Review: Diamond Mine has an excellent plot, a handsome
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 07 10, 2014
Diamond Mine has an excellent plot, a handsome, brooding hero, and a spunky heroine -- that's the stuff 5 star romance novels are made of, but I can't give this novel 5 stars. Technically, the prose in this story is excellent.  The commas are all where they belong; the words are all used correctly; and there aren't any instances of horrid grammar, yet this book isn't really well written.  At one point, Hannah, our spunky heroine, is in a bathroom relishing the thought of a bath.  Here is a direct quote from the text, starting at the top of the paragraph: "The current clothing peeled away from her sweaty body.  For several minutes she stretched.  Releasing a pent up sigh, she rotated the silver handles and waited. A gurgling announced future water."Sentence one ("The current clothing peeled away from her sweaty body.") -- I have no idea what peeled the current clothing away from her body, perhaps it crawled off on its own?  I have no idea why I had to be told it was her current clothing doing the self-peeling as opposed to some outfit she wasn't wearing. Sentence two, on it's own it has no problems.  Sentence three ("Releasing a pent up sigh, she rotated the silver handles and waited.") -- Wait.  What?!  She has silver handles on her body?  I retraced my thoughts and re-read sentence two -- yes, we are focused on her exercising her body -- so where have are silver handles located, and why does she have them on her body in the first place? How did they get there?  Let's see if we can figure it out by reading on .... Sentence four ("A gurgling announced future water.")  Okay.  Not only does her body have silver handles, those handles gurgle, and they might even produce future water -- whatever that is.I closed the cover on my eReader.  That wasn't the first time the story boggled my mind and frustrated me.  It also wasn't the last.  I kept returning to the story.  I really wanted to like this book -- as I said, the plot is excellent -- but the writer kept confusing me with irrelevant observations and misplaced descriptions (turns out the silver handles were on the bathtub, not Hannah's body).This is a three star review because the book has a cohesive plot. Felicia Rogers writes vividly.  Her scenes come to life -- which is why the silver handles on Hannah's body were so disconcerting.  I did finish reading the story.  It had enough twists and turns that I kept wondering what was next.  I also liked depictions of Hannah's and Melanie's unwavering faith.