Review 101: Waiting for Spring by R.J. Keller

Waiting for Spring
by R.J. Keller
Createspace
Copyright: © 2008
Paperback $14.95
ISBN: 1440461163
Kindle Edition $3.19

Waiting for Spring was actually queried to us some time last year, and unfortunately we turned it down at that time.  I can’t recall the exact reason and can’t speak for the other reviewers. I remember reading the preview and it just didn’t capture my attention like it probably should have at that time.  But for me, books are like fine wine: sometimes they need to sit on the shelf for a while and a time will come when you will want to open them up and enjoy the essence that waits inside.

I’ve been watching this book and this author for over six months now.  I’ve owned a copy of the book for two months.  At 480 pages, I’ve casually been reading it the whole time.  To be honest, I usually frown at 300+ pages so that might have also been a factor in my original rejection. And now that I’ve finished the book, looking back through it and deciding how I wanted to approach this review, I’m captivated by a few lines on the first two pages where the narrator is seven years old and explaining to her friends why God’s love seems most real to her when she opens her box of crayons:

The reason was actually very simple even if they were too stupid to get it. There wouldn’t be colors called Burnt Sienna and Hot Magenta and Aquamarine if God didn’t love us. There would just be brown and red and blue.

Waiting for Spring has lots of moments like this when the words just touch you emotionally in a certain way and make you stop and reminisce or ponder them for a while before continuing on. R. J. Keller is a master storyteller when it comes to character development as the story of Tess Dyer unfolds.   Tess, a cleaning lady in her mid thirties, is recently divorced with no children (she doesn’t want any) and is about to relocate from one small town to another to start over.  She starts by moving into a duplex upstairs from sexy 25 year old Brian LaChance.  With a name like LaChance, a gorgeous body, and long locks of hair, Brian echoes the male protagonist of a Harlequin romance novel.  It’s easy to guess where Tess’s story line will take her.

Tess is the black sheep of her family and of the whole town which is another reason she chooses to relocate.  Tess not only denied her “sports town hero” husband children, but she also cheated on him. With happily married siblings who are conceiving grandchildren and who have successful jobs, the rolling eyes and tense conflicts extend far outside her immediate family.

Keller paints Tess Dyer both with disgust and with sympathy.  Depending on your own beliefs of the American family with a happy marriage and 2.5 children, you might roll your eyes at Tess too, but Keller gives equal attention to both sides of the equation.  You’ll love the bitch in Tess as she commands respect from her family for the choices she’s making, and for when she holds her own amongst the new town folk when rumors of her relationship with Brian start to spread. When Tess must face past flings that have shared a bed with Brian, she gives no apologies even if it means getting a beer spilled down her favorite shirt.

And speaking of painting, that’s what Tess does for a hobby.  She becomes obsessed with an old orchard behind the duplex which serves as a nice metaphor for change as Tess grows eager to see the trees bud in the spring season.  She even paints a picture of it which ends up selling in a local gallery.  It’s a fine accomplishment for her although Tess later wishes she had kept the picture for herself.  Unfortunately, the painting storyline gets lost amongst the other drama in Tess’s life, and it’s one I wish Keller would have explored a bit more.

Part of the “other drama” involves Brian’s sister who has started seeing a man who is a heavy drug dealer and ends up pregnant.  Brian grows worried since he has to see after his sister because there are no parents in the picture.  There’s also Tess’s ex husband who pops in and out both physically and emotionally in the storyline, and Tess’s own parents decide to separate.  All of this puts stress on Tess’s and Brians relationship and they too struggle to be each others support.

As I said before, I frowned at the size of the book and given the theme and its storyline, I do believe the book is too long and could have been tightened to about 250-300 pages.  After Brian and Tess give into their emotional needs, the middle of the book becomes a day by day diary of their time together with no real important events happening that have an effect on the storyline until the drug dealer physically hits Brian’s sister.

I also thought some of the arguments between Tess and Brian seemed a bit forced or came too late in the story. The book moves at a very leveled pace and when the crescendos do come in the plot, there’s less than 100 pages left which  leaves the ending feeling a bit rushed.  Throughout the book, Keller also starts each chapter by measuring how many days or months Tess is from a specific event that has happened in the story; this became a bit daunting after a while for me.

All of my own minor opinions aside, R. J. Keller is an artist at female character development and the entire book itself proves that.  Keller knows Tess inside and out.  There’s an old saying that says “write what you know” and I have to wonder what personal pain, if any, this book came from.  Tess’s emotions and feelings go far beyond the page and there is something here every reader will connect with when it comes to your own hopes and experiences whether male or female.  Like that bottle of fine wine I mentioned earlier, Waiting for Spring is a nice Chardonnay with a rich body that should be sipped slowly and enjoyed with great satisfaction…even if all you can afford to drink from is a plastic cup.