Book Review:
"The Sunday Wife" by Cassandra King
Reviewed by Catie Hayes
of WomanLinks.com
It is inevitable that over the course of time,
we change. Within a relationship, we thrive or suffocate as
we grow. If the relationship remains flexible, it adapts to
accommodate both parties' needs. If the relationship is rigid,
there is no room for personal growth and either the relationship
ends or an individual stagnates within it.
"The Sunday Wife" examines a relationship
of rigidly defined roles clashing with a woman coming into
her own power. Dean Lynch met her husband, the ambitious Reverend
Benjamin Lynch, at a time when her sense of self was lost.
An orphan of a poor Appalachian family, Dean longed to belong
somewhere...anywhere. In Rev. Lynch, Dean thought she found
a purpose. The rigid demands and expectations of being a minister's
wife, however, prove more isolating than she ever imagined.
All that she is, all she values, is dismissed by her husband.
He sees her humble roots as an embarrassment, her opinions
as juvenile and her love of the dulcimer as childish. Dean
is necessary to his advancement within the Church; a minister
will not advance without a wife. Only when her husband is
reassigned to a congregation in the Florida panhandle, does
Dean realize what her life could be . In meeting the congregations'
most desired and most elusive recruit, Augusta Holderfield,
Dean forms a fast friendship and a glimpse into a new world.
"The Sunday Wife" follows well-developed
characters, some quirky, some struggling through personal
evolutions. It is an engaging chronicle of individual needs
vs. relationship obligations.
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