Christian Fiction: 'Marriage Takes Three' by G.E. Hamlin

Marriage Takes Three by G.E. Hamlin

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This is a Christian romance novel, the story of an already-married couple struggling to make their marriage work. It's PG-rated and appropriate for all ages of romance novel readers, although the characters can probably be appreciated most by those who've already experienced marriage.

Darla and Randall are having all sorts of problems: he goes to church, she doesn't. Their son also refuses to church, and he and Randall get into arguments. Randall and Darla argue, mostly about all the time she spends with Jack, her ex-boyfriend who has since become an acclaimed country music singer. (I kinda pictured him looking like Keith Urban because he's blond.)

Lately the arguments between Darla and Randall have escalated to the point that they're contemplating time away from each other. They have to decide: try to make their marriage work or move on. If Darla decides to move on, it's possible she may try to rekindle her teenage romance with Jack. Clearly, Jack is still in love with her.

No spoilers, but because of the genre, you can assume the story will resolve in a way that's in accordance with a Christian worldview.

If I remember correctly, I pre-ordered this book on Amazon at the suggestion of the author. Ginny Hamlin contacted me either on Goodreads or on Facebook as part of a campaign to get some pre-orders in to show the publisher there was interest in her book. I purchased this book with my own funds and was not compensated for reviewing it.

I'm glad I read it. It's nice to read something that's a change of pace every now and then - it keeps the mind open to new ideas and styles of writing. This isn't my first Christian romance novel, or my first "sweet" romance, but I do think this is first work I've read from Hamlin.

I would read her again. Her biography in the back of the book says one of her influences is Nicholas Sparks. I think if you like Nicholas Sparks, you'll probably enjoy this book, too.

View all my reviews on Goodreads

Valentine's Eve OHP: IT'S SO ROMANTIC I'M GONNA DIE

Dropping by from Evernight's Valentine Snippets Blog Hop? Please see this post and leave a comment for a chance to win your choice of book from Evernight Publishing. 

Happy Valentine's Day Eve! (Valentine's haters, tomorrow's blog post is for you. Another book contest is coming tomorrow, too.) I just did the blog post of kisses back in January, so I'm trying a different approach today: romance novel covers.

This was the last one I read:



...and if you liked The Lucky One by Nicholas Sparks, you're probably going to like Far From Perfect.  (If you only saw the movie - and I wouldn't blame you for wanting to look at Zach Efron for two hours - you have no idea what you're missing because the book is awesome.)

I haven't read these. (If you want to see what I've read, check out my Books Worth Reading board.) Taken together, they set a very Valentine's Day-appropriate mood, don't you think? Beautiful models, beautiful dresses (I love books, but 50% of the fun of romance novel covers is the fashion, honestly), two lovers enraptured in each other's arms: what's not to love?!






I would probably read this one. I love the paranormals. (Okay, I'd probably read any of them. I'm such a sucker for romance. I still can't watch the Letters To Juliet trailer without bursting into tears when Lorenzo's horse comes riding around the corner.)



Guys, if you ever hope to be on the cover of a Regency romance, you must not own any shirts. Apparently it was not cold in the past and men, historically, did not wear shirts.



I'm sensing a "wedding" theme here.



No collection of romance novels is complete without at least one kilt. This is another one that I've actually read; this series is both paranormal and Highland.



What's your favorite romance novel?

The Hanukkah Hotness, Night 8: Zac Efron

I'm going to be bluntly honest and say that I do not enjoy the music of High School Musical. This does not mean that Zac Efron is not utterly beautiful. Zac is Jewish on his father's side, and his surname is the Hebrew word for the lark.





This Hanukkah hottie is also a young prince of literary adaptations. He was in Charlie St. Cloud (a Ben Sherwood novel), The Lorax (a Dr. Seuss classic) and The Lucky One, the Nicholas Sparks favorite which I read in April.

I saw the movie in November. It's not as good as the book, and  I don't think anyone will accuse Zac Efron of being the greatest actor of his generation. He brings a lot of heart to the role of Logan Thibault, opposite Taylor Schilling as Beth Green. They do their best with these characters, but the book versions are simply more powerful. The ending that works so well in print loses much of its suspense on screen.

Zac Efron is also notorious for dropping a condom onto the red carpet at the Lorax premiere.

[2026 note: The video that was here is no longer available.]

I saw The Lorax in October. It was a pretty good cartoon, although not Despicable Me good. I didn't love the musical numbers, but I did think it managed not to garble Dr. Seuss' message.

The Hebrew word for the lark also belongs to one of 2012's saddest literary losses, the screenwriter, former journalist, essayist and New York Times best-selling author Nora Ephron. She passed away in June after a battle with leukemia. She was best known for writing the films When Harry Met Sally and Sleepless in Seattle - neither of which I've seen. The Nora Ephron film I did connect with and thoroughly enjoy was her last, Julie and Julia, about Julia Child and the food blogger Julie Powell.

Put Your Drinks Up For Nebraska

On Mondays I hook up with Pinning! at A Night Owl Blog/Baxtron{Life}. On Wednesday, it's Oh, How Pinteresting! at The Vintage Apple.



Honestly, the first thing I think of when I think of Nebraska? Cornhuskers football - as a Notre Dame opponent. One night I stayed at the Palmer House Hilton in downtown Chicago the night before the Notre Dame-Nebraska game, and the lobby was a sea of red Cornhuskers sweatshirts. 

As you know, my pop cultural obsession is the Thursday night CBS drama Person of Interest...

...which is why my second-greatest celeb crush (after Christian Bale - always, always Christian Bale) is Jim Caviezel...

...causing me to watch The Thin Red Line (a 1998 film also starring Nick Nolte and Sean Penn)...

...triggering my American literature obsession, which in turn caused me to read James Jones' wartime trilogy, the first book of which is From Here to Eternity...

...causing me to get a bit obsessed with Montgomery Clift, old school Hollywood hottie (visit Clift-Notes on Tumblr to see about a thousand gorgeous pictures of him), born in Omaha, Nebraska. Combine this with the fact that I listen to Lady Gaga every day, and I always be hearin' "You & I" with its reference to "my cool Nebraska guy," I dedicate this Monday Pinterest post to the cool people of Nebraska. Did you know that Marlon Brando was also from Omaha?

So was another dude who merits a shout-out in Madonna's "Vogue" (and "Billionaire" by Peaches), Mr. Fred Astaire. 

Gorgeous Gabrielle Union is also an Omaha native.

Former U.S. Poet Laureate Ted Kooser is from Nebraska, and so is Nicholas Sparks. 

The breathtaking and ever-so-talented Hilary Swank is from Nebraska.

So is Marg Helgenberger. Do you get the impression that Nebraska is a seriously good-looking state or what?!

Oh, and Nick Nolte, too. Also from Omaha. Apparently, he was arrested there as a youth for selling fake i.d.s to youngsters interested in buying liquor. Naughty. 

Nolte's character in The Thin Red Line, Lt. Col. Tall, has little to no reservations about trying to force his subordinates, 1st Sgt. Welsh and Capt. Staros, to use C-for-Charlie Company as cannon fodder as they try to recover a crucial airfield from the Japanese army. I'm only about 100 pages into the book thus far, so I haven't really gotten to Tall yet. 

One thing you won't see in the movie: the scene in which the men get drunk off Aqua Velva aftershave mixed with grapefruit juice. Don't try that at home, kids. 

But, of course, no Nebraska post would be complete without Lady Gaga's cool Nebraska guy, Luc Carl. He looks like the kind of guy who would have bought one of Young Nick Nolte's fake i.d.s. 

I resent Dark Shadows, miss Donna Summer, and work in two Jane Austen references

It's Thursday, and I am counting down the last hour and a half or so until the Person of Interest season finale (less time, by the time I finish writing). I haven't gotten to interact with my blog or social media as much as I would have liked over the past few days - my hubby and I rehabbed my parents' bathroom while they were out of town, and then I spent two days helping him with an exterior painting job. I've been painting porch pickets - hence the lackluster WIP Wednesday yesterday.

Pride and Prejudice and Person of Interest

 Earlier today, I learned that Donna Summer passed away at the young age of 63 after a battle with cancer.  I'm not a huge disco fan, but there was one summer when I drove an old Chevy Cavalier with a cassette player and wore out a cassette of disco favorites. One of them was "Bad Girls," but I think my all-time favorite Donna Summer song is "Love to Love You Baby."



In She's a Rebel, Gillian G. Gaar calls Summer "the undisputed Queen of Disco" and details how the Boston-born pop star was inspired by gospel singer Mahalia Jackson. After the decline of disco, Summer went through a born-again Christian/gospel music phase, but then returned to the pop charts with "She Works Hard for the Money."

My Facebook friend and fellow author/blogger Donald Peebles (he's on Blogger here) wrote, "My BFF DjMonalisa Indasoul and I used to talk about the infamous Kaminsky Park incident where many White males crushed and broke numerous disco albums at Kaminsky Park, Chicago as part of their "DISCO SUCKS" campaign. Disco was a musical form in which many White American males could not really capitalize on and dominate whereas African-American women, gay people, and newly independent White women navigated freely. This backlash more or less ended disco as well as the war on the gay liberation movement."

Disco - uniting African-Americans, the gay community and women in a way that white males couldn't appreciate or understand and felt threatened by. Whether you like the music or not, you've got to respect that it was a cultural force to be reckoned with from the mid-'70s into the early '80s.

Later this afternoon, Mom and I went to a matinee showing of Dark Shadows, starring Johnny Depp, written by Seth Grahame-Smith and directed by Tim Burton. I should state that I've never seen an episode of the 1970s TV show of the same name, the inspiration for the current film. Thus, I have no idea how the film compares to the original. (I can, however, read about the original on pages 146-151 of Vampire Lovers: Screen's Seductive Creatures of the Night by Gavin Baddeley.)

I liked Depp's performance as Barnabas Collins, a vampire chained in a coffin in the 1770s, only to emerge in the 1970s. He's absolutely charming. The problem with the film's plot and characterization is that the women are too easily charmed by him - to the degree that one love interest kills herself because she can't have him and the other goes completely psychotic when her love is unrequited.

The psycho with the unrequited crush on the pretty vampire is a witch, and I didn't appreciate the witch-bashing. The worst part, though, was the climactic battle scene in which Collins and the witch, Angie, battle it out in the Collins mansion. Although she's threatened his family, she isn't trying to kill him, so when Collins slaps Angie around, it just reeks of relationship violence. I like Johnny Depp; he's my beloved gypsy Roux from Chocolat. I don't want to see him as a character who slaps his ex around.

I didn't like his hasty disposal of the Helena Bonham Carter character, Dr. Hoffman, either. Her "crimes" of getting drunk and wanting to be immortal were hardly worth the death sentence. She's not Bellatrix LeStrange here, and she doesn't deserve the contempt the other characters treat her with.

Et tu, Seth Grahame-Smith? You, the same guy who made Elizabeth Bennett into a deadly ninja warrior in Pride and Prejudice and Zombies? If Mr. Darcy would have raised his hand to Lizzy in anger, she would have snapped him in half like a twig. She did kick him into a marble mantelpiece, and all he did was propose to her (albeit in a rather backhanded way).

The best part, actually, was a farcical sex scene in which Collins and Angie destroy an office in a fashion that puts Bella and Edward's bed-wrecking to shame. That, my friends, is what should have happened between Diana Bishop and Matthew Clairmont in A Discovery of Witches.

The same theater was also showing The Lucky One (based on the Nicholas Sparks novel I recently read- and loved. That ending - oy! I literally threw the book down and said, "Now THAT is how you end a novel! Well done, Mr. Sparks!") and The Hunger Games. I have a feeling I would have been better off seeing either one.

Oh, and earlier today, while I did a bit of online research, I watched The Thin Red Line. I admit I've never read a James Jones novel. Once, when I was 16 or so, I checked From Here to Eternity out of the library. Because the profanity and sexuality of the book were considered somewhat controversial when it was published, I thought I might enjoy it. I don't think I made it past page 10. Line (the title comes from a Kipling poem) is a sort of sequel to Eternity.

It's a brilliant film, although I don't particularly care for Sean Penn. Jim Caviezel is playing Private Witt, a Southerner who's not particularly intellectually gifted, but who is nonetheless amazingly perceptive, kind and noble. His observations in voice-over are lovely. Now I'm forced to wonder how much of Witt comes from James Jones and how much comes from the screenwriters. Might have to go to the library and peek inside the book.

Witt, your soul is pure. You're as pretty on the inside as you are on the  outside. Which is a lot.