"Desert Gift" by Sally John was a bit of a departure for me. It's Christian fiction, which I usually don't read, but the ones I have read I've liked. I used to read Bodie and Brock Thoene's books when I was a teen and I really enjoyed them. Sometimes it's nice to read something without all the sex and foul language. Not always, mind you, but occasionally. I liked the plot of this book: on the brink of their much anticipated vacation, Jill's husband, Jack, announces that not only is he not going with her, but he wants a divorce. Jill is a radio host with a program on marriage counseling, and the trip was a working vacation where she was going to promote her new book on how to make a marriage last. Whoops. Jill was totally blindsided by Jack's announcement, and is of course a distraught wreck. While in California she visits with her parents and her sister, and wonders about what went wrong.
There were a lot of little side issues in this book that never really panned out, like meeting up with her old boyfriend, Ty, and her relationship with her mother, while other parts of the book were stretched thin. Jack's revelation near the end of the book about his ex girlfriend aborting their baby seemed superfluous to me: it served no real purpose and they didn't even really discuss it. It felt like the author just tossed a whole bunch of things in to see what would stick. The characters were likeable enough and the dialogue felt real, but I couldn't get over the nonsensical plot elements to really say I enjoyed it.
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