Ann Howard Creel

Near the end of World War II, pregnant Olivia Dunne is forced into marriage and banished to a remote Colorado farm, where she develops a relationship with her new husband and with two Japanese-American sisters living in a nearby internment camp. Reprint.

The Magic of Ordinary Days

Jeni Enjaian

Having seen the Hallmark movie (the only Hallmark movie I actually like) based on this book, I knew the plot well. I think Creel created a decent plot out of a fairly uneventful situation, a plot which allowed her to focus on character exploration and development. I think she did a fairly decent job with this, nothing extraordinarily good or bad. However, she let a gem of a story slip through her fingers, holding onto only the decent scraps left behind. If she had explored the ramifications of Livvy's declaration at the end of the book, I think she could have salvaged even more of the gem. Instead, she spends far too much time on the Rose and Lorelei saga and far too little on Ray and Livvy's relationship. While not bad, I hope for much better in the next fiction book I read.

Olivia Dunne, a minister's daughter who dreams of being an archaeologist, becomess an accomplice to a crime and is faced with betrayal, she confronts her own desires. Filled with memorable characters, Creel's novel is a powerful exploration of the nature of trust and love.

Jennifer Griffiths 

I really enjoyed this book a lot. I love history and hearing about the realities of World War II and all the things with the Japanese Internment Camps really kept me interested. I also loved how Olivia grew and learned what it really meant to love and trust and going through her journey and realizing that she had her own history by being on that farm with Ray. 

It was definitely a learning experience for her and I had a lot of great lessons about life in it as well and friendship and many other things that I took away from it. I know plan to watch the Hallmark movie that was inpsired from the book.

The Magic of Ordinary Days

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