1846 Illinois: The Promise of Morning by Ann Shorey

The Promise of Morning by Ann Shorey

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Someone may have told you how the first book in this series The Edge of Light was depressing. It was and in starting The Promise of Morning you would think this would be depressing through out as well, but that is not the case. This novel starts with a heart breaking fact of life and continues into a scenario where with modern day medical knowledge we know what is happening, but ignorance hurts. Yet the story continues on. By the book blurb it looks like this is a story about Ellie, and it is, but even more so this is a story about Matthew.

Through both Ellie and Matthew a story is told that is very real, raw, and emotional and something to growth with and from and continue on. In the situations that take place my own mind says I would just give up, but watching the characters and watching how life does continue and seeing how God orchestrates things for the end all is incredible to imagine. This is a book that tells a story about grief, but offers so much healing as well. I highly recommend this book. Though it is the second in a series, you could very well read this one alone. Now, eagerly I look forward to the next novel to come from author Ann Shorey.

*Thanks to Donna Hausler of Revell Books for providing a copy for review.*

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1838 Missouri/Illinois: The Edge of Light by Ann Shorey

The Edge of Light by Ann Shorey

It is the summer of 1838 in St. Lawrenceville, Missouri, and Molly McGarvie's life is about to change forever. When her beloved Samuel succumbs to cholera, Molly is heartbroken but determined to take care of herself and her children. But when Samuel's unscrupulous brother takes over the family business and leaves Molly to fend for herself, she knows she must head out on her own. It is a dangerous journey and Molly has to leave her old life behind. Somehow she must find a way to make a living, keep her family together, and fend off some over-eager suitors. Book one in the At Home in Beldon Grove series, The Edge of Light will captivate readers with the true-to-life emotions of one woman's struggle to survive. 

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Much in the same way as Siri Mitchell write Regency novels that are incredibly depressing, but historically accurate and visual new novelist Ann Shorey does the same on the American Frontier. Through out my experience in reading this novel I was sad and heartbroken with the characters as one thing happened after another. It reminded me of childhood playing of the game Oregon Trail as you could do nothing but let life take things away. At first I was curious what could possibly happen that would be good and cause my heart to smile and there were a few things here and there.

Ann's writing is incredibly good and the details of weaving were vivid and educational. I would definitely recommend her books and I look forward to reading The Promise of Morning. But I would warn you that this is not a light hearted romance, but a heavy one. I think it is realistic, but difficult not to be pessimistic. One thing I had real trouble with was that the mother hardly paid any attention to her older daughter always pushing her out of the way and telling her to just be still and quiet. Overall, the book was an interesting experience.

Do not get me wrong, it is a good book, just depressing a bit. But it does en-capture "the edge of light" where you can hold on to hope and not let go.

*Thanks to Revell Books for providing a copy for review.*

Network with Ann Shorey:

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My review of Siri Mitchell's novels:

A Constant Heart

Love's Pursuit

I look forward to reading She Walks in Beauty 

One True Love by Lori Copeland

One True Love by Lori Copeland

Copper is overjoyed that her friends Willow and Audrey found love and fulfillment after the war. The only remaining spinster, Copper vows to pour herself into her new teaching job. But tragedy strikes during her very first week. The schoolhouse catches fire and Copper suffers a serious injury while ushering her students to safety. Suddenly she's on a wagon train bound for Colorado to see the only doctor who can help her walk again.
Ever since the wagon train pulled into town, Copper butted heads with wagon master Josh Redlin—and now she must depend on him for her very life. But as Copper is forced to count on others for life's basic needs, she starts to surrender...and let her guard down around the one man whom she's despised for so long. Could it be that the very person that drives her crazy is the one she truly needs?

ISBN: 9780061364945; ISBN10: 0061364940; Imprint: Avon Inspire ; On Sale: 3/2/2010; Format: Trade PB; Trimsize: 5 5/16 x 8; Pages: 256; $12.99; Ages: 18 and Up 

Rita® Award winner and Christy Award finalist Lori Copeland delivers the third and final book in her popular Belles of Timber Creek series. One True Love is a heart-lifting story of love, faith, and courage from the author of Three Times Blessed and Twice Loved. Readers of Lori Wick, Beverly Lewis, and Tracey Bateman will be enchanted by One True Love—indeed, anyone who loves beautifully written, inspirational Christian romance will be thrilled to accompany one of its most accomplished authors to the American West for an eventful and unforgettable adventure of the heart and spirit.

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The entire Belles of Timber Creek series was fun to read. Following along the journey of three quirky, but lovable, opinionated and adventurous friends. This book is the final book coming after Twice Loved and then Three Times Blessed and it was a great way to fully get to know Copper. From the first chapter of the first book I knew that Copper was my favorite and was eager to hear her story. Now that I have, I'm glad to have read this series as it was a great time in a triple romance.

This book has so much more than the rest of the series in a way of Biblical lessons for me. Learning to let go and let God as well as true forgiveness of one's self are true hard lessons. In this story they are shared in a very vivid light. I highly recommend the entire series as well as other series and books from author Lori Copeland.

*Thanks to Kendra of HarperCollins for providing a copy for review.*

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My review:
Twice Loved 
Three Times Blessed
A Kiss for Cade (The Western Sky Series)
I'm currently reading Outlaw's Bride (The Western Sky Series)

Texas: Scattered Petals by Amanda Cabot

Scattered Petals by Amanda Cabot

Longing for adventure, Priscilla Morton leaves Boston and heads for Texas, never dreaming that the adventure she seeks will leave her badly injured and her parents dead. Priscilla is determined to rebuild her life and make a home for herself in the beautiful Hill Country. But the bandits who took her parents' lives also destroyed her hope for the future.

Ranch foreman Zachary Webster knows what the future holds for him, and it's not a woman like Priscilla. She deserves a cultured East Coast gentleman, not a cowboy who's haunted by memories of his mistakes. The best thing he can do is leave her alone.

When necessity draws them together, Priscilla and Zach begin to forge a life that, like the scattered petals of her childhood, is filled with promise. But then the past intrudes, threatening their very existence.

My rating: 4 of 5 stars
What a beautiful cover this book has, and an appropriate one at that with beauty and sadness of expression. Scattered Petals is the sequel and second book in a trilogy starting with Paper Roses, yet could easily be appreciated on it's own merit as a stand alone. Bringing together two very different yet painful pasts God uses different characters to allow healing and hope for a future. This story gives a great deal of visual insight into the mind of a madman as well as a hint of depression and pain. Through out the pages healing is found in ways unexpected and love and happiness is entirely possible.

This is a truly heart rending novel and every page fills you with the good and bad of life, all encompassing the will of God through out and especially in the end. I do recommend it. I look forward for the end of the trilogy in the spring of 2011 as well as other titles from author Amanda Cabot to come.

*Thanks to Donna Hausler of Revell Books for providing a copy for review.*

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Go back to read my review of Texas Dreams, book #1 Paper Roses (click here).

Amanda Cabot's website

Read an Excerpt of Paper Roses

Read an Excerpt of Scattered Petals

Amanda Cabot is an accomplished author under various pen names and a popular speaker. The author of Paper Roses, she is also a charter member of Romance Writers of America, the co-founder of its New Jersey chapter, a member of the ACFW, and an avid traveler.

Revell, a division of Baker Publishing Group, offers practical books that bring the Christian faith to everyday life. They publish resources from a variety of well-known brands and authors, including their partnership with MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) and Hungry Planet.

For more information, visit www.RevellBooks.com.

“Available March 2010 at your favorite bookseller from Revell, a division of Baker Publishing Group.”

Buy from CBD:

Paper Roses, Texas Dreams Series #1 By Amanda Cabot / Revell Mail-order bride Sarah Dobbs arrives in Texas in 1850, only to learn that her future husband, Austin Canfield, is dead! Seeking refuge with his family, she tries to reconcile herself to an uncertain future. Will Austin's stubborn brother, Clay, spoil her happiness? Or is he the man she was looking for all along? 416 pages, softcover from Revell.

Scattered Petals, Texas Dreams Series #2 By Amanda Cabot / Revell Longing for adventure, Priscilla Morton leaves Boston and heads for Texas, never dreaming that the adventure she seeks will leave her badly injured and her parents dead. Priscilla is determined to rebuild her life and make a home for herself in the beautiful Hill Country. But the bandits who took her parents' lives also destroyed her hope for the future.Ranch foreman Zachary Webster knows what the future holds for him, and it's not a woman like Priscilla. She deserves a cultured East Coast gentleman, not a cowboy who's haunted by memories of his mistakes. The best thing he can do is leave her alone.

18th Century Scotland: Here Burns My Candle by Liz Curtis Higgs

Here Burns My Candle
by Liz Curtis Higgs

It’s been 4 years since Liz Curtis Higgs’s last novel, and she’s made good  use of that time studying Scottish history and the Scriptures. And now she offers a retelling of the beloved Old Testament story of Ruth and Naomi set in 18^th Century Scotland. Visit the Lowlands in Here Burns My Candle. 

Summary:

A mother who cannot face her future.

A daughter who cannot escape her past.

Lady Elisabeth Kerr is a keeper of secrets. A Highlander by birth and a Lowlander by marriage, she honors the auld ways, even as doubts and fears stir deep within her.

    Her husband, Lord Donald, has secrets of his own, well hidden from the household, yet whispered among the town gossips. 

    His mother, the dowager Lady Marjory, hides gold beneath her floor and guilt inside her heart. Though her two abiding passions are maintaining her place in society and coddling her grown sons, Marjory’s many regrets, buried in Greyfriars Churchyard, continue to plague her.

    One by one the Kerr family secrets begin to surface, even as bonny Prince Charlie and his rebel army ride into Edinburgh in September 1745, intent on capturing the crown. 

    A timeless story of love and betrayal, loss and redemption, flickering against the vivid backdrop of eighteenth-century Scotland, Here Burns My Candle illumines the dark side of human nature, even as hope, the brightest of tapers, lights the way home.

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Liz Curtis Higgs was my introduction to Christian Historical Fiction many years ago with her first Lowland Series of a retelling in the Scottish Lowlands of the Biblical story of Jacob and Esau, Jacob's wives, and later Dinah. The time in between waiting for the next novel was torture and thus I turned to other authors to bide my time and hence my current obsession with so many authors and stories today. It seems that it has been a long time in waiting for a new novel from Liz and I was eager to grab this one up. In starting this story, a retelling in Scotland's Edinburgh of the Biblical story of Ruth and Naomi I had some preconceptions for what would happen and was shocked at how slow things seemed to transpire at first, but the story did pick up and sucked me in with it.

Lady Elisabeth Kerr is a Highlander by birth and a Lowlander by marriage it is her story and that of her mother-in-law Lady Marjory Kerr in which the pages are brought to life. Following along as they watch from the recessed side lines of battle between King George of England and Scotland's own Bonny Prince Charlie causes quite a stir of emotions. Learning with them through their own trials as some old ways are forgotten and God makes a difference in their lives is refreshing and eye opening showing his presence in the best of moments and well as the worst.

Knowing that this story was loosely of Ruth and knowing most of the Biblical story by heart, I ended at a point surprised having expected a different part. This just went to show me that I did not know all of the story, just the last part and causes me to have a newly increased thirst to go back and read the scriptures in full to delve into the first eighteen verses which it seems I hardly know at all. With all that said, I am entirely too eager to anticipate the next installment and sequel in Mine is the Night to come in 2011.

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Author Bio:

LIZ CURTIS HIGGS is the author of twenty-seven books with three million copies in print, including: her best-selling historical novels, Thorn in My Heart, Fair Is the Rose, Christy Award-winner Whence Came a Prince, and Grace in Thine Eyes, a Christy Award finalist; My Heart’s in the Lowlands: Ten Days in Bonny Scotland, an armchair travel guide to Galloway; and her contemporary novels, Mixed Signals, a Rita Award finalist, and Bookends, a Christy Award finalist. Visit the author’s extensive website at www.lizcurtishiggs.com.

Check out the book on the WaterBrook Multnomah website. 

*This was book was provided for review by WaterBrook Multnomah.*

Network with Liz and WaterBrook Multnomah: 

http://lizcurtishiggs.com/

Liz Curtis Higgs Facebook Fan Page 

WaterBrook Multnomah Press Facebook Fan Page

Twitter @WaterBrookPress
Twitter @LizCurtisHiggs

Buy it: 

Available at any major bookstore as well as from the WM link above, if your favorite store does not have it, ask for it! Or buy from Amazon or ChristianBook.com. 

Win it!!
http://cherryblossommj.blogspot.com/2010/03/here-burns-my-candle-by-liz-curtis.html

Texas: Paper Roses by Amanda Cabot

Paper Roses by Amanda Cabot

The future stretches out in front of Sarah Dobbs like the pure blue Texas sky. Leaving the past behind in Philadelphia, mail-order bride Sarah arrives in San Antonio ready to greet her groom, Austin Canfield, a man she has never met but whose letters have won her heart from afar. But there is one problem--he has died. And Sarah cannot go back East. As Sarah tries to reconcile herself to a future that is drastically changed, Austin's brother, Clay, struggles with his own muddled plans. Though he dislikes working on the family ranch and longs for a different life, Clay is driven to avenge his brother's death. But something between them is growing and neither Clay nor Sarah is ready to admit it. Book 1 of the Texas Dreams series, Paper Roses will sweep readers into the Hill Country with a tale of love and loss, closed doors and beautiful possibilities that will leave them wanting more.

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

In the author's letter to readers, Amanda Cabot states that she had referred to this book as the mail-order-bride-meets-Cyrano-de-Bergerac book. After reading it, I find it to be that and so much more. I initially requested this book and through confusion received it months later and it was on my back burner, but when I realized I could have the opportunity to read the sequel Scattered Petals and I had enjoyed starting this one I snatched it back up. I enjoyed getting back into the characters lives and now I am eager for the sequel.

Paper Roses is my first introduction to author Amanda Cabot, but after reading this one I definitely do not plan for it to be my last. This story of Paper Roses has the best title (and I am certain that Scattered Petals will be just as appropriate). Bringing together the elements of faith, forgiveness, vengeance, murder and madness as well as trust and child-like intuitiveness this story finds it's way into your heart and holds on. The characters are real and their plights are difficult. The mystery is woven through out and the clues kept quiet. Romance is palpable, but confusion as it is in real life.

Through out the story I could not guess what would come next, but my interest was peeked and the pages kept turning. I highly recommend this read as I am sure will recommend the entire series.

*Thanks to Revell Books for providing a copy for review.*

View all my reviews >>

Amanda Cabot's website

Read an Excerpt of Paper Roses

Read an Excerpt of Scattered Petals

Scattered Petals is released as of March 1st, 2010

Buy from CBD:

Paper Roses, Texas Dreams Series #1 By Amanda Cabot / Revell Mail-order bride Sarah Dobbs arrives in Texas in 1850, only to learn that her future husband, Austin Canfield, is dead! Seeking refuge with his family, she tries to reconcile herself to an uncertain future. Will Austin's stubborn brother, Clay, spoil her happiness? Or is he the man she was looking for all along? 416 pages, softcover from Revell.

Scattered Petals, Texas Dreams Series #2 By Amanda Cabot / Revell Longing for adventure, Priscilla Morton leaves Boston and heads for Texas, never dreaming that the adventure she seeks will leave her badly injured and her parents dead. Priscilla is determined to rebuild her life and make a home for herself in the beautiful Hill Country. But the bandits who took her parents' lives also destroyed her hope for the future.Ranch foreman Zachary Webster knows what the future holds for him, and it's not a woman like Priscilla. She deserves a cultured East Coast gentleman, not a cowboy who's haunted by memories of his mistakes. The best thing he can do is leave her alone.

World War II: A Distant Melody by Sarah Sundin

Forgive my silence, still having computer issues on this end that only time to save money will cure! But please, I just read and loved this novel and wanted to highly recommend it to you!

A Distant Melody by Sarah Sundin

Never pretty enough to please her gorgeous mother, Allie will do anything to gain her approval--even marry a man she doesn't love. Lt. Walter Novak--fearless in the cockpit but hopeless with women--takes his last furlough at home in California before being shipped overseas. Walt and Allie meet at a wedding and their love of music draws them together, prompting them to begin a correspondence that will change their lives. As letters fly between Walt's muddy bomber base in England and Allie's mansion in an orange grove, their friendship binds them together. But can they untangle the secrets, commitments, and expectations that keep them apart?

A Distant Melody is the first book in the Wings of Glory series, which follows the three Novak brothers, B-17 bomber pilots with the US Eighth Air Force stationed in England during World War II.

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is one of the better whole novels that I have read in a while. This is a historical romance that has all of the elements that one's heart looks for and while at the same time bringing forth events of a war time past that are true and hard to accept. Usually I am not a fan of war time novels, but this one captures my heart. In a similar manner as the films Pearl Harbor and Hanover Street except with a moral conscious. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and cannot wait for the sequel A Memory Between Us come this fall.

It starts with the cover being pure dreamy that just makes your heart sigh. Then from page one I was in love with the character of Allie and soon after Walt. Watching how romance blossomed and watch the confusion of their hearts and yearning for explanation for the other was pleasantly painful. Each chapter brought me begging for me. Sarah Sundin wrote an incredible heart rending story and I highly recommend it. Sundin is now on my favorite authors list.

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*Thanks to Donna Hausler of Revell Books for providing a copy for review.* 

“Available March 2010 at your favorite bookseller from Revell, a division of Baker Publishing Group.”

Network with Sarah Sundin: 

SarahSundin.com

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Twitter @SarahSundin

BUY IT: 

Amazon

 

CBD

A Distant Melody, Wings of Glory Series #1 By Sarah Sundin / Revell Allie will do anything to gain her mother's approval---even marry a man she doesn't love. Lieutenant Walter Novak is fearless in the cockpit, but hopeless with women. When Walt and Allie meet, a wartime correspondence begins that binds them together. But can they untangle the secrets, commitments, and expectations that keep them apart? 432 pages, softcover from Revell.