UNBROKEN CONNECTION, by Angela Morrison

Unbroken Connection, by Angela Morrison, is book two in a three-book series. I reviewed book one, Taken By Storm, last year.

Book two: Unbroken Connection. Michael has moved half way across the world, is studying to take his Captian's liscence, gives scuba diving lessons to tourists, and emails Leesie almost every day. In other words, he moved away, but he didn't move on. Michael rekindled his relationship with Leesie after meeting her briefly before the book starts.
Leesie is at BYU living her dream, except that she can't hardly look at another guy. She loves Michael. But, her rule is still the same, she won't get married until she can marry in the Mormon temple. She is delighted when Michael ends up with a couple of month's free time because of a scuba diving mishap, and Leesie finally strikes a deal with him: she will take scuba diving lessons—something that terrifies her—Michael will have the missionaries over and listen to them.

This trilogy is written through a series of email chats, poems, and dive logs, and it seems like an unlikely format for a gripping novel, and yet it works. Michael and Leesie, and their star-crossed romace got under my skin in a similar manner as Bella and Edward. In otherwords, Morrison develops the characters well.

The missionaries were jerks, so Leesie sympathises when Michael doesn't fulfill his part of the bargain. But, when he returns to work, pictures of Michael with a sexy native girl surface on the Internet. One picture shows him kissing her, and Leesie's insecurities confront her head-on. She doesn't believe that Michael could love her when he has a native beauty in his arms.
Although Michael denies any wrongdoing, she cuts all ties with him and tries to move on. When her missionary, Jaron, comes home, he forces his way into her life, says he loves her, and says they’re engaged, her family hopes she finally has.

It's when Leesie and her brother, Phil, are on their way home from BYU that tragedy hits her life. She feels evil, and fallen. Gone is her dream of making it to heaven, and she can't bear to look at her mom or dad.
Before she wakes from her injuries, Michael is there, holding her hand, convincing her that he's real and that he loves her and always has. Jaron rushes to the hospital to comfort her, but it isn’t Jaron that she needs. Michael is her only salvation, and at her insistance, he whisks her away from her family, her friends, and anyone who might learn the truth.

This book was engaging from start to finish with little plot twists to keep me guessing what would happen next. Now I can’t wait to read book three, Cayman Summer.

To learn more about Angela Morrison or to order her books, go to: www.angela-morrison.com.

TAKEN BY STORM, by Angela Morrison

Leesie is a seventeen-year-old Mormon girl who lives in a small farming community in Washington State. She’s known as the Ice Queen by her classmates because of her moral values—meaning she won’t have sex with the popular boy in school—the one who pinches her butt and tries to grope her whenever he can. The boys in school have made a game of it, and Lessie is anxious for high school to end so she no longer has to deal with him. She dreams of being admitted into BYU and moving far away.

Michael is an only child who, after his parents died in a tragic scuba-diving accident, is filled with guilt so thick he can barely breathe. He ends up in the same little farming community and is living with his grandmother. All Michael wants is to feel again, to go scuba-diving and discover the accident was a horrible nightmare, to be normal, and have his life back. He goes through the motions of life while under the influence of anti-depressants, but when his prescription runs out, he has to learn to cope on his own.

It’s on a high school field trip that he finally meets Leesie—the girl that stares at him in class. She’s not as aggressive as the girls he’s used to. Michael surprises himself by talking to her and being anxious for their next visit.

While Leesie is trying to befriend Michael, she breaks almost all of her rules. Those rules—the no dating outside of her faith, no French kissing, no making out—the rules that earned her the Ice Queen status. Michael has different values than Leesie, meaning that sex before marriage is not a big deal, he’s done it dozens of times. This rule is barely hanging by a thread, and we (the reader) wonder if Leesie will do this one last thing to prove to Michael that she loves him.

Death, grieving, friendship, respect—Morrison deals with a lot of heavy subjects in this novel, but she does it with finesse. Will Michel learn to respect Leesie and her values, or will she sacrifice everything she’s worked and longed for? This is the underlying question that is sustained throughout the novel.

TAKEN BY STORM is like no other book that I’ve read. For one, it’s written in first person, present tense. We get to know Leesie through her poetry as well as through her chatspot correspondence to a friend. The story also evolves through Michael’s dive-log entries.

TAKEN BY STORM is a good novel to read if you’re a dating teen or a twenty-something in a life-consuming relationship. It isn’t preachy by any means, but it clearly shows that mutual respect is important in a relationship, and though we love someone it doesn’t mean they’ll make us happy. Circumstances change, people change, and if we truly love someone, we’ll help them accomplish their dreams.