"The Secret Life of Sarah Hollenbeck" by Bethany Turner

Stories about writers will always be interesting to other writers, so I was excited to check out this 2017 release by Bethany Turner. It's the tale of Sarah, who used to write graphic and steamy romance novels, and how her conversion to Christianity caused her to leave behind her tawdry past and start a new life as an author of clean Christian fiction. She faces a lot of challenges along the way, including how her new church views her life before Christ, as well as her agent and publisher telling her she'll never make it in the Christian market.

This book is full of literary and pop culture references, which make it easy to read and quite funny—if you get the inside jokes. Not everyone is familiar with these things, based on their background and personal preferences. Pop culture is one of those things that will draw one reader in yet push another away, so its effectiveness varies widely. 

I'll go ahead and proceed frankly with this next subject, but I've never read a book where sex was such a main subject unless it was actually a book about sex. That said, it's not done in a gratuitous fashion, and there were very few places I thought it crossed any lines. However, I would definitely recommend this for adult readers only, and many conservative readers would take issue with the amount of time dedicated to this topic. You should be aware of this ahead of time.

My main issue with this novel was not its content in terms of culture or sex, but the way it handled the church and the people involved in the ministry at Sarah's new church, Mercy Point. She immediately gets involved in a romantic relationship with Pastor Ben, who doesn't read like a real human and especially not a minister of the gospel. Other people at the church are mean-spirited and cause many problems through lies and gossip. It's not a good look for Christians, and a lot of the plot points in this part of the novel don't make sense. I recognize that Christians often fall far short of where we should on many things, but this took it to a ridiculous level.

Because Sarah became a follower of Jesus Christ and also started dating her pastor in the same week, she also has a hard time differentiating between her relationship with God and her relationship with Ben. There's also a lot of weird beliefs or assumptions about Christianity that Sarah holds which would be natural for a new convert, but there's little to no growth shown where she recognizes her misconceptions and adopts a proper view of God.

I enjoyed this book on some levels, but on others found it vastly wanting. I can see why some people love it and some people did not finish it. Maybe a review like this will help you decide whether or not to add The Secret Life of Sarah Hollenbeck to your To Be Read list.