Reviews for The Substitute Guest

The average rating for The Substitute Guest based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2011-12-31 00:00:00 Matthew Leclerc I'm wading through a backlog of Grace Livingston Hills I picked up when the kids were little. Hill was clearly a "seat of the pants" kind of writer, who would come up with a keen scenario with maybe a general idea of where she was going, then she'd plunge in to see where it led. When she was at the top of her game, this worked really well; when she wasn't, it didn't. She had her act together on this one. The original set-up had all the elements she needed to carry her through to a satisfying conclusion, so none of the characters make a sharp right turn somewhere along the way to fit the new role she thrusts on them, and there aren't people popping up half way through the book who logically should have been there from the first. This is a very Christmassy tale, with most of it taking place during a snowstorm and then with the characters snowbound over the holidays, and there's lots of talk about Christianity and what it means to the characters, an element which varies considerable with Hill's books depending on where she was in her career (not because Hill's beliefs changed but because she had more freedom to talk about them after she'd become established). I like Hill because of her homey touches, and this book is full of them, so it's likely to become one of my favorites.

Review # 2 was written on 2021-01-11 00:00:00 Thomas Gradante Grace Livingston Hill is still one of my favorite authors, and this book is just precious. Yet, this book now has a special place in my heart. We started this for Christmas as a family, and we finished it on a snowy day in January... the day we got three inches of snow in Texas! That was 2 and a half more inches than I had ever seen.