Giveaway Winner!

The giveaway is over, and the winner has been selected!! Congrats Susan! Thanks for entering! Hope you enjoy! 

Have a Blessed Easter!!!

HE IS RISEN!!!!

Review: In Places Hidden by Tracie Peterson

On her way to San Francisco to find her brother, Caleb, who went missing three months ago, Camriann Coulter meets Judith and Kenzie, who both have their own mysteries to solve in the booming West Coast city. The women decide to help each other, including rooming together and working at Kenzie's cousin's chocolate factory.

Camri's search for her brother, an attorney, leads her deep into the political corruption of the city--and into the acquaintance of Patrick Murdock, a handsome Irishman who was saved from a false murder charge by Caleb. Patrick challenges all of Camri's privileged beliefs, but he knows more about what happened to her brother than anyone else. Together, they move closer to the truth behind Caleb's disappearance. But as the stakes rise and threats loom, will Patrick be able to protect Camri from the dangers he knows lie in the hidden places of the city?

I've been super excited about this book ever since I found out it was coming. I've especially been looking forward to it since I met Tracie and Kim when they came to Bob Jones a few months ago. I give this book 5 stars. It completely captured the corruption of San Francisco in such a way that I was holding my breath several times. I think this might be one of the highest concentrations of suspense I've felt while reading her historical fiction. Almost to the point where I had to get away, which usually only happens with straight up suspense novels. The characters were great! I especially loved the changes that I saw in Camri. There at the beginning she reminded me (just slightly!) of Helaina Beecham, one of my all-time favorite characters! If you haven't read Tracie's Alaskan (and Yukon) Quest trilogies, then you absolutely should! They are my absolute favorites of hers! (Side Note...with possibly spoiler... Karen was my favorite character and I'm not sure that I'm ever going to get over those books! I've cried myself to sleep every time I've read them. And that is probably half a dozen times!) Anywho, I digress. You want to know about San Francisco.... actually, you probably don't cause the more you know the more likely you are to wind up dead. This book was very full of spiritual truths and I absolutely loved seeing what the characters were learning. I have to say, the semi-resolution came MUCH sooner than I had anticipated. But that didn't bother me any. Of course, you may want to keep a few tissues close by. This book can be a tear-jerker. One of the things that I love the most in books is a tear-jerker moment. Tracie generally gives me them in abundance! <3 I was completely into this book, all the way. I let myself fly away to California. And it was wonderful. I read it in almost one sitting. You wont' regret reading this new adventure. Now I need to find room for it on my Tracie shelf. I'm thinking it should go between the Oregon and the Montana books. (I organize my Tracie books geographically, in case you were wondering ;) )

Sorry for the slightly ADD-ness of that review. I don't think that there is any rhyme or reason to it. I hope that you enjoy it anyway, and that you will go find this book and enjoy IT even more. This one is a keeper.  I honestly can't remember finishing the book, and I think now that's because I've only finished a third of the story. I can't wait to get my hands on the next bits.

Thank you Bethany House for allowing me to be a part of your Blogger Review program.

Waiting-On-Wednesday: A Breath of Hope by Lauraine Snelling

Lauraine Snelling is definitely a great author, and I've been a fan since my early teen years, starting with the Golden Filly series. Most recently I've enjoyed her book From This Day Forward. A Breath of Hope is publishing April 2018.

About

Nilda Carlson has been trying to save enough money to go to America for months, so when a letter arrives, with an offer to pay her passage, she jumps at the chance. Her younger brother Ivar accompanies her, and they are thrilled to join older brother Rune and his family in the northern forests of Minnesota.

But America is not everything Nilda imagined. A terrifying experience in a lumber camp shakes Nilda's confidence and trust in men, but a job helping a young widow raise her children and run her farm gives her a chance to build her own life. When she meets Fritz, the children's schoolteacher, she is initially unimpressed and uninterested. His kindness and passion for learning begin to win her over, but how can she sacrifice her dreams for the future for a man she's still not sure of?

Waiting-on-Wednesday is hosted by Breaking The Spine.

Blogversary 2!!!!

WOW!!! How did we get here??? It's crazy! Now, I'm not gonna go into a crazy long over-sharing of emotions like last year ;) If you want to know all that... just read the one from last year! But I will say, it's pretty crazy to see how my style has changed. But I know you really just want to know if there is going to be something special, and the answer is yes.
 It's open until the end of March! Share every day if you want!

http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/bedbf51f2/?


Thank you all for your support and for continuing to read my blog. Love you guys!

(P.S. Sorry I don't post more... College is tres tres time consuming!)

Review: Magnificent Obsession by Lloyd C Douglas

Here is one that I read over the summer. I hope you enjoy. (Really though, this was a strange, yet great, book!)

This is the trickiest book to describe. I'm going to go find an official blurb....


When Robert Merrick's life is saved at the expense of the life of an eccentric but adored surgeon, the carefree playboy is forced to reevaluate his own path. Merrick embarks on a course of anonymous philanthropy, inspired by reading the doctor's private papers. An engaging and dramatic story of personal redemption and private sacrifice, this spiritual tale has served as an inspiration for both the stage and screen.

(Mind now. I didn't write that!)

I'm giving this book 4 stars.

1: I'm not even sure where to start. I think with "I read this book after watching the movie, the one with Jane Wyman and Rock Hudson." And I am 99% positive that had I read first, watched second, I would have been very very let down by the movie. It was a great movie, but the story was so much deeper than the movie let on. And so much different. There were definitely plot differences.

2: I was a little shocked. I wasn't quite sure what to think of this book. It's religious, surely. But not biblical. Not quite. Between the scientology and the "Major Personality" bits, I was thoroughly confused. But let confusion reign, for when I get a book like this, I'm going to finish it. It was quite the story.

3: Definitely wanted a Sharpie.... for sure a Sharpie was needed. But I chugged along, always trying to understand the exact method for this "personality infusion" going on.

4: It's a book with characters on every page that you'll love. Nancy and her motherly role towards Bobby. Helen and her heart-ache and uncontrollable step-daughter. Bobby himself, with quite a few things going for and against him. You find yourself drawn into their quarrels and fun and studies and lives without your knowledge and almost without your consent.

5: I guess it is a romance, and yet.... it's the softest dose of romance ever put in a romance novel. You hardly think of it for pages on end, and then Bobby can't do a thing for Helen on his mind.

All-in-all, a successful adventure, I reckon. I'm not sorry I read it. In fact, I was hard-pressed to put it down.

Review: A Home in Drayton Valley by Kim Vogel Sawyer

Here's a book that I enjoyed over Christmas Break! I hope you'll read this awesome book.

Joss and Mary head West with their two kids and Mary's best friend Tarsie. Mary needs to get Joss away from all the saloons in New York City, and Tarsie is convinced that fresh air will help Mary get better. But just as they are about to cross the river to get into Kansas, Mary's strength fails, and Tarsie and Joss are married in a deal that she made with Mary at the end. Emmy and Nathaniel are easy to love, but Joss... well he's insufferable. Can the two of them make this work?

I'm giving this lovely book 5 stars. You know, every time I start a new book by Kim Vogel Sawyer I get a little worried the first two or three chapters... What if I don't love this one as much as the others.... What if it's not as good... PHOOEY!!! They haven't been bad yet, not a one of them. And this was certainly no exception. I enjoyed reading this so much. I loved the setting and the people and the time. I enjoyed seeing change and growth happen. I loved seeing the overcoming of prejudice. And the overcoming of other things that I can't tell you because I strive to not have spoilers here. (And yes, I do realize that I fail miserably sometimes.) I enjoyed the strange plot twist with prohibition. And the spiritual awakening of certain characters was about enough to make me rejoice, forgetting for a second the fictionality (is that a made up word?) of their existence. I love how Kim always writes out the accents. And the accents give everyone an extra dimension, an added layer to their personality. Bottom line... I tried to just read a chapter or two at a time but instead I was up past midnight last night reading.