Today, I'm reviewing Leaning into the Curves by Nancy Anderson and Carroll H. Morris. From the back cover blurb:Molly is happy with her life the way it is, but everything changes when her husband, Hank, retires. When Hank brings home a Gold Wing motorcycle and joins the Temple Riders Association, a “Mormon motorcycle gang” that combines road trips with temple work, things go from bad to worse. Faced with the prospect of being left behind as Hank hits the road with his new group of friends, Molly starts making some changes of her own.A funny, often poignant, look at the challenges of reinventing life after sixty.
* From the co-authors of the popular series The Company of Good Women
* The Temple Riders were featured in an October 2009 Footsteps of Faith documentary
My Review:
I first heard about The Temple Riders when I was about 16 years old. It may not have been the same group, but I do remember my home teacher telling my family about members of our church going on motorcycle trips with the goal of visiting all the LDS temples in the United States. I thought it was an interesting concept which prompted some of my own car trips to go to visit temples during some of my free time in college.
Leaning into the Curves is a unique book in the LDS market. 1st - we really don't have very many books out there with characters who are more mature. Even though I love the romance genre, most of the characters in that category are under the age of thirty. It's rather nice to have a book whose main characters are empty nesters, encountering a very different stage of their life and marriage than I usually read. 2nd - how often do we see LDS books where the characters are motorcycle lovin' Harley addicts? OK, well maybe not all of them are - Molly sure has a lot of reservations about her hubby's new interest. But it's quite a fun twist on book plots.
From a reader's perspective, it took me a little while before I really got into the book. But then it turned into a fun and interesting read. I definitely recommend this book to anyone looking for something different than typical LDS romances.
Leaning into the Curves is available at Deseret Book and other LDS book stores.
