Toot! This is the first stop on the virtual blog tour for the new book, All That Was Promised by Vickie Hall.

The moment I took this book from the shipping wrapper, I was impressed. The cover image is beautiful. Decorative embossing adds to the book’s charm. I immediately felt drawn to find out what lay inside.

And so I turned the page…

First, a disclaimer. I haven’t read much LDS fiction, and only a very little romance. Not really my thing. So I can’t offer direct comparisons to other similar books on the LDS market. But perhaps someone will find my unique perspective useful, keeping that in mind.

This is Vickie Hall’s debut novel, published by Cedar Fort/Bonneville Books. The story is set in Cardiff, Wales, and is about the birth of the LDS church in this area. The setting is interesting and well-researched, although I didn’t feel facts being pushed at me, the way they sometimes do in historical novels, when the author just has to get that tidbit of research in there SOMEHOW. (After all, it took so long to dig it up. Gotta put it in…) The facts pertaining to the setting felt naturally disclosed.

This story includes a nicely diverse cast of characters that the action intertwines around. I grew to care about each one. Certain folks felt a bit like stock characters, and more development might have helped avoid that, but I still was anxious to see how things came out for each.

Maybe the plot was a little predictable, but although I yearned for more surprise and depth in character reaction, the story was satisfying.

My main complaint is a matter of personal preference. I found the use of omniscient point of view distracting as we danced from one person’s thoughts to another. I like stories with multiple viewpoints, but I prefer a single viewpoint within a section, if that makes sense. Ye Olde Third Person Limited.

A big plus for me was the use of dialect. Authors are often cautioned against trying to duplicate an accent or dialect through phonetically spelling things out. I thought the author’s way of dealing with this was just right. The language added a nice touch of setting and realism without being distracting.

I recommend this book for LDS females of all ages. Although one of the central characters is male, I suspect the womenfolk will be most pleased with it.

Here’s the Amazon link for snapping this up: All That Was Promised