The Way of the Brave - Susan May Warren

The Way of the Brave by Susan May Warren
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I'm giving this one three and a half out of five, rounded up to four. I struggled a bit to know what to give it, but I think that's a fair rating. What I didn't realise when I started reading it, was that it was a religious romance. I cottoned on fairly quickly when various characters started referring to God as though he were an off-screen character that they all knew well. Perhaps that's how they and the author feel? I don't know, it just wasn't what I had been expecting.
The book itself deals with a mountain climb and rescue. I have to admit that I've not done much climbing and certainly no mountaineering. I can't tell you how accurate it was, but it certainly seemed to contain plenty of detail and made for a fascinating and exciting read. It even had me looking up Denali online and looking at some photos. In many ways, the romance and the connection to the characters came as secondary to this adventure storyline.
The characters themselves all seem to have had terrible things happen to them in the last few years. It's really hardly surprising that any of them seem to need to use religion as an emotional crutch, I think anyone would struggle to cope with that kind of things thrown at them. If I had a criticism about the adventure element of the book, it would be that that side of it was relentless, with a number of things happening one after another that they needed to face and deal with.
The romance worked well, it was in many ways a second chance romance, although Orion and Jenny hadn't actually been lovers before. It did seem to be very much secondary to the other events in the book, but that didn't really matter.
There were a couple of things that I didn't like, which is why it doesn't receive a larger rating. Firstly the constant religious discussions were just a bit much. If I had known that this was a religious book, I'd have probably given it a miss for that reason. The other thing that bothered me a bit was the way some of the characters acted. A doctor with a suspected broken ankle and other injuries won't let someone examine her, she's halfway up a mountain and she's worried it wouldn't be right to let him see her stomach and lower chest. Really? Then there's a scene where one character overreacts (completely) because another woman has invited a man back to her room when she's always said before that she would 'wait'. It's a really really odd scene and just doesn't ring true for characters that are supposed to be adults.
Overall, I enjoyed the book, more as an adventure read than anything else.
I received a complimentary copy of this book through NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.


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