Book Review - What in the World?!

If you are not yet familiar with Leanne Morgan, scurry your precious little thumbs over to any social media platform and watch her. But definitely do it on a thoroughly empty bladder and take off your mascara, because it will be streaking across your darling little face, anyway. Also, I recommend watching in the privacy of your own home, because people tend to look at you askance when you snort laugh in public. Or do it in public because you are middle aged and have figured out God and your husband are the only ones whose judgement matters. That is just how I roll.

Now, I could have suggested you go straight into the book, but I cannot even imagine tackling it without having her Appalachian drawl in my head the whole time. I have read this book cover to cover and, so help me, I will snatch up the audiobook like a deviant possum if she narrates it. (The deviant possum is a real story from my own life. You can ask my momma.) I have no love for memoirs, but Leanne tells her life story with her signature wit, from growing up with her loving and hardworking family in small town East Tennessee to the less than stellar decisions of young adulthood. We tromp alongside as she says yes to Chuck, bless him, and raises their three children while trying to find herself. And giving God the glory. Plan ahead and bring the tissues, because I snort laughed and ugly cried all the way from cover to cover. I personally recommend reading this one with your book club. That way you can snort laugh and ugly cry all over again when you discuss it with your people.

What in the World?! by Leanne Morgan releases September 24, but go ahead and preorder it now from your favorite local bookseller or online:

Christian Book        Amazon        Barnes & Noble        Walmart

Thank you to the author and publisher for allowing me a copy to read and review. All opinions expressed here are my own and are completely genuine.

Book Review - Just for the Summer

There are some authors I trust to deliver exactly what I expect when I pick up their books. For example, let’s say I am seeking a novel with a character who is at a crossroads in life, experiences an unexpected event that offers self exploration and understanding, meets a man who challenges and encourages her, and we have a happy ending. That’s when I pick up Melody Carlson. It is the kind of predicability I can rely on when the real world begs an escape, but don’t think that makes her predictable. The craftsmanship that delivers this comfort while creating completely different novels every time is worthy of great respect. On that note, I offer you my take on her latest, Just for the Summer.

Ginny Masters has worked her way up from the bottom to become manager of a posh boutique hotel in Seattle, but her life is not the glitz and glam it seems on the surface. Jaqueline Potter longs for glitz and glam, but instead manages her grandfather’s Idaho fishing lodge. Seeking a change of pace, both sign up to participate in a job swap. Just for the summer. But with the job swap comes a bit of a life swap. Jaqueline finds that the posh hotel daytime only scratches the surface of reality, and Ginny finds that the simple life just might be the life for her. At a crossroads, each has to make a serious decision about what happens in their lives at the end of the swap. With her trademark skill, Carlson delivers relatable characters and a satisfying storyline that will keep you reading.

Just for the Summer by Melody Carlson is available now from your favorite local bookseller or online:

Baker Book House      Christian Book      Amazon       Barnes & Noble        Walmart

Thank you to the author and publisher for allowing me a copy to read and review. All opinions expressed here are my own and are completely genuine. 

Book Review - The Lady with the Dark Hair

Art and family history come together in The Lady with the Dark Hair, an exploration of the her-story of said lady and its impact on a modern day art history major with a passion for a specific painter. Esther Markstrom is a descendant of Francisco Vella, curator of the museum which houses a collection of his paintings, and caretaker of her mentally ill mother. All of these components of her identity also carry the heavy burden of responsibility. The most prized Vella painting does not reside in the museum, however, but in her family home. Never seen by anyone other than Esther and her mother, never questioned beyond her mild curiosity about the identity of The Lady with the Dark Hair, never challenged. Then Esther invites her former professor to visit La Dama del Cabello Oscuro, kicking off a chain of events she could not have predicted for her mundane life. Events that not only shake up everything anyone knows about Francisco Vella, but also everything Esther has ever known about herself.

Told in dual time fashion, The Lady with the Dark Hair delivers the stories of Esther and La Dama. Their own relationships with Vella are brought to light, as history opens itself to explore the struggles and expectations of women in the late 19th century and its parallels with those Esther faces in her own experiences. Characters in both eras leap from the page as the author has painted her story so vividly that its pull is inescapable.

The Lady with the Dark Hair by Erin Bartels is available now from your favorite local bookseller or online:

Baker Book House        Christian Book        Amazon        Barnes & Noble        Walmart

Thank you to the author and publisher for allowing me a copy to read and review. All opinions expressed here are my own and are completely genuine.

Book Review - Never Fall Again

If you have not fallen in love with Lynn H. Blackburn’s novels yet, this is your invitation to pick up Never Fall Again and get swept into Gossamer Falls. Landry Hutton has done everything to protect her daughter, Eliza. Tucked safely into The Haven, Landry is artist in residence for the luxury resort and only has to interact with the guests who also revel in gated seclusion. Now that she has saved enough money and has a secure location on which to do it, Landry is ready to work with contractor Callum Shaw to build a home of her own. That is, until things start happening to shake the illusion of safety.

Blackburn’s town of Gossamer Falls and the people who live there will have you feeling like a resident in no time. The tight knit Shaws and Quinns will have you pulling up a chair at family dinner, rooting for your new friends, and mentally petting Maisy’s beautiful golden head when the tension is astronomical. But hold on to your hard hat, because Blackburn does not skimp on the action!

Never Fall Again by Lynn H. Blackburn, the first novel in her new Gossamer Falls series, is available now from your favorite local bookseller or online:

Baker Book House     Christian Book      Amazon       Barnes & Noble     Walmart

Thank you to the author and publisher for allowing me a copy to read and review. All opinions expressed here are my own and are completely genuine.

Book Review - The Ark and the Dove

We know a bit about Noah and the flood. Not a lot, but this is clearly a story God wants His children to know. That is why He inspired man to include it in the Bible. Jill Eileen Smith takes this bit of knowledge and combines it with thorough research to give us this fictional account of what life may have been like for Noah and his family as they prepared for, endured, and thrived after life on the ark. We see the experience through the eyes of Emzara, wife of Noah. Zara must find wives for her sons and guide these young women as they support their husbands through the years of ridicule from neighbors, tense months of caring for the animals as they are all penned in on the ark, and the process of repopulating the earth once the waters have receded. These are all elements we rarely stop to consider, and yet they are worth pondering. Smith has developed each character carefully in line with the narrative of the Bible, even following through to the dispersal of the sons through the Tower of Babel and on through history. The Ark and the Dove spans a great era of biblical history with great insight and attention to detail.

The Ark and the Dove by Jill Eileen Smith is available now from your favorite local bookseller or online:

Baker Book House           Christian Book           Amazon           Walmart           Barnes & Noble

Thank you to the author and publisher for allowing me a copy to read and review. All opinions expressed here are my own and are completely genuine.

Book Review - Darkness Calls The Tiger

Darkness calls the tiger. The Sharaw stalks his enemies from the jungle, trapped in the role of man-tiger for the sake of his home. Nobody would believe the formidable foe of the Japanese army in their conquest of Burma comes in the form of a boy, malnourished and fueled by vengeance. Certainly, nobody would believe that boy is actually an American missionary’s daughter. What the invaders would do to Sharaw upon capture pales in comparison to what they would do to Kailyn Moran if she is caught. But the battle raging through the only home Kai knows is nothing compared to the one within her: how can one trust in the supreme God when He allows such horrible things to happen?

And how can one love when the result is pain?

Janyre Tromp wrestles with these very difficult topics in her latest release, Darkness Calls The Tiger. While many of us are unfamiliar with the China-Burma-India theater of WW2, she brings us into the fray with great care and skill, introducing us to characters who represent the natives and those who ministered to them. With careful crafting, we are absorbed into the jungle with Kai and Ryan, the hunters and the hunted battling the elements as much as their human foe. It is the strife within that shreds our hearts and struggles to reassemble them, and Tromp handles this with the dignity and respect it deserves.

Darkness Calls The Tiger by Janyre Tromp will be released May 14, 20204 and is currently available for preorder from your favorite local bookseller or online:

Christian Book                        Amazon                        Walmart                        Barnes & Noble

Thank you to the author and publisher for allowing me a copy to read and review. All opinions expressed here are my own and are completely genuine. 

Book Review - The Irish Matchmaker

An unmatched matchmaker and a farmer who does not want a match create quite the pair as the Lisdoonvarna matchmaking festival turns the Irish town and its residents on their ears. Catriona Daly and her father come from a long line of Irish matchmakers and it seems as though Caty is going to have her hands full making another match for a certain gentleman after the last one made for him did not stick. Caty would not mind being his match, but she also has a job to do. What Caty does not want is to be stuck in Lisdoonvarna for the rest of her life, and certainly not married to a farmer. Donal Bunratty has been married, but raising wee Sara and managing the farm since his wife passed has not left him inspired to seek another partner.

In her new release, Jennifer Deibel drops us right into the heart of the merriment. Her settings are lively and full of character. Her characters draw us in and bring us alongside them in the daily routines of life on the farm and in the town. We are partnered with them as residents and visitors alike search for a partner in life and, possibly, in love. Caty may be the matchmaker, but is she prepared for the match that finds her?

The Irish Matchmaker by Jennifer Deibel is available now from your favorite local bookseller or online:

Baker Book House       Christian Book        Amazon        Walmart        Barnes & Noble        

Thank you to the author and publisher for allowing me a copy to read and review. All opinions expressed here are my own and are completely genuine.