Most parts of Highland Sanctuary by Jennifer Hudson Taylor are like a transcript of a girlish daydream, but in unusual circumstances. It's about a beautiful young Scottish woman in the 1400s who suffers from seizures. Serena lives in constant fear of having a seizure in public, which would inevitably end in her being tried and burned as a witch. She stays in the Village of Outcasts with other people who have various physical conditions, and she doesn't trust anyone outside her village. Two noblemen (Iain, the new lord, and Gavlin, a lord from southern Scotland who is there to lead the reconstruction of Iain's castle) are intrigued by her mysteriousness, and both fall in love with her. Serena guards her heart at first, knowing that no relationship can end well. When her secrets are made known and her life is in danger, Serena may have to learn to rely on someone else. And one of these men may stand by her side and prove himself.
This story followed a well-worn romantic plotline. Clearly, this sort of emotional manipulation works on women. It's obvious from the beginning that Serena will marry and who her man will be; with romance novels it always seems to be that way. It also always seems to be the case in romance novels that the woman is stand-offish at first, while the man is in love at first sight. Meaning that not only does he think she is the most beautiful woman he has ever met, but he immediately decides that he will have no one else forever and ever. This is so twisted. Yes, faithful for life is the ideal, and I think Christian authors should uphold that ideal in their literature, but mixing it with the fairy-tale of love at first sight (i.e. lust at first sight) is not a good idea, not in terms of morals, and not in terms of a plot. I'm waiting for a book in which the man keeps his attraction in check and comes to love a woman slowly. I don't have much personal experience, but when the hero is supposed to be a good man and we are supposed to believe the relationship is long-lasting, a process in his heart and mind seems more realistic.
Now in reality, we girls sometimes get infatuated with a man we just saw. A literary role model who can control her heart is a wonderful thing, but Serena doesn't really fit the bill there either. She rejects Gavlin at first because of her own insecurity. However, since that is a real response that a lot of girls have, she doesn't bother me as much as the male characters do.
I saw one more emotional issue. Serena's mother dies in her place, leaving Serena with no one in the world except the man who loved her. It at once seems so perfect and so wrong that he becomes her entire world all of a sudden.
To be terribly honest, the endorphins had their effect on me, and I enjoyed this book anyway. I'm trying to tell myself that it's because the secondary plot surrounding the characters' daily lives and the circumstances threatening them was original and much more suspenseful... but we know the truth...
Although I've never seen an Indy film, I've read one. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is basically a word-for-word copy of the movie script in paragraph form (guessing from movie quotes that I saw online) filled in with colorful descriptions of the settings and non-stop action sequences. The writing is done so skillfully that I think I have a pretty accurate mental picture of what the movie looks like. At first, I enjoyed the adventure and mystery, but eventually the action became numbing. It's so odd that stunts and collisions and disasters that look perfectly credible on the screen sound ridiculous on paper- and then they get boring. The crystal skulls themselves were a disappointment to me (aliens from another universe?) Somewhere in the last third of the book, the entire world that the book had constructed for me collapsed, and I just read it for the sake of finishing.
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