Endless Chain is the second book in Richards’ Shenandoah Album trilogy. I expected it to be more women’s fiction than romance, but surprisingly it reads quite a lot like an inspirational romance – with a more liberal Christian slant.

Sam Kinkade is a smart man who hasn’t quite got it all together. His engagement is stagnating; he sees his fiancée Christine only sporadically and they seem to have entirely different goals for their life together. He is happy in his Shenandoah Community Church ministry working within a rural community and trying to develop an outreach to the growing Hispanic population there. Christine wants him to go back to pastoring a more glitzy flock in a large, prestigious East Coast city. Inside Sam knows their relationship is already over, but he can’t quite bring himself to sever it. Then he sees Elisa…

Elisa Martinez is a woman of mystery. She applies to Community Church for the position of sexton (church caretaker). She is hardworking, though poor. She lives with her friend Adoncia Garcia and her two small children. They love her, but Elisa knows Adoncia would rather have her relationship with suitor Diego than deal with Elisa as a permanent houseguest. So when Sam offers her the job and finds her a position as a companion in return for room and board, Elisa jumps at it. She has an important reason for being in Toms Brook, Virginia, but she’s not sharing that reason with anyone. After all she’s been through, she no longer has the luxury of trusting, even when a person seems so caring and trustworthy and is in fact a minister after her own heart.

This book is 464 pages long, and quite a lot goes on. However, most of the important details about Elisa and Sam’s past are revealed later, so to say more would be spoilerish. Suffice it to say that they both have weak spots and getting involved with each other would entail would require risking more than just their emotions.

The “endless chain” quilt pattern is one with no obvious beginning or ending, only interconnected blocks. Richards repeats this theme in the numerous stories she tells here. Elisa finds that her struggles are similar those of a long ago refugee and sojourner who stayed hidden from slave hunters in the church’s old parsonage. Sam’s difficulties with his fiancée are mirrored in the relationship of Adoncia and Diego who love each other but cannot agree on when to start a family. Certain parts of the story take place at Christmas time and Sam compares the situation of the new Hispanic community to that of Mary and Joseph in Bethlehem. At times this is very effective and there are a number of touching moments.

Unfortunately, apropos of its title, Endless Chain did feel rather endless at times. Some of the secondary plots or side adventures of Sam and Elisa could have gone unexplored, particularly the ones involving Christine. And while I am generally a fan of the story-within-a-story and books that contain other types of narrative, such as letters, notes, and the like, Richards’ use of them never felt quite authentic. Also, Sam and Elisa were rather dull together, mostly because they are both so noble; Sam especially.

Sam is really more of an activist than a pastor. He is well-intentioned, but he does have a tendency to see the world and its inhabitants as falling down frightfully on the job. It would be different if he were in charge, that’s for certain. He makes a number of judgments about Christine’s crowd that are perhaps true, but seem a trifle arrogant. He spends almost all of his time working and is impassioned about social justice, but his emotional relationships with his parishioners are underdeveloped. Given that his heart seems to be in social advocacy rather than pastoral care, the decision he comes to at the end of the book regarding his own ministry seems unsuited to him and one wonders if he will burn out quickly with all the commitments he intends to make.

As mentioned before this book reads quite a bit like an inspirational. As a minister Sam sees his job as his hands setting the Gospel in motion within his community. There are scriptural references and when Sam preaches or counsels people he mentions Jesus specifically. There is no altar-call experience and Elisa doesn’t fully come to share Sam’s faith, but readers who can’t tolerate any religion with their romance would probably not be comfortable reading this book.

Endless Chain was a bit of a mixed bag for me. While I liked the inhabitants of Toms Brook, Virginia, and found many of their stories interesting and touching, the heart of the story – the romance – fell flat for me. Sam was so strident and sure of the righteousness of his beliefs and causes that he annoyed more than inspired me. Though Richards must be given props for her detailed exploration of the rural Hispanic community and for creating a gifted, compassionate and culturally sensitive heroine, ultimately I finished this one only because I had committed to reading it for review.