of questions about her Historical Christian fiction book, like “Are the cute quotes from a lady photographer of the day at the beginning of each chapter true or invented by her own imagination?” An example: “Never say “shoot” when you mean “photograph” especially when talking to a trigger –happy gunslinger”. Or,”What was your inspiration for the spunky photo-taking, jabber a mile a minute when she’s nervous heroine Lucy Fairbanks?” I’d ask her these things before the menus even came.

Onto the storyline- the setting is the little town of Rocky Creek Texas in 1882, a town where everybody knows your name…except for the new guy in town. A man with a secret and labeled incorrectly by a boy who got caught rummaging through his stuff, as a “wild man” and has the whole town on edge. Lucy, photographer extraordinaire, captures a picture of him for the local newspaper and things get misconstrued and it just gets wilder from there. It turns out this “stranger” is named David Wolf and is tall, dark and handsome and a bit brooding as well. He has reason to be, but I’ll let you discover his secrets for yourself between the pages of this book. Of course our spunky and driven photographer Lucy and mysterious and handsome stranger David meet up and together they make quite a pair. There is a secret here and it affects more than just our mysterious David. As the story unfolds, you see the pieces fall into place.

I have to say I really enjoyed this book. There were laugh out loud moments and the character of Lucy was a hoot. I became a fan of her instantly, especially with her tendency to babble on when she is nervous. The deep dark secret was revealed in just the right timing , as things came together and the clues were all there, but alas I did fall for the ‘red herring” that presented itself , so good job fooling me! Women’s suffrage is also woven into the storyline in an interesting way and I enjoyed the historical context woven through this novel. The main character throughout the novel is “searching” for what God has for her and her purpose in life- a common question to us all. The author does a good job in showing the character’s journey in that whole process.

My only little bit of criticism is that I found the description of the male character to be just a tad “mainstream romantic novelish”- “bulging thighs” for example. That is just my own little observation and it’s just my opinion, it just took me out of the story for a minute, so it caught my attention.

So, to sum up, this book was a great read, really enjoyed it and I am recommending it to those that love a Great Historical Christian fiction, romantic, mystery with some laugh out loud humor kind of books. I will definitely be reading more of Margaret Brownley in the future and Margaret, if you are ever in the Seattle area, please look me up - lunch is on me.

Disclosure- I received a Digital review copy of this book through the Booksneeze program in exchange for an honest review. The opinions expressed in this review are my own.





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