The Tea Rose By Jennifer
Donnelly
Fiona
Finnegan, a girl infused with the caring soul of her mother and fighting spirit
of her father, is the star performer in this big book. Author Jennifer Donnelly
did a splendid job weaving two parental traits together to form the strong and
likeable character of Fiona.
I liked the writing
of the story with a pacing strung out well from beginning to middle to end. It
is a story of happenstance where one event triggers another and another. Readers
get to travel along and see the repercussions of choices and circumstances as
they twist around and collide into one another.
Fiona did
not try to be a strong, loving woman, she was just born that way; caring, strong
and determined. Revealing Fiona in her weakest moments made her and her
circumstances believable.
On the next
to last page is where Fiona tells a determined little girl what her father told
her when she was young, “The day you let someone take your dreams from you, you
may as well head straight to the undertaker’s. You’re just as good as dead.”
In repeating
this same saying from earlier in the story, the author wraps up the overall
message she wants Fiona’s story to convey; never stop fighting for what you
want or compromise your dreams for someone else’s. Fiona represents a dreamer
who must go through the trials and tragedies of life while trying desperately
to hold on to her dreams. And it is the
one dream that she holds so dearly to that makes all life’s challenges worth
fighting for; to reunite with her love Joe.
As I try
hard to remember something unlikeable about the novel, I am hard pressed to
dredge up anything. I do remember a few times feeling as if resolutions to some
problems were too convenient or coincidental; (Fiona getting passenger tickets,
Fiona getting the bank loan, Fiona getting the tea house). The resolutions did not
interfere with the smooth flow of the story and I accepted them without further
critique.
I also would
like to have seen Will’s son get exposed and punished for setting up the arrest
and scandal against Nick Soames, as well as the crooked judge who carried out
the legal favor.
The Tea Rose
was 544 pages of cheering for love and goodness to overcome hate and evil. Often
in a novel the ruthless, hating characters seem to say and do the most courageously
memorable things. The Tea Rose gives those moments of incredible courage and
risk to our heroine and her supporters.
And, of
course, the love story is one that pulled me in from the start. Following the
love story, or more of a yearning story, is like watching a vessel travel
across dead lakes, stormy seas and raging rivers before unexpectedly crashing
and sinking deep down into the depths of a foreign harbor.
The main
item that kept me coming back was the suspense of waiting to see if and/or when
this vessel of love would rise above water once again to rightfully take its
place at the heart of the story. I think this a better love story than Francine
River’s “Redeeming Love.” In Rivers novel the relationship was more a higher
spiritual love of God, whereas in this novel the love between man and woman was
so imperfectly relatable and familiar; common.
It was
joyous to return to the big book of Fiona’s story again and again, picking up
wherever the tale last left me. It is also why I love paperbacks and hardcovers
over e-books; the weight of a book in my hands, along with the look and smell
of its pages and cover, somehow gives me ownership of the story while traveling
through its pages. You can say I feel closer to the characters and towns. Like
carrying around a neighborhood.
I hope to
write to this author letting her know just how entertained I was reading her
novel. I will likely read one or both books that continue The Rose Trilogy; The
Winter Rose, The Wild Rose.
I need more
time to digest what I read and review my notes. But this I know without
needing more time; The Tea Rose was a superb read and I am more than happy to
recommend it to other readers.
Jan 3, 2021
