Review: Jennifer, An O’Malley Love Story by Dee Henderson
It’s a summer of change for Jennifer O’Malley.
The busy physician has a pediatrics practice in Dallas, Texas, and meeting and falling in love with surgeon Tom Peterson is adding a rich layer to her life. She’s sorting out how to introduce Tom to her family–she’s the youngest of seven–and thinking about marriage.
She’s falling in love with Jesus too, and knows God is good. But that faith is about to be tested, and in a way she didn’t expect. The results will soon transform her entire family.
[Warning: This may contain some spoilers for the O’Malley series. I don’t think they’re big ones and I tried to avoid them as much as possible, but there are a few in here, with the biggest being the outcome of Jennifer’s diagnosis. It shouldn’t be a huge surprise by about halfway through the first book in the O’Malley series, but there ya go…]
I have mixed feelings about this novella… It’s short, only 12 chapters. The paper copy [my sister has it] is hardback with a dust cover and everything and not very big. At 160 pages, it’s shorter than even most of those published by Harlequin [which I usually like, but tend to wish were longer].
I didn’t expect to learn anything new in this book – it is a PREQUEL, after all – and I didn’t. Not really. It was nice seeing Tom and Jennifer meet and fall in love, but all along I was waiting for both shoes to drop [you know how people say they’re “waiting for the other shoe to drop”? Yeah – they dropped at the same time here]. There also wasn’t enough… meat? to it for me. I would have liked a full length novel as a prequel [like Danger in the Shadows does for The Negotiator, though it wasn’t originally intended that way].
Another thing I would have liked, if instead of a full novel leading into The Negotiator [the first in the O’Malley series], would be to see some of the events through Jennifer and Tom’s eyes. Their wedding for instance. What led to Tom’s conviction that there would never be anyone else for him. Or their life after.
Something I’d like to see in the future? Tom. I know what he said, but I’d love to see him fall in love again someday. To see how the O’Malleys deal with and support him moving on [or not] and so on. I realize it may be difficult since Dee is now with a different publisher, but surely there’s some way around it…
Anyway, did I enjoy it? Yes. Was it a quick, light read without any of the suspense usually found in Dee’s full length novels? Yes. Am I glad I have a review copy rather than paying for it? Maybe. I don’t know that I’ll pick up a paper copy unless I find it on good sale somewhere. It does have my itching to read the O’Malley series again, but I don’t know that I will for a couple of reasons.
- I have a million books already in my TBR stack
- I bawl like a baby at the end of book 5 [book 6 if you count Danger in the Shadows] and then I never read the last book.
Overall, it wasn’t bad and was a pleasant diversion from staring at the bar on a download very late one night. I’m very much looking forward to more of Dee’s books and the “eh” factor of this one won’t change that.
Overall Rating: 7 out of 10 stars [and part of me feels bad about that number, while another part feels like it’s being a bit generous – guess it depends on what you were expecting and what you hope to gt out of it]