Skip to main content

JADE by Marilynn Griffith

JADE (Shades of Style, book #2) by Marilynn Griffith

From the back cover:

HAVING THE PERFECT LIFE ISN'T ALL IT'S CRACKED UP TO BE.

Designer Lily Chau doesn't know if she's finally got it together or if life is starting to unravel. With a successful boyfriend and a great job at up-and-coming fashion house Garments of Praise, it seems she has the perfect pattern for success. But her mother's health is failing, her boyfriend just won't pop the question, and being a pattern maker is a far cry from having a clothing line of her own. Lily is sure her hands are just too full to draw her deepest dreams.

Raya and Chenille, Lily's pals at Garments of Praise, offer plenty of advice and sympathy. And Jean, Lily's co-worker and second mom, even goes behind Lily's back to boost her chances of success. When she's chosen for the reality show The Next Design Diva, it seems like the chance of a lifetime for Lily. But the mysterious designer chosen to mentor her sends her spinning. He's fresh, fine--and way off limits. Suddenly Lily's life goes from carefully patterned to nothing but a tangle of threads.

Camy here:

Maybe it’s because I wasn’t as familiar with the African American culture in PINK, but I feel closer to the main character of JADE—and it’s not because she's Asian. It’s because I relate to her personality more. The storyline and the writing of JADE also seems more romantic to me than PINK. I enjoyed the love story a great deal.

I liked how the protagonists are older. Their mindsets are different than the protagonists of PINK, giving a slightly different tone to the story. The maturity of their concerns and emotions will appeal to older women versus ones in their teens and 20’s.

The author wrote with clarity and compassion about the background and prejudices Lily and her mother experienced as first and second generation Chinese. They’re things that will resonate with many other first and second generation Americans, regardless of ethnicity. No matter where they come from, people who immigrate to America from other countries face some things that other Americans don’t experience, and this book brought some of that to life in a gentle, non-political, non-threatening way.

I think that many women will relate to Lily’s trials with her aging mother suffering from dementia. It brought back the struggles my mom had with her mother-in-law, and with the difficulties my aunt had with her mother. The author doesn’t go into detail, but she brings the emotion to the forefront—I really felt Lily’s tiredness, stress, and sense of being overwhelmed.

I didn’t quite think Lily always reacted the way I would as a single woman who desires to be married. Despite the other factors in her life, once in a while she said or did something that made me stop and question if she really did want to be married, that made me wonder if I was really relating to her struggle with her singleness, because it wasn’t always in line with my own experiences.

On a whole, though, the romance in this story is both hot and spiritual, if there is such a thing. LOL. I really enjoyed seeing how Lily and Doug were thrown together. Their chemistry sizzled on the page.

Doug’s variegated background—a missionary kid who grew up in Asia and knows Chinese, a medical doctor who hasn’t practiced in a while, a once-famous clothing designer, a missionary who understands African languages—was a little hard for me to buy. Can one person really have all these hats on one head?

But it’s fiction, and it made him one of the most interesting characters I’ve read in a long time. I really loved Doug as the male protagonist in this story. The author paints him with color and flair and yet also with subtle nuance to make him real and not flashy. He stood out for me, moreso than Flex did in PINK.

The prose is like poetry. It flows like Lily’s water fountain, movement over rock-solid faith. The author’s voice is strong and one of the most unique writers’ voices I’ve read.

Both women’s fiction readers and romance addicts will like this story. I think that older readers will relate to Lily’s struggles more, whereas teens and 20-somethings might not quite be able to step into Lily’s skin as she deals with the issues uniquely facing a single woman in her late 30s.

I can’t wait for Jean’s story!

Comments

Ruth said…
Great reviews, Camy! You are totally putting me to shame with your ability to churn out these awesome write-ups! I hope to finish my review of RELUCTANT BURGLAR tonight, so keep your fingers crossed (but don't hold your breath, LOL!). *wink*
Anonymous said…
I can relate to some of the immigrant issues though after I'd gone through school they no longer made such a difference. I guess my issues were less ethnic-related than they were related to my Christian upbringing.

I can definitely relate to the dementia/Alzheimer's issue. At first I thought I was going crazy with all the weird things my mother was doing and saying. It got so bad that I couldn't do my job anymore and my own illness was intensified as I tried to deal with my mother's illness. In a way, I think her doctor should have said something to me a lot earlier about her problems. At times I truly believed I'd gone totally of my rocker. It wasn't until my sister-in-law's 3 doctor relatives saw my mother's behavior at a family get-together that *they* decided that something needed to be done and one of them had enough pull to get my mother examined immediately. Although my mother had a lot of confidence in her doctor, and he probably was good, I've never trusted doctors completely who'd give me some medication and say "I know this will help you." The medication in question the only time I went to see him because I had no other doctor was one I'd been taking for a few years in Germany already. It had finally made it to Canada about the time I got back from 10 years in Germany. The medication hadn't been much help in Germany and it wasn't any better in Canada. The power of positive thinking only works... Well, maybe it works when you haven't taken medication after medication with little or no sign of improvement.

Popular Posts

Michael’s Scarf knitting pattern

Michael’s Gray and Brown Scarf I had just written a scene in Lady Wynwood’s Spies, volume 5: Prisoner where my character Michael gives the heroine a very significant scarf. When looking for a stitch pattern, I found the one used in “#31 Comfort either for a Lady or Gentleman” in The Lady's Assistant , volume 2 , published in 1842 by Mrs. Jane Gaugain, pages 125-126 (click on the link to view and/or download the free PDF of the digitally scanned book). When I did test swatches, it turned out to be a pretty eyelet pattern that looks like branches or vines winding upward. I tried the pattern as a parallelogram scarf and discovered that the pattern has a changeable orientation, looking vertical or diagonal depending on how you looked at it. So I decided to use this pattern, knitted as a parallelogram, as Michael’s scarf. I decided to use a smaller needle and add a slip stitch in the pattern to make the eyelets a bit more close and less lacy. When paired with a brown an

September and October Christian Fiction new releases

The Lone Rice Ball releases next month in a Christian Contemporary Romance multi-author box set, Once Upon a Starry Night: A Very Merry Christmas Romance Collection . It's included in this promo with other Christian Fiction new releases for September and October. You can preorder it for only $2.99, and the price will go up on the release date in October. If you prefer to read it on Kindle Unlimited, sign up for my newsletter so you can hear when it’s available to read in KU. Check out the Sept/Oct Christian Fiction new releases

CWO – Girly girls

Captain’s Log, Stardate 09.12.2006 Blog book giveaway: My Thursday book giveaway is A FAMILY FOREVER by Brenda Coulter . My Monday book giveaway is JADE by Marilynn Griffith . You can still enter both giveaways. Just post a comment on each of those blog posts. On Thursday, I'll draw the winner for A FAMILY FOREVER and post the title for another book I'm giving away. Check out Christian Women Online (click on the button above) to see what other women are blogging about this quote. "Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another, 'What! You too? I thought I was the only one!'" ~ C.S. Lewis ~ I am NOT a girly-girl. I prefer jeans and pants over skirts (a remnant of having my skirt lifted in middle school—traumatic, I tell you). I rarely wear makeup. I prefer sports bras over the lacy ones, or the underwire ones, or even the “boost your bust a cup size” wonder ones. I was also never a jock in school (think pudgy and slow). I was a brainiac, with

No Cold Bums toilet seat cover

Captain's Log, Stardate 08.22.2008 I actually wrote out my pattern! I was getting a lot of hits on my infamous toilet seat cover , and I wanted to make a new one with “improvements,” so I paid attention and wrote things down as I made the new one. This was originally based off the Potty Mouth toilet cover , but I altered it to fit over the seat instead of the lid. Yarn: any worsted weight yarn, about 120 yards (this is a really tight number, I used exactly 118 yards. My suggestion is to make sure you have about 130 yards.) I suggest using acrylic yarn because you’re going to be washing this often. Needle: I used US 8, but you can use whatever needle size is recommended by the yarn you’re using. Gauge: Not that important. Mine was 4 sts/1 inch in garter stitch. 6 buttons (I used some leftover shell buttons I had in my stash) tapestry needle Crochet hook (optional) Cover: Using a provisional cast on, cast on 12 stitches. Work in garter st until liner measures

Grace Livingston Hill romances free to read online

I wanted to update my old post on Grace Livingston Hill romances because now there are tons more options for you to be able to read her books for free online! I’m a huge Grace Livingston Hill fan. Granted, not all her books resonate with me, but there are a few that I absolutely love, like The Enchanted Barn and Crimson Roses . And the best part is that she wrote over 100 books and I haven’t yet read them all! When I have time, I like to dive into a new GLH novel. I like the fact that most of them are romances, and I especially appreciate that they all have strong Christian themes. Occasionally the Christian content is a little heavy-handed for my taste, but it’s so interesting to see what the Christian faith was like in the early part of the 20th century. These books are often Cinderella-type stories or A Little Princess (Frances Hodgson Burnett) type stories, which I love. And the best part is that they’re all set in the early 1900s, so the time period is absolutely fasci

Fall Into Sweet Clean Christian Romance Bookfunnel promo

Volumes 1, 2, and 3 in my Lady Wynwood’s Spies series are in this promo featuring Christian romance novels! Check out the promo and all the great Christian romance ebooks! You might find a new favorite author!

Marketing Information Form, part two

Captain’s Log, Stardate 05.26.2006 Blog book giveaway: My Monday book giveaway is A GIRL’S BEST FRIEND by Kristin Billerbeck . My Thursday book giveaway is LIFE INTERRUPTED by Tricia Goyer . You can still enter both giveaways. Just post a comment on each of those blog posts. On Monday, I'll draw the winner for A GIRL’S BEST FRIEND and post the title for another book I'm giving away. Stay tuned. Continued from Marketing Information Form, part one : More stuff they want to know about my book: Other covers: What styles, fonts, colors? This is one area I didn’t really think about, but I listed the few covers that I thought conveyed the sort of atmosphere I wanted for my book: WHAT A GIRL WANTS by Kristin Billerbeck . The cartoon design is fresh, cute, clean. SASSY CINDERELLA AND THE VALIANT VIGILANTE by Sharon Dunn . This book, more than the other Ruby Taylor books, conveyed Ruby’s character—her vibrant red hair, bohemian dress, sassy post-modern attitude. THE TROUBLE WITH LACY B

Grace Livingston Hill romances free on Google Books

I wanted to update my old post on Grace Livingston Hill romances because now there are tons more options for you to be able to read her books for free online! I’m a huge Grace Livingston Hill fan. Granted, not all her books resonate with me, but there are a few that I absolutely love, like The Enchanted Barn and Crimson Roses . And the best part is that she wrote over 100 books and I haven’t yet read them all! When I have time, I like to dive into a new GLH novel. I like the fact that most of them are romances, and I especially appreciate that they all have strong Christian themes. Occasionally the Christian content is a little heavy-handed for my taste, but it’s so interesting to see what the Christian faith was like in the early part of the 20th century. These books are often Cinderella-type stories or A Little Princess (Frances Hodgson Burnett) type stories, which I love. And the best part is that they’re all set in the early 1900s, so the time period is absolutely fasci

Merry Christmas! Enjoy The Spinster's Christmas

As a Merry Christmas gift to all my blog readers, I’m going to be posting my Christian Regency romantic suspense, The Spinster’s Christmas , for free on my blog! I’ll be posting the book in 1000-1500 word segments every Tuesday and Friday. (When I do the calculations, it’ll finish around the end of May.) Why am I posting a Christmas story when it won’t be Christmas in a week? Because I can! :) The Spinster’s Christmas is the prequel volume to my Lady Wynwood’s Spies series . Right now I’m editing volume 1 of Lady Wynwood’s Spies, and it’s on track to release in 2020. (If you’re on my Camille Elliot newsletter , you’ll be sure to hear when it’s available for preorder.) I anticipate that the Lady Wynwood’s Spies series to be about ten volumes. I think the series story will be a lot of fun to tell, and I’m looking forward to writing up a storm! Below, I’ll be listing the links to the parts of The Spinster’s Christmas as I post them. (I created the html links by hand so please

Cleo’s Drawstring Purse knitting pattern w/ @KnitPicks CotLin

Kari Trumbo is one of the twelve authors who participated with me in the Christian Contemporary Romance anthology, Save the Date . Kari’s novella in the anthology is titled January Hope . In celebration, I wrote a knitting pattern for the lace drawstring purse used by Kari’s heroine, Cleo. (In case you missed it, here are the links for my interview with Kari part 1 and part 2 . Tomorrow I’ll post an excerpt of one of Kari’s other books, Better Than First .) This is a pretty and practical little bag used by the heroine Cleo in Kari Trumbo’s novella, January Hope . Knit in a cotton/linen blend yarn, it’s just large enough for a cell phone and a small wallet. In the book, Cleo’s bag was a coral shade, but the bag I knit here is a chocolate brown color. The lace pattern is the Double Rose Leaf stitch pattern originally published on page 195 in The Lady's Assistant, volume 2 by Mrs. Jane Gaugain, published in 1847. ( You can download a scanned .pdf of the book from Archive.