Bookshelf

Sushi for One?

by Camy Tang
Author Website: http://www.camytang.com/

Available in paperback. Zondervan, 2007; ISBN: 0310273986; 352 pages.

Camy Tang recently won first place in the Debut Author category of the ACFW (American Christian Fiction Writers) Book of the Year awards. I'm so excited for her! It was well deserved.

Camy labels her books as "romance with a kick of wasabi." That's a great description. Her Sushi Series features sassy Asian American characters who struggle to live a Christian life in the midst of a not-so-Christian world.

This first book centers on Lex Sakai. She's one of four Christian cousins and, at the book's start, has been promoted to the position of OSFC -- Oldest Single Female Cousin. In a family where her grandmother, a bulldog-like matriarch, believes immortality is gained through grandchildren, this is a big deal. Lex is now Grandma's number one target and soon becomes the object of an ultimatim: start dating someone seriously (while currently having no prospects on the horizon) or lose the funding she desperately needs for the girls volleyball team she coaches. Lex has to find a boyfriend in three months, before her cousins wedding. Oh, and she doesn't trust men. Meanwhile a knee injury keeps her from the club she's waited years to join.

Final Thoughts: I loved this book! Its authentic characters endure real-life struggles without the sugary, watered-down grace often present in Christian fiction. These are chicks I would love to be friends with - if only they weren't fictional. I'm putting this novel (actually the whole series) in my pile of books I'll read again and again.