Cindy Woodsmall

A Love Undone

by Cindy Woodsmall

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.

Mary Connealy

Tried and True

(Book 1 in The Wild at Heart series)
by Mary Connealy

 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.

Holley Gerth

What Your Heart Needs for the Hard Days

by Holley Gerth

When something difficult happens, it’s easy to wonder, “Where are you, God?” And his answer is always the same: “I’m with you.” Sometimes he makes his presence known through the hands and feet of people in our lives. Sometimes he quietly whispers to our hearts. Sometimes he works through circumstances to let us know we’re not alone.

Why does God do this? The answer in the psalm above seems downright scandalous. David says, “He rescued me because he delighted in me” (Ps. 18:19).  Yet when bad things happen in our lives, one of the first assumptions we often make is that God must be really upset with us.

The enemy would love to persuade you that God is against you. He would love for you to become convinced that you don’t have God’s support. He would love to make you believe that you’ve fallen beyond God’s ability to hold you up.

Will you pause for a moment and reject those lies? We live in a fallen, broken world, and we all face difficulties. That doesn’t mean we’re being punished. Jesus lived an absolutely perfect life, and yet he was still “a man of suffering and familiar with pain” (Isa. 53:3). None of us gets to go through life without hard times. That doesn’t say anything about you except this: you’re human.

God knows that as humans we’re weak and frail. He knows we need help. He wants to offer that to us. Yet it’s up to us to receive it. And if we think he’s mad at us, then that’s a lot harder to do.

Perhaps it’s time to shift your perspective to align with what’s really true.

God isn’t disappointed in you.

He wants to delight in you.

And he will give you the support you need.

XOXO

Holley Gerth



Surviving Henry

Adventures in Loving a Canine Catastrophe

by: Erin Taylor Young

About

Sometimes you seek out love. And sometimes it broadsides you.
You don't always know what you're getting into when you bring home a puppy. You hope for laughs and cuddles, long walks and a wagging tail. And sometimes you get . . . Henry.

Henry is a boxer who suffers from Supreme Dictator of the Universe Syndrome. He vandalizes his obedience school, leaps through windows, cheats death at every turn, and generally causes his long-suffering owner Erin Taylor Young to wonder what on earth she did wrong that God would send this dog to derail her life.

But this rogue torpedo of a dog wasn't sent to torment his owner--well, not just to torment her. Through all the hair-pulling and questioning of her own sanity, Erin learns something very powerful from Henry, a dog who brings new meaning to the concept of unconditional love.

Through his laugh-out-loud antics and jaw-dropping escapades, Henry will careen into your life and steal your heart.

Erin Taylor Young is a humor writer who works in a library, where she gets to wander among books. She has written for Today's Christian Woman, Outdoor Guide Magazine, and MidWest Outdoors. A finalist in the Phoenix Rattler 2011-2012 writing contest and in the Genesis 2012 contest for her contemporary fiction, Erin lives in Oklahoma with her well-meaning husband, two polar-opposite sons, and a noncompliant dog.

Elizabeth Camden

With Every Breath

In the shadow of the nation's capital, Kate Livingston holds a respectable position as a government statistician when she encounters a rival from her past, the insufferable Trevor McDonough. A Harvard-trained physician, Trevor never showed the tiniest flicker of interest in Kate, and she's bewildered at the way he suddenly seeks her out. Surprising even herself, Kate agrees to Trevor's entirely unexpected and risky proposal to work side-by-side with him in his quest to rid the world of tuberculosis, a contagious and deadly disease.

As Kate begins to unlock the mysteries of Trevor's past, she realizes there is much more to him than she could have imagined. His hidden depths may fascinate her, but his most closely guarded secrets and a shadowy enemy lurking in the background carry a serious threat to their future.

When the truth of the past comes out, threatening to destroy everything they hold dear, how will Trevor and Kate ever overcome all that stands in their way?

Kim Vogel Sawyer

Through the Deep Waters

A past filled with shame can be washed away with a love that conquers all Born to an unloving prostitute in a popular Chicago brothel, timid seventeen-year-old Dinah Hubley was raised amidst the secrets held in every dark, grimy room of her home. Anxious to escape, Dinah pursues her dream of becoming a Harvey Girl, waiting tables along the railroad in an upscale hotel. But when she finds out she isn't old enough, her only option is to accept a job as a chambermaid at the Clifton Hotel in Florence, Kansas. Eager to put everything behind her, Dinah feels more worthless than ever, based on a single horrible decision she made to survive. The Clifton offers a life Dinah has never known, but blinded to the love around her, Dinah remains buried in the shame of her past. When a handsome chicken farmer named Amos Ackerman starts to show interest, Dinah withdraws further, convinced no one could want a sullied woman like her.  Despite his self-consciousness about his handicapped leg and her strange behavior, Amos resolves to show Dinah Christ's love. But can she ever accept a gift she so desperately needs?

Cindy Thomson

Ellis Island Series

Grace's Pictures

Grace McCaffery hopes that the bustling streets of New York hold all the promise that the lush hills of Ireland did not. As her efforts to earn enough money to bring her mother to America fail, she wonders if her new Brownie camera could be the answer. But a casual stroll through a beautiful New York City park turns into a hostile run-in with local gangsters, who are convinced her camera holds the first and only photos of their elusive leader. A policeman with a personal commitment to help those less fortunate finds Grace attractive and longs to help her, but Grace believes such men cannot be trusted. Spread thin between her quest to rescue her mother, do well in a new nanny job, and avoid the gang intent on intimidating her, Grace must put her faith in unlikely sources to learn the true meaning of courage and forgiveness.

Annie's Stories

The year is 1901, the literary sensation The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is taking New York City by storm, and everyone wonders where the next great book will come from. But to Annie Gallagher, stories are more than entertainment - they're a sweet reminder of her storyteller father. After his death, Annie fled Ireland for the land of dreams, finding work at Hawkins House.

But when a fellow boarder with something to hide is accused of misconduct and authorities threaten to shut down the boardinghouse, Annie fears she may lose her new friends, her housekeeping job . . . and her means of funding her dream: a memorial library to honor her father. Furthermore, the friendly postman shows a little too much interest in Annie - and in her father's unpublished stories. In fact, he suspects these tales may hold a grand secret.

Though the postman's intentions seem pure, Annie wants to share her father's stories on her own terms. Determined to prove herself, Annie must forge her own path to aid her friend and create the future she's always envisioned . . . where dreams really do come true.