I've read Melody Carlson books before, but I don't think I've read books by Dick or Felix Francis. This Reader's Digest Special Editions volume from February 2017 contains two condensed books.

Felix Francis's "Dick Francis's Bloodline"focused on twin siblings Mark and Clare Shillingford. Clare is a jockey and Mark is an announcer and reporter for the racing circuit. Mark suspects that Clare is deliberately fixing some races. He confronts her and then she apparently commits suicide later that same night. The rest of the novel is Mark trying to figure out what really happened.

The novel was interesting to me at first. I liked learning a bit more about the horse racing world than I already knew. But somewhere after halfway through, I kind of felt like the plot just kept dragging on. I can't say if that resulted from the book being condensed.

Melody Carlson's "Love Gently Falling" concerns a young hairdresser in California who rushes home to her family when her mother suffers a stroke. I felt the plot was pretty predictable and any religious tones to the story were mostly edited out (probably during the condensing the story process). I did like the ice skating angle and how the daughter worked to redecorate her mother's salon similar to how it had been when it was first opened. I didn't really like Zinnia's actions--I can understand her wanting love from John and even maybe hoping his friendliness was more than it really was--but she wasn't very gracious when he made it clear to her that he was only her friend.

I also thought the outcome between Rita and John was predictable--there was only the question of was she going to have to leave to realize it and then come back or was she going to be smart enough to give up what she thought she had in California without having to go back there. ( )