It’s 1901, and Emily Graham is president of the local suffrage club seeking the rights of women to vote. She’s only 22, but she knows what she wants and will do anything to accomplish her goals. Who needs a man? Most of them are against the suffrage movement, and besides, she doesn’t have time. She also doesn’t have time to seek God’s will. Surely He’s good with what she’s doing.
When nonathletic Emily crashes into Manawa Owls’ pitcher, Carter Stockton, at the roller rink, an unlikely romance sparks. Carter eats-breathes-lives baseball in much the same way as Emily exists for suffrage. One major difference is that his top priority is seeking the Lord. Carter’s father and older brother are waiting (not very patiently) for him to outgrown this baseball phase and join them in the banking business.
Emily hatches a grand plan to invite the Bloomer Girls, a women’s baseball team, to play the Manawa Owls in a visible promotion of the suffrage movement. Carter agrees–with one condition. Emily–anything but an athlete–must play for the Owls.
A Great Catch is a tale of summer love in an Iowa resort town and an often humorous look at the historical suffrage movement with a cameo visit by the main character of the first novel in the series, Marguerite Andrews. Interlaced throughout is the hilarious plan of Emily’s two great-aunts and her grandmother to marry Emily off, and the more serious theme of making time for God in one’s life.
Lorna Seilstad is a history buff, antique collector, and freelance graphic designer. A former high school English and journalism teacher, she has won several online writing awards and is a member of American Christian Fiction Writers. She lives in and draws her setting from Iowa. This is the second novel in the Lake Manawa Summers series, one I will continue to seek out. I reviewed Making Waves here.
“Book has been provided courtesy of Baker Publishing Group and Graf-Martin Communications, Inc. Available at your favourite bookseller from Revell, a division of Baker Publishing Group”.