Watch Over Me by Christa Parrish

Watch Over Me by Christa Parrish

When deputy Benjamin Patil finds an hours old baby abandoned in a field, he wonders what the world is coming to. Who would abandon their child, much less leave it to die? He and his fellow officers do their best to find out who did it while he and his wife Abbi take the baby girl in.

The Patils' marriage has been failing ever since Ben returned from war. He carries emotional baggage, and Abbi hate his ever going to war, since she is a pacifist. Neither of them can ever seem to talk without getting into an argument. But when Silvia arrives, Abbi finds something new to spend her time on. A deaf young man also enters their life around Silvia's arrival, but he knows far more about Silvia than he's letting on.

As Christa Parrish did in her perfect debut Home Another Way, Watch Over Me is a character-driven plot with very realistic characters. Abbi is an even better character than Christa has ever made. She has a very deep personality, but Christa spent most of her character development on her and left the others to fall by the wayside. The rest of the characters are imperfect and a few have personalities, I just feel that Christa burned out by spending so much time on Abbi. But if she keeps this kind of character development up, she will always be an Elite author.

As a side note, Matthew, the deaf boy, is not a stereotypical sympathy plot device as most handicapped characters are. He has his flaws and a personality. This shows Christa's superb efforts to be original.

The plot is extremely realistic, as was Home Another Way. Christa Parrish knows how to capture real life in action and knows how to not fix everything at the end. She started out writing realistically, and I hope she continues this trend throughout her writing career.

However, Christa could not resist sewing up one thing at the end. This is the first typical thing I have seen her do. I don't really understand why she did it; it is completely uncalled for. One would not miss had she taken it out. This is the only thing that keeps it from being five stars. Perhaps her publisher was leaning on her to do something typical to keep her readers happy. Either that, or Christa is bottoming out from such a good start.

As long as Christa eliminates mistakes like this, she will always be an Elite author.

4 stars

Home Another Way by Christa Parrish

Sarah Graham returns to the tiny town of Jonah only to redeem the inheritance the father she hardly knew left her-his house. When she arrives, she finds the house, like her life, is a disarray. The townspeople attempt to be kind to her, but she refuses their hospitality. She also refuses to believe that her father was as good of a person as they tell her he was. She just wants to know if her father told anyone to tell her that he was sorry for the way he treated her. She never expected to become entangled into the lives of several people.

Home Another Way

is a raw character-based plot, the best type of plot, in my opinion, because it portrays real people living real lives. Jonah is not a small town full of countrified, stereotypical hicks like you would expect. It's full of real, flawed people who are living their lives the best they can. Even the characters who seem perfect at first have their problems. Not only are the characters imperfect, but they also have personalities. This is huge step in the right direction for debuting author Christa Parrish.

Though the book is mostly a first person perspective told by Sarah, there are a handful of chapters that take the reader out of her limited perspective and into the lives of several of the characters. This lets the reader know a little more about them and makes for a realistic plot.

As I've said in the past, you never know what a debut author might do. They could be typical or original. Thankfully, Christa Parrish has begun her writing journey as an original author. Nothing typical happened at the end of this book. And thankfully, this book is not tragedy-ridden like some authors try to make this genre. It's normal, not depressing, because Sarah and the reader both learn something at the end.

Not only was the end realistic, but Christa went the extra mile to be original by fixing two pieces of Literary Trash. This also shows promise down the road.

There are virtually no problems with this book, making it a perfect five. I'm glad there is a handful of authors on the market that strive to be this original. I expect great things from Christa Parrish down the road.

5 stars