2016 Rainbow Awards Honorable Mention: From Third to Home by Chris Paynter (247-08-03-2016)

1) This is the third novel in a series. Not having read the first two, I was a bit lost at times, but that had nothing to do with the writing in this book. Overall, this was a very enjoyable read with vividly drawn characters.

2) While I'm not particularly interested in sports, I still found the story to be quite readable, and I can imagine that anyone who likes baseball would enjoy all the baseball talk, which comes across as very believable. The writing is solid, the best I've seen in a while. Word usage was good, and punctuation was correct. Those might seem like small things, the basics everyone should have down pat, but more and more writers these days fail in this arena, so I wanted to point it out. The writing flowed well, with little or no awkwardness. I felt comfortable as a reader, trusting the author. The dialogue was good. I almost felt there were too many main characters, but by the end, I knew everyone well enough and liked all the different storylines. There was a casual and believable insertion of details about in vitro fertilization. Any time we needed details on IVF or AA or baseball, the information was delivered in a good way. There were just a couple of places where there was some unnecessary repetition, sometimes almost line for line (in particular when Lisa was talking about her feelings toward her dad). I also found it odd that so many of the characters were surprised by sex. It seemed a little unrealistic. I've never found sex all that startling, even good sex. You don't have to be startled to enjoy sex. All in all, a well-written book that was a good read.

3) Usually series books aren't as good as the first, not true with this one. The author has a winner. She scores big in all categories, especially her characters. Her writing is getting better with each book.

4) A good read. Probably I would have liked it more if the book was more concerned with one single couple storyline at the time, because the amount of characters involved left me sometimes confused about the pairings and who was talking. But the story is fresh and interesting. The setting is quite peculiar and that makes up for some shortcomings in the story plot.