Diary of a Confessions Queen

Diary of a Confessions Queen
By Kathy Carmichael

Amy Crosby's husband disappeared seven years ago. She is now being forced to have him proclaimed dead so that she can receive the insurance money and prevent her house from being foreclosed. Someone doesn't want her to do this and is blackmailing her to prevent it.

Say, what?

Okay, if you are already confused you will probably remain so throughout this not so inspiring novel. Amy is a wimp. Sorry, Amy is a spineless wimp who cannot say no to anyone. Just why is she so reluctant to have her husband declared dead? Carmichael never makes it sound like she loved him in the first place. And her supposed boyfriend -- does he think she is going to marry him? She sees him as a friend. It is the hot deputy who makes her heart pound.

And what is with her career? Is she a fiction writer? I never did understand the whole "confessions" writer plot line. How has she really made ends meet? What kind of confessions are these, anyway? I don't see any kind of either sins or mistakes or even gossip that she seems to write about. And where is the diary?

I don't know if I should even mention her friend, Sue Ann, or Amy's crazy mother-in-law. To round out the narrative I could also add seances, a skunk, a cat who changes its mind about his new owner, a mean neighbor and some really co-dependent behavior from everyone in the small town of Independence (ha!), Kansas.

And what did this book have to do with my faith? Although Amy was raised as a Catholic, her parents died right before she became confirmed, so she went to live with her tarot card-reading grandmother. I suppose being a confession fiction writer is not so surprising -- she never learned how to really confess. Although, with her personality, the priest would probably coerce her into admitting false sins. In any event, I kept looking for confessions. I guess there were some by the murderer by the end of the book. It reminds me how slippery our confessions are in this day and time. Do we really admit to God, if not anyone else, what sins we have committed? Or are we too busy rationalizing our behavior or making up our own stories about why this really wasn't our fault? Confessing means admitting that we are imperfect and that we cannot truly forgive ourselves without God's forgiveness. We all need to confess -- at least to God -- much more than we do.

I do not recommend Diary of a Confessions Queen.

Happy reading!

Amelia