Patti Lacy

Once again, Patti Lacy writes a book that shows she is a writer's writer. She never takes on small challenges, and in her latest novel, Reclaiming Lily, she mines the rich veins of story involving a family whose foreign adoption involves intrigue and heart-wrenching drama.
The layers to this story come down one atop the other, turning this way and that until they're woven tighter than a grass tatami mat. There's the adoption from China seen both from the side of the woman whose heart has long ached for a child, and through the eyes of the child's older sister who hoped to reclaim her sibling from the orphanage and bring her back to her birth family. Finally, it's seen through the eyes of the teenager who remembers the loss, abandonment, fear, hatred, and displacement she struggled through.
Reclaiming Lily speaks to the tragedies of civil unrest, culture clashes, self-mutilation, teenage rebellion, and of the devastating effects of genetic disease. Ultimately, it's a story that weaves the faith factor in so realistically, I couldn't help but be moved.
Ms. Lacy brings about a huge twist in the plot eventually that provides a superb "Ah-ha!" moment, and the ending is both dramatic and satisfying. It's definitely women's fiction worth reading. It will stay with you.
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"Edgy" is an anemic way to describe the gut-wrenching realism in Patti Lacy's "Rhythm of Secrets", new 2011 from Kregel. Writers know that to keep readers turning the pages, there needs to be conflict. Lots and lots of conflict. Bad, leads to worse, leads to awful. In Patti's book, the progression doesn't start small. It takes off with tension, and continues to breed one new horror upon another for her protagonist.
Conservative pastor's wife, Sheila Franklin, has been masking a secret past for years, but a disillusioned Vietnam vet destroys her cover when he arrives with plans to blackmail her into helping him rescue his fiancé, a Vietnamese prostitute, from her controllers.
In revealing her past, Sheila must choose between her son -- helping him to rescue his beloved -- or her husband Edward, whose trust and ministry may crumble with her revelations.
Patti's writes with a flair and intensity which crosses that invisible line between CBA and ABA. This is important in an inspirational marketplace where authors and publishers are continually asking themselves where to draw the "edgy line". It's one thing to write about sins of the flesh in a way that stirs base passions, and it's entirely another to write about them in ways that provoke introspection and self awareness of our own downfalls.
That's what Patti does. She doesn't hold back from using intense language (I'm not talking "foul", just intense) and painting pictures of the worst side of human nature. But in so doing, she causes the reader to ponder their own stumbling blocks or self-righteous attitudes. That takes craft, folks.
I recommend that Christian writers who aspire to write provoking fiction read Patti Lacy's books. In them you'll understand how to explore themes of human nature in a Christian world view without being preachy.
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An Irishwoman's Tale - I just kept thinking that this woman Mary from County Clare in Ireland who was sent away had already lived such a pitifully painful life by the age of 5YO that it seems so unfair that she had to be sent away from her Mam but it turned out to be a blessing and although her growing up years weren't happy she somehow overcame the struggles with who she was and now is and how to help her cope with her past and eventually deal with problems inherited from her familial she had never really known.… (altro)