Review: Dancing on Broken Glass by Pamela Ewen

This week, theChristian Fiction Blog Allianceis introducingDancing on GlassB&H Books (August 1, 2011)byPamela Ewen

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Until recently retiring to write full time, Pamela Binnings Ewen was a partner in the Houston office of the international law firm of BakerBotts, L.L.P., specializing in corporate finance. She now lives just outside New Orleans, Louisiana, with her husband, James Lott.




She has served on the Board of Directors of Inprint, Inc., a non-profit organization supporting the literary arts in Houston, Texas, as well as the Advisory Board for The New Orleans Pirate’s Alley Faulkner Society, and currently serves on the Board of Directors of The Tennessee Williams Festival in New Orleans; Pamela is a co-founder of the Northshore Literary Society in the Greater New Orleans area. She is also a member of the National League of American Pen Women.




Pamela’s first novel, Walk Back The Cat (Broadman & Holman. May, 2006) is the story of an embittered and powerful clergyman who learns an ancient secret, confronting him with truth and a choice that may destroy him.




She is also the best-selling author of the acclaimed non-fiction book Faith On Trial, published by Broadman & Holman in 1999, currently in its third printing.


Although it was written for non-lawyers, Faith On Trial was also chosen as a text for a course on law and religion at Yale Law School in the Spring of 2000, along with The Case For Christ by Lee Stroble. Continuing the apologetics begun in Faith On Trial, Pamela also appears with Gary Habermas, Josh McDowell, Darrell Bock, Lee Stroble, and others in the film Jesus: Fact or Fiction, a Campus Crusade for Christ production.



Pamela is the latest writer to emerge from a Louisiana family recognized for its statistically improbable number of successful authors. A cousin, James Lee Burke, who won the Edgar Award, wrote about the common ancestral grandfathers in his Civil War novel White Dove At Morning.


Among other writers in the family are Andre Dubus (Best Picture Oscar nomination for The Bedroom; his son, Andre Dubus III, author of The House of Sand and Fog, a Best Picture Oscar nomination and an Oprah pick; Elizabeth Nell Dubus (the Cajun trilogy); and Alafair Burke, just starting out with the well received Samantha Kincaid mystery series.


ABOUT THE BOOK

In the steamy city of New Orleans in 1974, Amalise Catoir sees Phillip Sharp as a charming, magnetic artist, unlike any man she has known. A young lawyer herself, raised in a small town and on the brink of a career with a large firm, she is strong and successful, yet sometimes too trusting and whimsical. Ama's rash decision to marry Phillip proves to be a mistake as he becomes overly possessive, drawing his wife away from family, friends, and her faith. His insidious, dangerous behavior becomes her dark, inescapable secret.



In this lawyer's unraveling world, can grace survive Ama's fatal choice? What would you do when prayers seem to go unanswered, faith has slipped away, evil stalks, and you feel yourself forever dancing on shattered glass?


If you would like to read the first chapter of Dancing on Glass, go HERE.


Watch the book trailer:







My Review:

I think I understand abuse victims a little bit better after reading this book, which is what, I think, the author was aiming for, though she did it without preaching at me.

There are some books I connect with as a reader and some books I don’t and I’m afraid this is one I don’t. At the beginning, the characters drew me in and I wanted to cry out for Amalise to not go with Phillip. But of course she couldn’t hear me and she continued to flounder deeper and deeper, lost in the hope she could make a change in this man’s life.

I know many readers would become fatigued with Amalise for not walking away, but I thought she was well portrayed and I could emphasize with her soft heart. That doesn’t mean I agree with what she did, I’m completely against it and the reader should be. I believe the book makes that clear.

But neither the writing style nor the story sank its tentacles within me and wanted to keep me reading. I did finish the story and the ending brought good closure for the situation, but this book wasn’t for me.

I think it will help abuse victims or people who know abuse victims, but the target audience was missed on me.

This review is my honest opinion. Thanks to the publishers for providing a copy to review through CFBA.