Resurrection in May by Lisa Samson

May Seymour was a confused college student when Claudius Borne, a simple old man who exhibited better relational skills toward plants and animals than toward people, found her on the street, passed out in a hangover. The two of them struck up an odd relationship that did not end, even when May went on a mission trip to Rwanda, attempted to fulfill her purpose in life. But genocide in the hostile African environment sent her back to hide at Claudius’ farm. However, when tragedy struck May’s life, she vowed not to set foot into the outside world, relying on a church friend for sustenance. But when May receives news that an old college friend refuses to appeal his death row sentence, May’s life takes a turn for the better as she begins to discover life once again.


Lisa Samson has continued her streak of avoiding the same old plot with the same old characters. Like Embrace Me and The Passion of Mary-Margaret, Resurrection in May is a departure from her old self of writing about crazy female leads in certain situations. May Seymour is not one of those leads; however, she is not an exemplary character either.

May and Claudius could have been developed better. I am surprised at how much Lisa Samson’s character development skills have digressed the past three years. Obviously creating spastic female leads was the only skill she ever had. There is one good character among the mix, but since there are few characters, all of them should have been developed better. Believe it or not, this area is the weakest area of the book and causes its fall from five stars.

The plot is original and intriguing, much like that of The Passion of Mary-Margaret. There is nothing normal about the circumstances, but there is nothing wrong with this. A self-made farmer, a confused college graduate, a busybody church leader, and a prison inmate all thrown together make for irregular circumstances indeed. Even the romantic subplot Lisa invented was off the wall. No plot can be compared to this plot, making it unique. This is the sort of fiction that should always be: unique, original, and fresh plots.

However, the second component to a perfect book was partly missing: well-developed characters. However, one can never really complain about a Lisa Samson book to the point of never wanting to read her again. I’m sure she’ll be writing unique books until she dies.

4.5 stars

Straight Up by Lisa Samson

Georgia and Fairly are cousins both living different lives but neither of them is where God wants them to be. Georgia is a frequent drunk who pines after her husband who lives in a monastery. Fairly is a New York businesswoman lacking a sense of purpose in her life. Both of them meet up at their uncle's house and things begin to change for them. Their lives crisscross with a girl named Clarissa, who is living in a bad situation and it all comes to a head one night when they must give everything they have to God.

I wish I could write more in my summary, but anything else is intangible or insignificant, like most Lisa Samson books. Also, like most Lisa Samson books, the title makes no sense, the cover is insignificant, and any summary doesn't do it justice. There are too many everyday life scenes to describe in a summary. But that does not mean this book is not good. No, this book is actually one of the most original I have ever read.

Another staple of a Lisa Samson book is a spastic female lead. The good thing about these such leads is that they each have something different about them or are in different situations (except that they either live in Kentucky or Baltimore). In this instance, the spastic female lead is a drunk and has several interesting drunken stupor scenes. While this bothers some people, I believe it is an issue to be addressed and not brushed over. Clarissa is also an interesting character in that she always refers to herself as "the little girl." Characters have never been an issue with Lisa Samson, so all is well there.

The only romantic subplot is that of Georgia and her husband, and even that is entertaining because of good character development in the relationship. But with books like these, the end can make it or break it. In this case, the end is highly original. There are two different parts that end originally, actually. Georgia's end is original, Clarissa's end is original, and Fairly's end is appropriate. But Clarissa's end holds deeper originality than Georgia's end because Georgia's end can be easily thought of. Clarissa's end takes brains and guts to think of because I've never seen anyone end her situation like Lisa ended it. Not many people are as brave as Lisa when is comes to originality, and this is promising.

More and more authors are trying things like this, and this is encouraging after several years of mundane Christian fiction. Authors are finally stepping out and being realistic. The market is changing, whether people like it or not.

5 stars

Songbird by Lisa Samson

Charmaine Hopewell never used to be where she is now-married to a pastor, singing professionally, and taking care of foster children. It all started when her mother left her with her neighbors. Then the neighbors could no longer take care of her, so she went out on her own. After living with college students, singing in a bar, and working in a restaurant, she finally settled down to work at a mission where she met her future husband, Harlan. But things did not stop for her there. Charmaine still wanted to find her mother and grandmother and know the truth about her heritage.

It's hard to completely summarize the plot of Songbird in one review. Songbird is an epic tale of Charmaine's wanderings, starting when she was twelve. There are many more things that happen during the plot than I can tell about in my review.

Epics are something Lisa Samson has never tried and has not tried again. Epics are hard plots to write because the reader can get bored with the slightly choppy writing style. Authors can make mistakes by jumping through life too much or too fast. Lisa didn't make either of these mistakes, but she made another one. The first three fourths of the book are average and run-of-the-mill fiction. The final fourth of the book has five star qualities, but it took too long to get there.

As usual, the characters are realistic-complete with personalities and imperfection. That is, the characters Lisa sticks with. This is namely Charmaine and Harlan. All the other characters are passable, only appearing in the plot for several chapters at a time. There is nothing inherently wrong with this writing style; it's realistic to move from place to place. The problem comes in when your epic begins to lose its purpose.

Obviously, Charmaine's purpose is to find her mother. Of course, she does find her mother, but not in the way the reader might like. That's what I like about Lisa Samson. She strives to do different things with her plots.

As I said, the end is very original and realistic. Lisa went the extra mile to be original with her end. It just took too long to get there. I really enjoyed this book, as I do all of Lisa Samson's books. I continuously expect great things from Lisa Samson.

4.5 stars

Women's Intuition by Lisa Samson

When Lark Summerville's house burns down in a freak fire, she is forced to go live with her mother, daughter, and their housekeeper, the very people she has been lying to about her husband over the years. Since she was a hermit in her former life, these three women attempt to re-introduce her into the real world. But Lark resists and continues to live the same old lifestyle as a church organist and the owner of the hot line 1-800-IPRAY4U.

If anyone could write a book about nothing, then Women's Intuition is the book. It follows the lives of four slightly unusual females from different age groups as they carry out their activities. Each one has a first person point of view, so it gets confusing hearing the stories told by four females who are virtually the same. But in my opinion this book is literally about nothing.

Unfortunately I didn't really get anything out of the book. It has no point and barely a plot. The best thing Lisa Samson did with it was capture real life. This is a book of everyday activities; nothing more, nothing less. It's raw Lisa Samson material, and frankly, this isn't a good thing.

The characters don't have personalities that I can pin down, but at least they all have their flaws. Their dialogue and thoughts are littered with nonsensical, offhand comments that mean nothing. I would have liked it better if these four women would have each had a different personality. As it is, it's like talking to the same person over and over again, only in different age groups.

I befuddled when I came to the end of the book. It took me a while to gather what I was going to say about this book. In short, it's a snapshot of life. It comes in a random spot, and then it cuts off a random spot. But like I said, the book has no point.

Unfortunately, I can't put it on the Elite List for this reason. But I can see that this is an older work of Lisa's, so I believe she has grown out of this type of immaturity with her recent novels. I hope Lisa never returns to this stage of her writing.

3 stars

Tiger Lillie by Lisa Samson

Lillie has always been the wedding coordinator-never the bride.

Normally that cover blurb would turn me off from a book but Lisa Samson was never normal.

No man can replace Teddy, Lillie's boyfriend throughout high school. She currently works with Extreme Weddings and the Odd Occasion, a wedding coordinating service for those who want an original wedding. Their first big break appears when Lillie accidentally meets the brother of a famous performing artist. The artist is getting married soon, and he chooses Extremely Odd to coordinate the wedding. Lillie immerses herself in the work and tries to stop thinking about Teddy.

Tacy, Lillie's sister, also lives an interesting life. At eighteen, she married a twenty-five year old man who she had known for several years. He seemed charming and gentlemanly at first, but the longer she was married to him, the more she regretted her immature decision.

Despite what every other review I read about Tiger Lillie said, this book is fully based on Tacy's strange life. The title has nothing to do with what the plot is really about. The back description doesn't do Tacy's story justice. Lillie, though her ramblings fill up more than half the book, really only plays a small part in the plot.

As usual, Lisa Samson has crafted realistic, imperfect characters to fill her plot. This has always been Samson's specialty that has made her books Elite. Even though some of her plots are average, the characters make it Elite. This is the case with Tiger Lillie as well.

Lillie has an interesting view on life. The reader has to wonder whether her view of the plot is jaded by her enthusiastic nature or not. But this keeps the reader guessing and makes the book realistic.

The book is also told from the first person perspective of Tacy. She definitely has a more melancholy view of life than Lillie does. This also keeps the plot fresh and realistic.

But there are many other assets to Tiger Lillie besides the characters. The idea behind the plot-planning original weddings-is fresh and original. One can always count on Samson to come up with an original plot idea.

There are two romantic subplots-one for Tacy and one for Lillie. Tacy's in the the central focus of the book, while Lillie's is more extracurricular. Her's is an original romance because it isn't stereotypical. Typical phrases are not used in the dialogue. Their actions are not typical. This keeps the book fresh as well.

I've always said that the majority of the rating is based on the end of the plot. The end can make it or break it for any book. In the case of Tiger Lillie, the end is original because not everything is fixed. One major thing in particular is left imperfect. This is the finishing touch on the book's five star rating.

5 stars

The Passion of Mary-Margaret by Lisa Samson

Mary-Margaret is a teenage girl who lives a religious sister on an island off the coast of Baltimore. She is not a nun, for she does not reside in a convent. Yet she is a religious sister, who is married to Christ and must do all she can to spread the gospel to those who need it. All she wants to do is honor God and be like Jesus.

But then she met Jude, a wayward teenage boy who lives a wild life. Her heart goes out to him because of his situation, but she doesn't want to do anything drastic to help him. She prays for him and talks to him often, but she begs to differ when she hears what Jesus has in store for her and Jude.

The book is written by Mary-Margaret as an old woman looking back on her past, therefore the reader gets snippets of the present as well as the past. However, the book seems like it really is written by an old woman, and while this is a nice change from Samson's typical female leads, this also makes for bad character development, a surprise for Lisa Samson. Mary Margaret does not have a very good outlook on character's personalities, and while this is a creative touch, it makes for a slightly unprofessional writing style.

Samson insists that this book is not a paraphrase of Hosea, and that it is not meant to be read that way, but there is really no other way to read it. It's a backwards version of Hosea; instead of having the male pursue the female, the female is pursuing the male. This is the most original touch to the book.

This novel is an epic of sorts because it covers a majority of Mary-Margaret's life. Things work out; some things don't work out. It's realistic in some sense, but in other ways, it's not so realistic.

For example, Mary's father keeps appearing in the present. This means that he would have to be over one hundred years old, if Mary is eighty at the time. This is a plot hole and is very strange for Lisa Samson.

If there were a book that stood out from Lisa's other books, it would be this one, mostly because of the lack of good characters. After Embrace Me, I thought she was going to write more original plots like it. The Passion of Mary-Margaret is original, but it's strange for her. Though this novel is fine, I only hope her next release, Resurrection, is better.

4 stars

Quaker Summer by Lisa Samson

Heather has it all-a heart surgeon for a husband, the perfect boy for a son, a spacious house, an extensive property complete with a swimming pool and tennis courts, popularity in the community-yet she still yearns for something. She yearns to be as thin and to look as beautiful as all her friends. She tries to fill the void by giving hefty pledges to charities, yet the next day she spends twice the amount at the department store. She and her husband are still church shopping-they still haven't settled down.

But then an encounter with two ancient Quaker sisters and an old nun begins to point her in the right direction. She spends the summer with these three women while working at a homeless shelter. Slowly, she begins to learn what she needs to do.

What Samson has done with this book is she has taken one of her typical crazy female leads and has given her a lot of money. This equals a dangerous yet comedic combination.

As usual, all her characters are up to par. They are all realistic and imperfect; they are just believable people. Samson seems to be able to capture that with her plots.

Heather spends most of the book musing and analyzing life during her wanderings. This becomes very intriguing because it makes the reader think. I've heard people say that this is depressing, but life isn't all cream puffs. You have to think about the tough stuff sometimes.

Samson finds creative ways to keep the book interesting. This seems like a hard task since the theme of the book is not very appealing to some people. Yet she found a way to make the issue comedic yet thought provoking.

The only thing keeping this book from being five stars is a highly unnecessary scene that makes one of the characters stereotypical, even though he was beginning to not look so clear cut. This scene could have been easily cut and not missed by the reader, because following the scene, the characters make no mention of it.

I regret that Samson put this scene in the book because I wanted it to be five stars. Yet Samson did not let other things turn out perfectly that could have been that way. That is why it is rated what it is.

All in all, Lisa Samson is one of the best authors on the market.

4.5 stars

Embrace Me by Lisa Samson

Drew Parrish used to be a pastor, but now he has left his church and is on the streets. Not literally the streets, but close enough. He feels that he failed as a pastor because everything couldn't be perfect. So now he spends his days cataloguing his sins in notebooks in order to give them to a local priest. The first half of the book records these such writings.

Valentine travels around with a side show of "freaks" like herself. She is called the Lizard Woman, because her skin in deformed as the result of an acid accident. She lives her life in a very mediocre way-just day after day, night after night, working a steady job with people just like her. But something in her past has haunted her for nearly six years. Only one other person knows about it, and she refuses to forgive that person for what they did.

For all it's worth, none of what I wrote above came off of the cover description of this book. The cover description was highly misleading and unprofessional. I don't know what somebody was thinking.

But back to the plot. As usual, Lisa Samson has realistic, imperfect characters. But these don't necessarily make you laugh. They make you think. It's a good thing these characters are a departure from her usual crazy female leads. I don't know how many more of those we could take.

The whole book is a complete departure for Lisa Samson. It's a departure for anybody. I've never read anything like it. It's a modern-day parable about loving the unlovable.

The end will catch you off guard. When you're done with it, you don't quite know what to think right off. And because of this, there isn't much more I can say about the book. The end isn't one of Samson's usual perfect ends. There are many things left undone that could have been fixed.

The main reason this book is five stars is because there aren't any problems with it. Lisa Samson has finally eliminated her few mistakes that were standing in between her and a five star book. For that, I am proud of her.

5 stars

Club Sandwich by Lisa Samson

Ivy Scheider is a juggler-but not in the entertaining sense, mind you. She juggles her crazy life and just tries to survive one second to another. While her husband is on the road touring with a gospel music group, she stays home with the three kids and her aging parents.

She feels that she's the only sibling suited to take care of her parents because she doesn't trust the other two. At first it was only her mother, but then she takes in her father, who divorced her mother, without her mother knowing it.

She calls herself one of the sandwich generation-someone sandwiched between taking care of kids and taking care of aging parents. She writes a newspaper column offering support to other women in her situation. On top of that, she's trying to write a book.

There are many parts of Club Sandwich that are hard to review because the plot contains many realistic, everyday-life scenes that are driven by superb characters. Characters are the biggest thing Lisa Samson has over other female authors on the market. Without characters, her books would be very mediocre and typical.

However, these kinds of character based plots are usually limited to four and four point five star ratings because of their lack of complete originality.

That is true with Club Sandwich. While she builds up a strong base of good characters in the body of the book, the last chapter lacks originality because she tries to right too many wrongs. Too many things are sewn up to perfection except for one factor. This factor alone is original, but it is drowned out by all the other perfection.

I really wish Lisa wouldn't have done what she did in the last chapter. Otherwise it would have been five stars. She just couldn't leave well enough alone.

Nevertheless, Lisa Samson still impresses me more than most authors in this genre.

4 stars

The Living End by Lisa Samson

Lisa Samson does not belong in the genre she has been put in. She isn't like all the other romance authors on the market. The critics just don't know where to put her. The author she is perhaps most like is Angela Hunt.

Pearl Laurel has nothing to live for anymore now that her husband of thirty-five years has died. The two of them always wanted to die together, and Pearl wants to fulfill that wish until she discovers a list in Joe's pocket entitled "What I Want to Do Before I Die". So Pearl sets out to do the things on the list-and some things of her own-before going to meet her husband.

The largest anchor this book has is the superb characters. It's rare that you find any this good. They have very clear cut personalities, though it is subtle at first. None of them are perfect characters; that's the best part about it.

The book isn't just a manual of all the things Pearl completes from the list; the plot is broken up by two subplots: Pearl's and Joe's past, and all of Joe's journals.

But they aren't just simple journals. One of the books are Joe's analytical sketches of people he meets, one is meditations on Bible verses, and one is about everyday life. Pearl becomes obsessed with reading them.

The whole book is a journal of Pearl in itself because of the lack of chapters and the unpredictability of the entries.

The cover and the title are some of the best I have ever seen.

The end is ironic, to say the least. Though it was slightly predictable, it was understandable, sort of like a Karen Kingsbury end.

The way she is packaged as an author is funny because I would normally never read abook by this kind of author. However, do not be decieved for she is an original writer who fits many different genre expectations. All in all, Lisa Samson has been stamped with a title she does not deserve.

4.5 stars