Judy Boettcher's Awake My Love is an inspirational romance that deals with everyday people struggling with strong held beliefs in an often hostile world. This world becomes more confusing for the central characters with mistaken beliefs and misimpressions.

Bump. Just what she needs – a fender bender. Alana looks into the rear view mirror at the car behind her. A very attractive man grins engagingly as he eases himself out of the oversized SUV. Another glance reveals an overly made-up woman glaring daggers at her. Too bad; another case of obviously already taken.

Brad somehow manages to ignore Honey screeching at him to hurry as he looks into a gorgeous pair of green eyes. The demands of his job as private eye doesn't leave him any time to talk to the woman he just bumped.

Determined to make time for the new acquaintance, he exchanges business cards with Alana. The path of true love never runs smooth, especially not for Alana. Even though she falls for Brad in a big way at their impromptu meeting, Alana decides not to have anything to do with Brad because he obviously has a girl friend or wife. Janeen, Alana’s best friend, doesn’t accept the girl friend scenario willingly and pushes Alana to look Brad up. Alana is suspicious of Brad’s invitation to redecorate his office, especially when he informs the secretary not to tell Honey, his beautiful partner.

Things become more complicated as the case Brad is working on turns dangerous for Honey. Brad and Alana must work together to save Honey. The real question for Alana is once she has found the man of her dreams will she have to let him go?

Awake, My Love is thankfully short. Alana and Brad seem pleasant characters, but rather flat. Honey comes across as too brassy and overbearing to ever be likable. The hardest part of reading the novel is wading through all of the adjectives, metaphors and similes – there are simply too many. There are possibilities that could definitely be elaborated on. I am willing to say as a non-reader of inspirational romance that I may expect more from the genre than it traditionally gives. The avid reader of inspirational fiction could probably transcend the prose and glean the moral from the story,