Book review: Come Rain or Come Shine by Jan Karon

I began reading Jan Karon's Mitford series more than fifteen years ago, and a new installment is always anticipated.  Come Rain or Come Shine, the thirteenth book in the series, was the forty-ninth book I read in 2015.

It is, in one sense, the spiritual successor to A Common Life, in that it aims to do nothing more than tell the story of a wedding, in this case, that of Dooley Kavanagh and Lace Harper; unlike the tale of Father Tim's and Cynthia's wedding, which was told "out of order" from the ongoing timeline, this story fits right onto the end of the series and thus is free to advance the narrative arc more than the previous book did.

It's a truism that, in a Mitford book, "Jack shall have Jill and nought shall go ill."  God knows one doesn't read them for action or drama.  Yes, Dooley and Lace get married, without any of the kidnappings, disasters, deaths, terminal illnesses, mad wives in attics, cases of cold feet, or bouts of amnesia that so often derail intended weddings in more volatile genres.

But Karon is comfortable leaving a few loose ends, particularly around Dooley's mother and her attempts to reconcile with the children she abused and abandoned.  Everything doesn't get wrapped up in a neat little bow, leaving storylines open for, God willing, a fourteenth Mitford book.  I'll preorder.