Angels Watching Over Me, by Lurlene McDaniel

Now, I venture into Christian-romance territory....

The first of a trilogy about angels, McDaniel's book is about Leah, a young woman who spends a week alone in a hospital (her mother is away in Japan on a Honeymoon) with a broken finger that becomes a diagnosis for bone cancer. Her roommate, an Amish girl, and her roommate's family teach her a number of lessons about simplicity and faith in God. Along the way, there is a strange mystery visitor who no one else knows of and who the book strongly suggests (but avoids outright stating) is an angel.

I get a bit scared with books with strong religious undertones, but I have to admit that this one (I'll reserve my judgment on the next two installments) was pretty good about keeping the preaching to a minimum. Stories about Amish (I'm thinking of Plain Girl) can be great fun so I enjoyed that part of the story.

It is a bit hard that the book is written in third person. As a rule, I prefer the first-person style for YA literature. Written this way, the author has distanced us from the main character. Overall, the style is more adult romance novel than YA literature as well. There is some obligatory references to adolescence, but everyone seems terribly grown up here, and so I may eventually lose interest with the story if we don't return to some more age-appropriate action.