Making Waves was a good first novel by Lorna Seilstad. It’s the story of a spunky young lady in proper society who is thrilled to discover that her family will be spending the summer at Lake Manawa, Iowa in 1895. She’s been courting a man named Roger who is agonizingly boring and in true modern fashion, decides to take up sailing (which is not for women!) as well as interest in the sailing instructor (who is NOT Roger). The summer of mischief turns to turmoil as she finds out secrets about her father that threaten the family’s security and she has to decide whether to marry Roger or follow her heart.
One of the things I liked best about this book was the details regarding the historical time period and setting. Her description of life at the lake and the new fad — camping — were hysterical! How very different it is from modern camping. It was a very novel setting and I’d never read or heard of a book in that setting today. I love the novelty of it and she did a great job with the setting and the details surrounding it.
There was one thing that kind of irked me though. I didn’t like the personality “change” that occurred in Roger. I’ll try not to give too much of the book away, but I thought I had one picture of him in my mind when the book started. About 1/3 of the way through the book, he seemed to have a personality change. I would have liked a more gradual revelation of the character flaw or some foreshadowing that made it a little less of a shock. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t that there was NONE, but there was an event that happened that made me stop and think “wow, he was boring but I didn’t realize he could hide being THAT kind of jerk!”.
Anyway, overall, it was a very enjoyable read. It did an excellent job occupying me when I couldn’t shut my brain off that night :).
Available September 2010 at your favorite bookseller from Revell, a division of Baker Publishing Group.
[…] Fisher (3 stars — see my review) 45. Making Waves by Lorna Seilstad (2.5 stars — see my review) 46. A Memory Between Us (Wings of Glory #2) by Sarah Sundin (4 stars — see my review […]