First Impressions Are Never What They Seem

by

Karen Barnett

Somedays, Laurie Burke's life seems to be as shattered as the mirror

and the whiskey bottle that she found broken on the floor.

And whether it is the glass shards or her life, she seems to be the only one picking up the pieces.

The Burke family has not been well since Laurie's Mother died, and that was years ago.

Now Dad and Johnny both work at the mill, and only Dad comes home.

Johnny has moved out, stopped telling Laurie his secrets, and all but disappeared from the life of his almost-fiancee and Laurie's best friend Amelia.

When her father is home, he is drinking and then raging and then mourning all over again,

leaving Laurie powerless to help him.

When he surfaces into sobriety ever so briefly, he makes promises to quit...and then he forgets and locks her out to spend the night on the front porch in the cool Washington State air.

There is one thing responsible for all this havoc wreaked in Laurie's life: the liquor.

Johnny is a criminal rum-runner,

rowing the booze across from Canada to bypass America's temperance laws.

Her father is an alcoholic. That 100 proof "medicine" he buys from the drug store isn't for his shoulder pain anymore, if it ever was.

The druggist who sells it, Mr. Larson, and his grandson Daniel who came back from Seattle to work with him, are both culpable for feeding her father's addiction.

No matter how kind Daniel seems to be, he is probably just like all those other scoundrels

and miscreants that she has attracted over the years.

This time it will be different.

She knows she needs to keep her distance from Daniel Shepherd,

and he knows that there are good reasons why she is right.

Laurie Burke is an upright woman and she will not be brought down by the deadly fluid that rules her family's life. There is one way to stop her brother and her father

and yet protect them at the same time: befriend the prohibition agent who is here in town.

Surely a truthful, honorable man with the power to stop the flow of alcohol is a man she can trust, isn't he?

But what if she is Mistaken?

I would not have known that this was Karen Barnett's debut novel if you hadn't told me.

Mistaken grabs you and pulls you right into the lives of the characters, and each character has more than one side to his story. I wanted to throw Laurie's father out of the house when he was yelling at her to fetch the hidden bottle, then I wanted to cry with her when she said she felt like she didn't love him enough just the way he was.

I cheered when Laurie began to wonder if she had found someone who loved her, and then was grieved by her fear that this would be like all the other times some man had paid her attention.

Each time I thought I had these characters pegged, they turned around and let me see a different corner of their heart.

I also need to say that I really appreciated the fact that these characters had pasts... they were real people, fallen and redeemed. Like us.

Combine that sort of character with dark nights and whisky smuggling,

set in 1926, and you have a book that I really, really enjoyed reading.

I can't wait for more from Karen Barnett, and I hear she has another special project going on with Abingdon Press for a new series!, so after you place your order for Mistaken go check out her website or Facebook!

Laurie Burke is a young woman whose family is making all kinds of choices that directly affect her life. She desperately wants a good life for herself, and yet feels that her family's struggles define her. She has taken on the role of "fixer". But it's not too long into this story that her desire to have a "perfect" family and a "perfect" life gets her into the deepest trouble she's ever seen.

The theme that caught at me and will remain with me for a while, is that we all desire a perfect life. We all wish there were no secrets in our history. We all tend to want to "fix" things for the ones we love. We all become jaded when something or someone isn't as "perfect" as we think they are, or ought to be.

But God is the One who is the Rescuer, Jesus is the One He sent to be the Ultimate Fixer. We all need forgiveness from some messy little thing called SIN. Everyone has some kind of struggle, and when we stop looking at the struggles, and start looking at Jesus, we begin to find the answers to life.

Don't get me wrong. This book isn't preachy! But these are the thoughts that reading it today has inspired. Great read, great job, Ms. Barnett!

Laurie's brother is involved in a local gang running illegal booze from Canada during Prohibition, and the new man in town, Daniel Shepherd is involved as well. Laurie hates the business the effect alcohol has had on her family, and the fact that all the men in her life seem to be controlled by it, one way or another. Yet she finds herself attracted to Daniel.

Things get complicated when another new face arrives in town: Samuel Brown, a handsome federal agent working to eliminate the illegal trade in alcohol, who is also interested in Laurie. Although her head says Samuel is the better choice, her feelings are conflicted, not least because of her brother's involvement in rum-running.

We get a hint of one of the main plot conflicts in Mistaken's subtitle: First impressions are never what they seem. Literary buffs may recall that the original title of Pride and Prejudice was First Impressions, and there is something of the Lizzie Bennett in Laurie Burke (not merely the initials). Like Lizzie Bennett, Laurie is embarrassed by her family: in her case, by her alcoholic father. Her initial impressions of people are incorrect, and she makes other errors of character judgement in the same way as Lizzie did. I'll let you figure out the other similarities yourself.

Mistaken is Karen Barnett's debut novel, and it's excellent. I find that a lot of Christian fiction, especially historical fiction, starts to get repetitive in the themes, plots, characters and settings. Mistaken is set in a small coastal town about twenty miles south of the Canadian border during the Prohibition era, and alcohol plays a major role in the story. It's an original time setting, and an original plot, and I liked that.

And the author doesn't shy away from the problems alcohol causes and the effect it has on family members. Her writing is more challenging than most Christian fiction, as Laurie has to negotiate some difficult moral choices with no black and white answer. The characters are real, facing problems in a world where the right thing to do isn't the easy thing to do. And while this is Christian fiction and Laurie's faith ultimately helps her in finding the answer to her conundrum, the Christian aspect is very understated. Recommended.

Thanks to Abingdon Press and NetGalley for providing a free ebook for review.

My eyes feel like sandpaper grains are in them, but what a way to spend the day! Curling up with this novel by Karen Barnett was pure ecstasy from beginning to end! The time frame is during the prohibition when alcohol could only be obtained for medicinal purposes. Ray Burke is given it via a prescription from his doctor for shoulder pain he battles. However, after losing his wife, Ray quickly loses control of his life from providing for his daughter Laurie to being abusive with his son.

Now Laurie's older brother Johnny has taken to rum running. Why does he do so when he has a steady job at the mill? The town's local pharmacist's grandson Daniel has returned to the area to help run the local store. Daniel though battled the demons of his past in Seattle privately. In time, Laurie and Daniel fall in love, but Laurie also has another man named Samuel who is pursuing her affections constantly.

A G-man, pharmacist, prohibition and then add seduction, scandal, romance plus faith and what comes out is a novel that will keep you turning pages like me! It would seem like I could envision the next scene, but then came twists and turns in a plot that heightened the suspense. It is really an enjoyable captivating book that will be a favorite of mine for years to come.

Laurie's man issue is that all the men in her life have failed, in her view, to take care of their issues. Ray has to come to terms with being a drunk and wanting to get better, but will he? Is Samuel the government agent here to bust up a small town operation or something more? Will Daniel ever find the courage to face his past with hope and courage?

The main theme is giving and receiving forgiveness because all have sinned before God. Characters in the writing reflect the truth that we all have the choice as to whether to trust the Lord or try and take care of life without Him. A part of the theme too is whether trusting God is the real answer or trusting in people as an anchor when the tumults of life hit us. I saw too where allowing our loved ones to make their own choices is so hard because of the pain we incur and our loved ones as well.

With winter coming on the heels of fall soon, this is a great tale to curl up with and get lost in when the snow flies. Of course, if you are anything like me, I wouldn't be able to wait. I would grab one to read now and then give one has a Christmas present! Okay, maybe more than one!

The year is 1926 and 21 year old Laurie Burke is trying to hold her family together. Since her mother died ten years previously, Laurie's father has found solace in whiskey. It doesn't matter that prohibition is in effect. There are ways to obtain alcohol that circumvent the law, and Laurie knows her brother is one of her father's suppliers. His reasoning is that their father will only look elsewhere if he doesn't provide it, and what he ends up with might not be all that safe to consume. Furthermore, her brother wants Laurie to stay out his business. Her failure to do so, however, could jeopardize everything she holds dear including her home and her job.

Mistaken is Barnett's excellent debut novel, which is partly based on stories her grandparents told about life in Washington during prohibition. It's an easy book in which to immerse yourself in American life before the depression. Prohibition often brings to mind the mobster world of Al Capone and his associates, and books on the 1920s can emphasize the glamorous flapper life. Mistaken focuses on neither of these elements, but instead looks at ordinary lives in a small town and how they were impacted by the Volstead Act. Many of these ordinary people turned a blind eye to the bootlegging and speakeasies in their towns. They were more concerned about other events in their lives. Laurie is upset about her brother's involvement in the rum-running, but her fears are that he'll be arrested. Even when pressed to give him up, she'll go to almost any length to not turn him in. There is a moralistic element to the story regarding the consumption of alcohol, but the lesson appears to be not so much about the perils of drinking alcohol but that people can change and turn their lives around. For the majority of characters, the main concern is when does doing the right thing cross the line between legally right and legally wrong? During the time of prohibition, that line definitely became blurred.

Thank you to Abingdon Press for an Advance Reader Copy of Mistaken, which I received in exchange for an honest review.