I can’t believe we are already in March and this is the first month that I have had time to get one of these posts up. The end of last year and the start of this year were totally crazy for me, and I had no time to do anything other than getting book reviews typed up and posted.
March 28th– A Fine Piece of Chocolate by Jacqueline R. Banks
March 29th– An Amish Home by Beth Wiseman, Amy Clipston, Kathleen Fuller, Ruth Reid
I don’t have as many book reviews this year because I have had to tell authors that I can’t review their books because I have no time to read the books let alone type up more reviews. I also am looking for a couple of people to join my review team so if you or someone you know might be interested send them my way. I also will be having a Multiple Sclerosis update up in the next couple of weeks because I saw my doctor in January and I also had an MRI on the 25th of February. I also have had weird things going on that I want to share so that I can come back and look the post if I ever need to remember how I am feeling.
FTC: I received a free copy of this book from Blogging For Books in exchange for my honest review. I received no other compensation and the opinions expressed in this review are one hundred percent true and my own.
Grace and the Preacher by Kim Vogel Sawyer was a sweet story. I don’t read many historical books anymore because I find that I get bored with them and I do have a hard time getting into them. This is the third book that I have read by this author, and I am starting to think that she can’t write a book that I won’t enjoy. This book was a slow start for me, but by the third chapter I was hooked, and I ended up staying up way too late because I didn’t want to put the book down. I didn’t like Theo throughout the entire book, and I am not sure why I didn’t like him. I did, however, love Grace right from the start of the book. If you are looking for a new historical fiction book to read I would recommend this one to you.
About The Book
The Kansas community of Fairland anticipates the arrival of their new minister, and in recent months, late in 1882, postmistress Grace Cristler has communicated with Reverend Dille via letters, answering his questions about the little town, and developing affection for the man who pens thoughtful missives.
Theophil Garrison grew up under the loving influence of his saintly grandmother but was roped into his cousins’ train-robbing plan. When they fail and are apprehended, Theo fled the scene, evading jail time. Now an angry cousin is out to avenge Theo’s duplicity, and he’s on the run. He encounters a fatally ill traveler–a minister. Seeing a way to keep hidden, Theo trades identities with the man, dons his fine black suit, carries a Bible, and prays that he’ll be accepted as Rufus Dille.
Once in Fairland, if Theo’s true identity is uncovered, what will be left of the world he has built for himself, Grace, and those in the town who have come to love and accept him?
From the Trade Paperback edition.
About The Author
Kim Vogel Sawyer is the author of fifteen novels, including several CBA and ECPA bestsellers. Her books have won the ACFW Book of the Year Award, the Gayle Wilson Award of Excellence, and the Inspirational Readers Choice Award. Kim is active in her church, where she leads women’s fellowship and participates in both voice and bell choirs. In her spare time, she enjoys drama, quilting, and calligraphy. Kim and her husband, Don, reside in central Kansas and have three daughters and six grandchildren. She invites you to visit her Web site at http://www.kimvogelsawyer.com for more information.”
Did you know that a significant percentage of millennials give their phone a name? I learned that on John Tesh’s Intelligence for Your Life years ago and now can;t find the actual percentage, but hey! If you hear it in the media it must be true! Right?
Upon hearing that information, I tucked it into my cranial pocket only to take it out again last year when I was writing Candidate for Murder. At the end of Kill and Run, Murphy Thornton and Jessica Faraday, the Thorny Rose detectives, were forced to move out of their home. If you want to know why, you’ll need to read Kill and Run. For now, to keep from giving out spoilers, let’s just say for security reasons.
So, I had to go house hunting for my thorny rose protagonists. Finding their new home was easy. I used a lot of fantasy and, since I knew that it had to be secure, I knew it had to have a fence and security system.
Now, I could have stopped there with giving Murphy and Jessica a wall with no name and I would have if my husband had not insisted that I sit down to watch a documentary he had found about the high-priced, high-tech security utilized by the one-percenters (aka billionaires).
I watched the whole ninety-minute documentary with my jaw hanging open. These folks don’t stop with any old wall! They have concrete safe rooms with food and supplies to last for days. They have rooms in which, with the press of a button, will instantly seal up to capture the bad guys. Then, with a second press of a button, let loose with a hail of automatic gun fire to take them out. (Try explaining that to your home owner’s insurance!) They even have security measures installed on the one percenters’ private jets to ward off hijacking attempts.
Upon seeing this documentary, my writer’s mind started spinning like a top. I had already established in Three Days to Forever and Kill and Run that Murphy worked for the Phantoms, a cutting-edge, ultra-secret organization that only answered to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. They would have access to all of this technology and then some—enough to warrant a prototype, a beta (test) system, to protect the Faraday-Thornton home under the guise of a virtual butler.
Of course, butlers have to have names. This was when I extracted my mental note that I had jotted down from John Tesh. I named him Nigel. To any outsiders, Nigel is on par with Amazon’s Alexa or Apple’s Siri, but as readers see in Candidate for Murder, Nigel does so much more than relay the latest news brief, control their lights and sound system, and keep their calendar.
Some readers, including my mother, believe that Nigel was a complete figment of my imagination, and yes, many parts of him are—however, be warned—everything Nigel does is doable with today’s technology. I just put everything together into one computer system—and gave him a name and personality.
Nigel doesn’t just monitor the estate’s security. In Candidate for Murder, when intruders break in, Nigel goes on the offensive, with Mac Faraday’s Gnarly the German Shepherd, to defend their turf!
Jessica’s brother Tristan, a science whiz, maintains and monitors Nigel, who acquires a personality of his own, which Nigel claims is simply a mirror of Tristan’s personality. Tristan claims otherwise. Judge for yourself in this excerpt from A Fine Year for Murder.
In the following excerpt, Jessica calls Tristan for comfort after having a fight with Murphy, who walks out and Nigel steps in to help:
All of her close girlfriends were working, since it was midmorning on a weekday. That left only Tristan, her dear brother, to talk to. Grabbing her cell phone, she dialed Tristan’s number.
“Hey, Sis, how’re you doing?”
Her heart overflowing with regret and fear, Jessica immediately broke into uncontrollable sobs. Her attempt to communicate the source of her emotions came out as little more than unintelligible blubbering.
Tristan, who was sitting at the bank of monitors in the control center in the Faraday-Thornton estate, where Nigel’s system was housed, peered at his cell phone. “I don’t understand.”
“Based on the lack of full sentences in Jessica’s speech and on the high levels of negative emotion in her voice, I believe that Jessica and Murphy are having a fight,” Nigel said.
“So why is she calling me?” Tristan asked.
“Because you’re her brother. She feels the need to reach out to a family member for some emotional reassurance.”
“Like I’m going to take her side in a fight with Murphy,” Tristan said. “He could kill me with his pinky. I’m not stupid.”
“She just said that it was all her fault,” Nigel said.
Uttering a sigh of relief, Tristan brought the phone to his ear. “Jessica, calm down. What are you two kids fighting about?”
“Costantino,” she said. “He dumped a whole teapot of boiling water in Murphy’s lap.”
“And now Murphy’s in jail for killing him. Sounds like self-defense. Call our lawyer. He’ll get Murphy out by noon. Talk to you later, Sis.”
“Will you listen to me, you antisocial moron?” Jessica’s heartbreak became more like fury—fury directed toward her brother. “No, Murphy is not in jail! I swear! You make him sound like a serial killer.”
“Think about it, Sis. No guy in his right mind would dump boiling water in the lap of a guy he didn’t know. For all he knows, the other guy is a serial killer who’d think nothing of disemboweling you in a room full of witnesses.”
“Are you saying—”
“I’m not saying that Murphy would do that. He could, but he wouldn’t. What possessed Costantino to dump boiling water in Murphy’s lap—besides the fact that he’s an idiot?”
“To make a long story short,” Jessica said, “Costantino has become obsessed with me and wants Murphy out of the way.”
“That’s totally creepy. You’re cousins.”
“What am I going to do about Murphy?”
“What else can you do? You have to apologize.”
“I wasn’t the one who—”
“You should have told Costantino that you’re married to Murphy and that his efforts to court you were a waste of his time,” Nigel said, “not to mention dangerous to Costantino’s health and well-being.”
“Yeah,” Tristan said, “you tell her, Nigel.”
“By failing to put a stop to Costantino’s attempt to court you,” Nigel said, “you disrespected Murphy’s role as your mate, which was an implicit insult to his masculinity. As a result, he feels emotionally impotent.”
“TMI,” Tristan whispered to the computer.
“Based on the psych profile I have stored in my system for Lieutenant Thornton, I hypothesize that Murphy has withdrawn from the scene to reboot his limbic system and to reassess the situation.”
“Reassess what? Our marriage?” Jessica asked with a note of hysteria in her voice. “What’s he rebooting?”
“His limbic system,” Tristan said. “That’s the part of the brain where emotions are stored.”
“I should have called Archie,” Jessica said to herself.
“Once the reboot is complete, Murphy will come back,” Nigel said. “I would recommend that you then reaffirm your commitment to each other.”
“Have makeup sex,” Tristan said. “Then stay away from Costantino.”
I chose this quote because it is something that I have been trying to focus on. I am trying to concentrate on the good things in my life because I know that other people in the world had it worse than me. I also know that people don’t like to be around individuals who are always complaining about everything. I had a rough childhood, and after things had calmed down, I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis at the age of 15 which made me hate the world even more. I am not sure what made me change how I look at the world, but I am glad that I did because I am in such a better place in my life right now. I have people in my family who get so caught up in everything bad that happens to them that they can’t ever see any of the good that happens to them. Those are just a few of my thoughts about this quote.
What do you think of this week’s quote by Joel Osteen?
FTC: I received a free copy of this book from Litfuse in exchange for my honest review. I received no other compensation and the opinions expressed in this review are one hundred percent true and my own.
Door To Freedom by Jana Kelley was a great book. This is the second book in the series and going into this book I was sure I was going to like it because I loved the first book in this series. This is such a unique plot that I can’t help but love it because it is so different from anything else that I have ever read. I love that with these books you get to peek inside of what it would be like to be a Christian living in Sudan. I also enjoyed this book because it is based on true stories and I am always a sucker for books that are based on real stories. This book made me want to share my beliefs more because if people are sharing their faith in places like Sudan, I should do the same thing here. If you are looking for a book that is different from most of the books out there, I would recommend this entire series to you because I know you will love them like I do.
About The Book
In the dusty, Islamic country of Sudan, Mia, who is raising her family in a Muslim country, has learned to boldly share her faith. Rania, the daughter of a wealthy Sudanese Arab, seeks to find the reason for her sister’s sudden disappearance. Mia holds some of the answers, but both women quickly discover they must each walk through their own doors to freedom—the freedom that only comes when you trust God’s sovereignty more than man-made security.
Part of New Hope® Publishers’ line of contemporary missional fiction, Door to Freedom, the sequel to Side by Side, opens the reader’s eyes to modern-day persecution and the life of Muslims in Sudan. Based on real-life events, Door to Freedom also reveals some of the struggles that Christians face when living under Islamic law. The reader will be inspired to pray for those who are persecuted for their faith as well as for the salvation of the persecutors.
About The Author
Jana Kelley is a Texan who hardly ever lives in Texas. Raised in Southeast Asia, Jana developed a love for cross-cultural living early in life. Her love for writing came soon after. Jana returned to Texas to attend college. She and her husband married a month after she graduated, and by their second anniversary, they were living in a remote African town. After 13 years living in Africa and the Middle East, Jana, her husband, and their three boys moved to Southeast Asia where they currently live. You can learn more about Jana at janakelley.com.
FTC: I received a free copy of this book from Litfuse in exchange for my honest review. I received no other compensation and the opinions expressed in this review are one hundred percent true and my own.
Home To Paradise by Barbara Cameron was a great Amish fiction novel. As most of you know by now, I am a huge fan of Amish fiction books. Every time I see one I have to get it and read it because I can’t get enough of them. This is the third book in the “Coming Home” series. This is the first book that I have read in this series and me able to figure out what was going on. If had had the time I would have liked to read all three books in order, but I didn’t have the time, so I am hoping that I will be able to read the other two books later even though I know what happens to them because I read this book. I really liked Rose and John right from the start, and I was sad when the book was over because I felt like I really connected with the characters. If you love Amish fiction like I do I would tell you to pick up the first two books so that you can read them in order.
About The Book
Rose Anna Zook has watched her two older sisters marry two Stoltzfus men and has always thought she and John, the third Stoltzfus brother, would marry, make a home together, and have children. But John has other ideas. He’s enjoying his Rumschpringe in the Englisch world a little too much and isn’t interested in returning to the Amish community–especially to marry.
Rose Anna is determined to bring her man back into the Amish fold. John is equally determined to live his life free and unencumbered. Who will win this battle of wills? Will love prevail?
About The Author
CBD, CBA, and ECPA best-selling author of 24 books (including new series upcoming for Abingdon Press in 2011/2012) including fiction and non-fiction books for Abingdon Press, Thomas Nelson, Harlequin, and other publishers.
I sold three films to HBO/Cinemax and am the first winner of the Romance Writers of America Golden Heart Award.
My two novellas won the 2nd and 3rd place in the Inspirational Readers Choice Contest from the Faith, Love, and Hope chapter of RWA. Both were finalists for the novella category of the Carol Award of the American Christian Writers Award (ACFW).
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2017 Margaret Margaret
