Though Sunrise is, in itself, not a particularly memorable book, I will always recall it for the line that Hiram, the heroine’s philandering husband, speaks to his mistress:

“What a delightful feast you are my love. How I have hungered to taste your sweetness again.”

Gee, who would have guessed that Hiram was a small town general store owner in nineteenth century Pennsylvania? Not me, which gives you a clue as to why the writing style of this book drove me crazy. In this “homespun” romance, people occasionally sound like characters from Mark Twain and at other times seem to have read one too many dime novels.

As Sunrise opens, plain Jane Foster, a small town shopkeeper who lives in Sunrise, has just about given up on her marriage to Hiram, her handsome but cruel and philandering husband. It ‘s become obvious that Hiram married Jane not for love, but to mind his general store. He taunts her for her unattractiveness, spends money carelessly and travels constantly. Jane discovers that Hiram is having an affair with her beautiful sister-in-law, Polly and soon afterwards Hiram is murdered. The hero of Sunrise is Daniel Colton, Jane’s lawyer, who defends her when she is accused of murdering Hiram.

Delia Parr has provided a good plot for Sunrise. However, the flowerly and overblown writing style is not the only problem, which is why the book is merely average in the final analysis. The heroine, for one, is less appealing than she should be. An independent woman with a strong ethical streak, Jane frequently takes goods in barter when it means losing money and helps out neighbors when she can. Though Parr seems to want to paint her as a capable, moral woman, Jane comes off too often as inflexible and prudish. Once he gets to know her, Daniel’s admiration of Jane seems inflated, even for a man in love. Rather than viewing Jane as a woman with an admirable set of ethics Daniel thinks of her as “magnificent,” a bit of a stretch for a small town storekeeper who takes in extra eggs and does not appear to have many good friends.

Daniel is a far more attractive character. In addition to admiring Jane for her ethics, he loves her kindness and good sense. Though he realizes that he loves Jane early in the book, Daniel is determined not to show his love in any way until she no longer needs his services as a lawyer. Since Jane feels the same way, we are left with two people who know how to control themselves and do.

Such a situation calls for writing that displays the romantic and unspoken sexual nuances of situations, the tension that comes when two people in love may not touch. These things are largely missing in Sunrise. Though the hero and heroine have some chemistry, it is not exploited. Since there is but one embrace in the story, and the first kiss comes in the final pages of the main story (before the epilogue) the lack of romantic tension is a major drawback.

The resolution to the mystery of who killed Hiram is not a surprise, but as the book heads toward its courtroom conclusion it is surprisingly compelling. Despite the flowery writing, I found myself turning the pages, though whether another reader would do so is difficult to discern. Enjoying Sunrise will probably depend on your ability to read sentences like, “The double-edged sword, he was about to unsheathe sliced through his heart, but he felt no pain”. If you don’t wince too much when you read that, and you like Americana, this might be a book for you.