Review: Cadence Finds a Better Way of Life
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 12 24, 2012
Cadence has to spend his two-week vacation playing his guitar at a church, of all places, to pay Frank back for getting him and his brother, Cord, out of jail. Although Cade has gotten off drugs and straightened out his life, he doesn't need or understand this church stuff. Frank's adopted daughter turns out to be another problem. She's a cute little thing, but fiery and way out of his league. There's plenty of surprises in store for Cade.I've read EDWINA, CECILA, and BEYOND FORGIVENESS, but this one is much different. It deals with those from the rough side of Detroit, and the characterizations are good, especially for Cadence. The book also seemed to have more questionable or awkward places. For example, the opening sentence says, "Cadence Walker David strode out of his jail cell Friday evening reluctantly accepted Sinner's card and left him to finish his business." Since the reader has no knowlege of book, at this point, it's hard to decipher for a couple of pages. There's also some poor grammar, like "I thought I'd drove over and see what was going on" and "of he and mom." There were abrupt point of view changes and one all-knowing comment said "What he didn't know was that Frank and Ana had gone to see Gwen, too." For the first part, there seemed to be too much unnecessary dialogue, and the same thoughts and almost the same paragraph would sometimes be repeated later. Some of the plot elements didn't make sense to me either. If Frank showed the police Cade had no outstanding warrants and was fine with his parole officer, why would he need to pay to get out. Suzette acted more like she was in her sixties than only forty-two. Kyle made a big deal out of the fact that Cade didn't know the difference between a hymn and a worship song. It was repeated several times. I've been in church all my life, and my husband is a pastor, and we had never heard there was a difference. I guess a hymn is the traditional songs and the worship songs are more modern, but there's other terms used for them, too. I got tired of Cade and Kyle bickering so much, and they were downright hateful to each other at times. There were several scanning errors, as well.Still, I found this to be an engaging story. It was interesting and I came to like all the main characters. The plot had enough twists and turns to keep me reading to see what would happen. The description summed it up well, when it said, "An unexpected love story. Where hard times and a true love meet face-to-face."