Wednesday's Writer - Bonnie McCune

Here in the UK it's already Wednesday - and a hot, sticky and very uncomfortable night lies ahead.  With the whole nation going Olympic Games crazy, what better refuge for me to take than in front of my fan with a lovely book.  And of course, sharing that with you is the point of my Wednesday's Writer spot.

Another book I've thoroughly enjoyed in recent months is A Saint Comes Stumbling In and it gives me great pleasure to feature this in my new Wednesday's Writer slot as it's definitely very high on my list of recommended delightful reads.

A Saint Comes Stumbling In

I'm ashamed now to admit that I actually had a couple of reservations about this book before I began reading it which delayed me starting it.  The first was the title, which initially didn't appeal to me and the second was seeing (from the 'look inside' feature on Amazon) that it was written in present tense. I felt the writer would not be able to sustain this throughout. How completely wrong I was - on both counts!

The title is a brilliant choice - but you'll have to read the story yourself to discover exactly how clever it is, and the use of the present tense is a genius stroke. It's the mark of an exceptionally good writer, beautifully sustained throughout, keeping events and dialogue immediate and the heroine larger than life in front of our eyes. I'd die happily if I could write like this!

Another truly excellent quality of this story is the witty, intelligent humour and writing style. Humour pervades every page - it's dry, it's wry - it had me giggling so much on the train one day while I was reading it that at the end of my journey, a fellow passenger nudged me and asked me if I wouldn't mind telling her what I was reading that was so good.  Now any London commuter will know what an accolade that is!

A Saint Comes Stumbling In is almost a coming of age story, in that the heroine, Joan, never had a chance to discover herself and grow up in the normal way. Married to her one childhood sweetheart, she let him dominate her life...until he decided to move on to pastures new, leaving Joan stranded and alone on life's confusing highway. We follow her bumbling, stumbling progress through that difficult first year of her abandonment and watch her grow (and also shrink) along the route. It's impossible not to love her more with every page we travel into her life and heart (to which she, incidentally, seems to be a complete stranger!)  If I tried to summarise the story more than this, I'm afraid I might spoil it for others and I'd hate to do that. It's too good a story and too delightful a journey for me to ruin it for you with spoilers - you must make this one on your own.

I promise you, it's a journey you won't regret taking. Bonnie McCune is a truly talented and refreshing new writer. I will be reading everything she writes from now on. Her first novel is superb and I cannot recommend it highly enough.

This is most certainly deserving of another 5 cute cats of total approval!

About Bonnie McCune

B.F. McCune has been writing since age ten, when she submitted a poem to the Saturday Evening Post (it was immediately rejected). This interest facilitated her career in public relations and also in freelance news and features. But her true passion is fiction, and her pieces have won several awards.  For reasons unknown (an unacknowledged optimism?), she believes one person can make a difference in this world.  Her first novel, “A Saint Comes Stumbling In”, was published early in 2012.  McCune lives in Colorado.

You can visit her at www.BonnieMcCune.com