The Scent of Rain- Book Review

The Scent of Rain By Kristin Billerbeck

This book is about a woman Daphne Sweeten who loses everything including her most prized sense, her sense of smell. This can be problematic for someone who makes perfumes.  After her disastrous wedding day that never happened, she moves to a small town to start over.  This time, she has a job making scents for household products such as laundry detergent and hand soap, an interesting job choice for someone who can’t smell.

The good:

This book has a good overall arc for a romance.  You can feel the tension build and it leaves off without any of the over used sex scenes.  There is good character development from the main caricature as she sets to rebuild her life and get back her most treasured gift.  There is a lot of possible development from the secondary and tertiary characters.

The indifferent: 

There may be a good overall story arc, but if you have any issue with the Christian church or faith than this book is not for you.  There are many places where the author makes unnecessary points to show the characters faith; it would have great if it had furthered the story.  Since most of it didn’t it was just wasted book space.  I have no issue with faith being used in a book; it can be used to make some amazing points.   However, The Scent of Rain seemed to hammer it home in an almost unconformable way.  It even shows what happens to sinners who do not act in a Christian way and how to save those people from themselves.  

The bad:

The end of the book seems rushed.  Daphne is working towards her goals she has gotten her life figured out and then the ending hits you like a freight train.  With so much build up and work done in the first part of the book the ending is a letdown.  In the end everything just falls into place without any real preamble.  Weeks went by with no note by the author.  The main characters decide that they are in love and that is the end.  I really feel that there should have been more to the ending.  Everything magically works out.  The evil ex fiancée has now gotten his just desserts and the amazing man she met loves her and is giving her everything.  Her life is back on track and she has everything she wants or needs.  the lack of realism hurt.

 Another downside to this book is that Daphne can’t figure out why she lost her sense of smell; the answer should have been available to her everywhere via internet or any professional.  She had a case of hysterical sensory loss or the loss of a sense following traumatic or life altering events.  It really took her too long to be able to figure something like this out.  Her best friend who works in the mental health field was unable to help her?

My last complaint is that the ending of the book is given to you less than half way through.  I can tell when the author decided how this was going to end.  The ending is handed to you in a dream sequence that was wholly unnecessary.  Leave me a little mystery.  If I wanted to know the end I would just skip ahead and read the last few pages of the book.  

I suggest this to read if you can’t find something else or you are looking for an easy read. 

For more information on this book check out

The Scent of Rain