Flirting with Disaster (2010) is a likable Christian novel for young people written by Sandra Byrd, the author of The Secret Keeper, which I reviewed on this site. Keeper is mainly for adults, Disaster can be enjoyed by adults as it chronicles the actions of Savvy Smith, an American girl in London who is 15 years old and fits right in among her English peers.
Ordinary in many ways, Savvy is also devoted to Christ, facing the challenge of paying no mind to what others believe about luck and horoscopes, even when something good happens after a chain-text message is passed on. Sending such a message is “flirting with disaster”—a hackneyed title for this book—since God is forever sovereign over “fortune.” Savvy need not believe in an impersonal force like fortune when she is always surrounded by personal ones, of whom God, the object of her faith, is the most prominent.
Hackneyed title or not, Byrd’s novel is clever and genial. It belongs to a series called London Confidential and, although I likely will not read the other three books in the series, that in no way means the reader of this review should not.
English: mobile phone text message (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
