Rachel Hauck: The Writing Desk

By Kelly Bridgewater

Tenley Roth’s first book was a runaway bestseller. Now that her second book is due, she’s locked in fear. Can she repeat her earlier success or is she a fraud who has run out of inspiration?
With pressure mounting from her publisher, Tenley is weighted with writer’s block. But when her estranged mother calls asking Tenley to help her through chemotherapy, she packs up for Florida where she meets handsome furniture designer Jonas Sullivan and discovers the story her heart’s been missing.

A century earlier, another woman wrote at the same desk with hopes and fears of her own. Born during the Gilded Age, Birdie Shehorn is the daughter of the old money Knickerbockers. Under the strict control of her mother, her every move is decided ahead of time, even whom she’ll marry. But Birdie has dreams she doesn’t know how to realize. She wants to tell stories, write novels, make an impact on the world. When she discovers her mother has taken extreme measures to manipulate her future, she must choose between submission and security or forging a brand new way all on her own.
Tenley and Birdie are from two very different worlds, but fate has bound them together in a way time cannot erase.

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My Thoughts:

The Writing Desk by Rachel Hauck reminded me a lot of her previous series with The Wedding Chapel, The Wedding Dress, and The Wedding Shop. This story is a time slip novel from 1903 - 1960's with a present timeline. The present time line features Tenley, a writer, who is on a deadline to finish her second book, but she has a major writing block stopping her from writing her story. Like her previous stories, the present story mixes with the past, but you have to read the complete novel to find out how they mix and depend on each other. As for the romance between Tenley and her "fiancé" Holt, I figured out pretty early on what was happening with him while Tenley helped her mother with her chemo treatments in Florida. But the romance with Jonas was sweet and showed Tenley what it was like to be in a loving family who cared and cherished her. On the other hand, the pace of the novel moved a long at a nice clip. I didn't feel that it dragged at all.  I hated having to put it down to make dinner for my family. I enjoyed the story idea. I can totally relate to an author who has a number of doubts and cannot come up with a story idea to put down on the paper. Tenley does transform and understand the significance of God in her life by the end. Fans of Hauck's previous novels will enjoy this novel like I did. I recommend it and can't wait to see what else Hauck comes up with.

I received a complimentary copy of The Writing Desk by Rachel Hauck from Zondervan Publishing, and the opinions stated are all my own.

My Rating: 5 out of 5 stars