Saturday, October 11, 2014

Cindy Woodsmall

A Love Undone
by Cindy Woodsmall

book cover of 

A Love Undone
A husband and son abandoned to forge a path alone.
A young woman who sacrificed her dreams.
How will the God of grace and hope help them find their way?

At nineteen years old, Old Order Amish Jolene Keim was on the brink of happily-ever-after when everything changed, stealing the future she expected and burdening her with an unbearable decision. For the next ten years, Jolene throws herself into family life - and then she meets Andy Fisher. The horse trainer and father to a sweet nine year-old challenges her and holds up a mirror to issues Jolene has been unwilling to face.

Andy is cautious about his deepening friendship with Jolene, but he believes she knows the truth about him - that he is a grass widower. As a man whose wife has abandoned him six years past, he is unable to divorce or remarry according to the Amish ways. Andy has wrestled with God concerning his reality, and he had found peace with the solitary future facing him...until he met Jolene.

As Andy and Jolene find themselves confronted by difficult choices, will they trust in God's guidance - or will the allure of their deepening friendship only lead to further temptation?

MY REVIEW
Andy is an honarable man, who fears the Lord and lives according to the Amish order. But he has a problem that is unheard of in their community. His wife had left him, and since divorce is not an option for the amish, he cannot remarry.

Jolene is a young woman, who was preparing to marry her sweetheart before a tragedy took both of her parents lives.. Now she has to make a tough choice between what she wants and what is best for her family.

But she has secrets that she's not sure how to bring to light.


What will happen to these two great characters when they get drawn to each other, but can't have a relationship other than friendship? Even their friendship is challenged by the Bishop.


There are plenty of twists and turns within the book, and I was on the edge of my seat wondering what was going to happen. This is a book that is so different from most Amish books that I found that it was hard to put down.


I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review.

Monday, October 6, 2014

Mary Connealy

Tried and True

(Book 1 in The Wild at Heart series)
by
book cover of 

Tried and True 

 Kylie Wilde fought in the Civil War dressed as a boy and now she's homesteading as a man. But she makes one lousy man! When land agent Aaron Masterson comes to inspect her claim, he immediately realizes she's a woman. She begs him not to tell, but can he in good conscience defraud the U.S. government, even if she really did serve in the war?

Aaron is interested in the little spitfire from the moment her long hair falls from her cap, but when he tells her of his plan to stake his own claim, farther west and up in the mountains, she draws away. Kylie's focus is to "prove up" her homestead, sell it for a profit, move back east, and live the rest of her life in civilization.

But all Kylie's future plans are put in jeopardy when someone tries to burn her out. Who would attack her way out here? Aaron and Kylie suspect it's the local land baron--but Gage Coulter denies any involvement. He does suggest a way for Kylie to stay safe, though--marry him! More attacks scare Kylie near to death, and she can't face living on her own any longer. Should she tie her fortune to Gage or Aaron? Either choice will put an end to her dreams of a civilized life. And what if marrying doesn't stop the attacks after all?


MY REVIEW
5 stars

In the first of this new series, we meet Kylie and her sisters who are pretending to be men.

Kylie Wilde is very girly but is pressured by her father to pretend to be a man in order to claim land during the land rush.

After her experiences in the Civil War dressed as a man, she wants desperately to be a woman again, living in a civilized area, not a homestead on the frontier.

Aaron Masterson is the local agent and not fooled by the Wilde. He only wonders how she ever managed to make it through the Civil War as a male spy.

When someone wants to scare Kylie off her land , she wonders if pleasing her father is worth it.

I love how Mrs. Conneleys books are always so much fun and also suspenseful.

Thanks to Bethany House Publishing for providing this book to me in exchange for my honest review.