The Wedding Dress
By Rachel Hauck
Publishers: Thomas Nelson
Release Date: April 3, 2012
Charlotte Malone, owner of Malone & Co., an upscale bridal
boutique, should be a happy woman. Just over a year ago an anonymous benefactor
deposited a hundred thousand dollars in her bank account, a windfall that
allowed her to remodel her shop and increase her inventory of designer gowns.
Charlotte’s gift for finding the perfect wedding dress for her customers has
earned her the patronage of the reigning Miss Alabama and a feature in a
prestigious bridal magazine. Her own wedding is a mere two months away. But
Charlotte is bothered by a nagging feeling that things just aren’t right. The
feeling sends her to the Ludlow Estate atop Red Mountain, a spot she visited as
a child with her mother, for solitude and prayer, but she finds herself in the
middle of the annual Ludlow Foundation auction. One thing irresistibly leads to
another, and Charlotte leaves the auction the owner of a hundred-year-old trunk
with a welded lock and unknown contents.
When Charlotte’s engagement to Tim Rose is broken, she turns
her attention to the trunk. With Tim’s help, the lock is broken and its
contents—a beautiful, timeless wedding dress and a pair of dogtags from the
1960s—revealed. As Charlotte traces the history of the dress, the stories of
three other women surface: Emily Canton, who, in 1912, wore two wedding dresses,
one by the dressmaker of Birmingham’s elite and one by a former slave, Taffy
Hayes; Mary Grace Fox, who in 1939 married her preacher man in the Taffy Hayes dress
Emily Canton Ludlow sold to her for ten dollars; and Hillary Saltonstall, who wore
the dress when she married her military hero shortly before his deployment to
Vietnam in 1968. Their stories not only intersect with Charlotte’s but they
also give Charlotte her past and inspire the courage and faith she needs to
claim her future.
The Wedding Dress is part contemporary romance, part historical
romance, and part Christian allegory. As contemporary romance, the cultural references are employed to good effect. While enough detail is given to evoke the Depression and the 1960s, the richest historical period is the early twentieth century, the setting for Emily's story. The racial prejudice and the restrictions on women's lives are integral parts of her experience. The characters in all the stories are engaging, the multiple
stories are interwoven skillfully, and the faith element is an organic part of
the characterization rather than a sermon disguised as fiction.
If you like
Inspirationals, I highly recommend this book. If you avoid inspirational fiction
because you assume it is badly written or preachy in tone, this novel will
prove you wrong on both counts. I especially appreciated that while the book
qualifies as a kisses-only romance, the author shows her characters as fully dimensional
human beings for whom physical desire is natural.
Do you read Inspirationals? What are your favorites?
Note: As some of you know, I was in the hospital for several
days last week and not feeling up to par for several days before and after that
period. I apologize for the missed posts and fully expect to be back on track
with Tuesday Reviews and Friday musings from now on.
