Wow, did I love the mystery and suspense for The Wings of Poppy Pendleton! This goes up in probably my favorite mystery/timeslip novel. I loved that Dobson let us figure it out and never told the reader anything that the reader didn’t already figure out a few chapters earlier. I love feeling like a detective 🙂

Ratings for The Wings of Poppy Pendleton

Story: 5/5
Worldview: 4/5

The mystery blew me away, seriously. I loved every second if finding out what happened to Poppy Pendleton and what was happening with Emma present-day. That aside, the romance wasn’t in-your-face or over the top or anything, which I liked, since it wouldn’t have made sense to make it even with the mystery plot.

God is woven throughout every difficulty, and I loved that, hence the 4 in worldview. I did have some qualms about certain things: one character openly argues (in one line) that women should be allowed to be preachers, 2 characters have a child out of wedlock (it’s romanticized and one of the characters was a professed Christian without an ounce of conviction), a nonbeliever (?) married man makes eyes at beautiful women and complains about his marriage (without any repercussions or his best friend telling him to stop). These things were, together, maybe like 5% of the plot, but I was just not a fan.

Overall thoughts

In any case, I loved the mystery and the suspense. I do have to give warnings about drugs, murder, and trafficking (both in people and drugs). This story does show the gritty, and it also shows redemption and hope at the end too, which I enjoyed.

If you want to check out another mystery/thriller, you can see Fatal Witness here and Fragile Designs. Both of these are contemporary, but they still have a great plot.