Cadence

by Patricia Strefling

Cadence Walker David is a hard-driving man who hails from a severely dysfunctional family in Detroit. He finds himself in need of bail money when his brother gets into trouble and they both end up in jail. He heard a familiar voice from the past and meets up with an old street buddy - turned preacher. Frank Kincaid extracts a promise from him to play his guitar for a couple of church services in exchange for bail money. Cade agrees. How hard could it be to play his beloved guitar for a bunch of church people? He soon finds out when the preacher's daughter, a slender blue-eyed blonde, is the music leader. He dubs her Babyface the first day. She has no idea about the real world. Cade knows nothing about this God she talks about. And if he is anything like his father Cade has no use for a God who can't even take care of his people on earth. They are two people from two totally different worlds and Cade intends on keeping it that way - until he learns that Babyface has a past of her own.

Genres: Christian, Romance, Christian Fiction, Fiction, Contemporary, Relationships

314 pages, Paperback

First published June 4, 2012

Reviews

[jyweniverel]

Never judge a book by its cover, and the same applies to human beings as well.

[Eveline Evans · Rating 5 out of 5]

Held my interest to the very end. Well written.

[Emma · Rating 4 out of 5]

I won this book in a Goodreads giveaway. It was a very good read that kept me engaged and made me care about the characters. It still needs some editing with respect to punctuation (there are several places where quotations are missing at the beginning or ending of statements, so that can lead to a bit of confusion knowing what is being said aloud or just being thought). It is also told from many perspectives, sometimes jumping from one character's point of view to another's very quickly. However, it is definitely worth pushing through those things, because the story is really good.

The story has lots of depth relating to life struggles with respect to drugs, right and wrong, and making it through even when life seems to keep dragging you down. The story is about Cadence who falls into a community of Christians who he does not understand. He integrates himself in this community out of necessity to get himself and his brother out of trouble. He goes about his days doing what needs to be done, paying back his and his brothers debts, while keeping himself distanced from the Christians surrounding him who he doesn't understand. As the story goes on those around him stay behind him, helping him and he just doesn't understand why. He has lived his life always having only himself to rely on, so the kindness of these people confuses him. He continues to try to keep his distance although through his actions it is clear he is more like those who are helping him than he thinks.

There are lots of details that come out about each character, it really isn't only a story about Cadence. I feel like there was so much to this story that it could really be more than one book. Many of the characters have such interesting backgrounds that I think they need their own stories.

[Suzanne Williams · Rating 3 out of 5]

I waffled on my rating of this book from 3 stars to 4. The deciding factor was the Epilogue which solidified the reasons I couldn't rate it higher. The story needs serious editing. Sentence structure was incorrect, words left out that needed to be there, other words used that were wrong, bad punctuation, including the use of quotes around dialogue being omitted.

The story also has terrible head hopping and thereby lots of telling. The Epilogue was the worse example of this in the book, telling me exactly what happened in the lives of the characters for the next years. I also had an issue with the Christian portion of it. A lot of the Christian references felt a bit stereotypical at times and unnatural.

All of that said, I liked Cade a lot. What a great character. The author showed well his struggles with his past and his difficulties moving into the future. The story line kept pace and that kept me reading. I wanted to know if he would ever admit he loved Kyle. The characters' names threw me off, his being female and hers being male, but that did not detract from their personalities and in the end, that is what I enjoyed about the story - the personality of Cade David. He was very male. My only complaint is I REALLY dislike a book getting the characters together on the last page and then ending.

Overall an average read.

[Stephy Miller · Rating 2 out of 5]

There were some things that I just couldn't overlook in this book. The biggest thing for me was that the flow was extremely choppy, it was really hard to continue reading it because of that fact alone. It was the way the book was written, a lot of things meshed together and just the way the characters talked and how their thoughts were written made it impossible for a smooth flow which made me unable to read big chunks at a time and I had to talk myself into not giving up on it completely multiple times. Another big thing was that there was too much going on, instead of focusing on the two main characters solely, every one had to have some elaborate story for them. I get that the author wanted us to get to know the other characters but I feel it just made the book longer than it needed to be. To be honest the book dragged on until it got to the ending, which I feel it should have ended way before it did. However, the main story itself was very good. Even though I had a hard time getting through it I did finish it because I was curious to know what happened to Cadence and "Babyface". I may attempt to read another book by this author if I get it for free but if its writing is similar to this book I won't be finishing it.

[Lisa Survillas · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really more like 3.5 stars. It was poorly edited with many misspelled words and quotations missing or in wrong place. I was super excited that it was only .99 on Barnes and Noble and was over 900 pages long, but as I read it I found it to be a little redundant. However, I really liked the storyline and LOVED Cade's character. Love how much changing he did throughout the story. Wish the Epilogue wasn't added and that there was a second story to go into the next phase of Cade and Kyle's lives along with Cord and Molly and possibly a little about Marcel's new life. The ending was to abrupt and the Epilouge felt more like a summary than a story. Just wanted a bit more. Overall a decent read.

[Poonam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow, interesting story. Held my breath right from the start to the end , wanting to know about what happens in Cade 's life. Very emotional to see the David brothers' life and the way how they struggled and got redemption and getting happy life in the end. Wish the epilogue was more in detail regarding the love between Cade and Kyle. It was a bit rushed in the end..

Can't believe why didn't I read this book earlier..lol. Awesome!!

[D · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a good book, but I wanted more romance/interaction between Cade and Kyle; I wanted the author to state that Kyle realized that she was part of the Kincaid family and wanted Cade to confess his belief in Christ. I give this book 5 stars because there were other things about this book that stood out to me and one of them was Frank Kincaid and how we as Christians should treat people.

[Carmel · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a good book about how people can find forgiveness and change their lives. However, I read the Kindle version (I don't know how the actual book is), and there were so many errors, making it frustrating to read.

[Leah Banicki · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great story of redemption. With a great point of view and interesting characters.

[Dana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Patricia Strefling's best book.

[Michelle Morgan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great book of a single man down on his luck finding way more than he could imagine. Love, family, courage, community has a way of finding you when you least expect it.