The Christmas Lodge and A Marriage Carol, books #40-41

 

     

I have loved getting on to good Christmas books finally.  Well, at least one of these was good.  I hate to say anything bad about my good buddies Chris Fabry and Gary Chapman, but ....

Book #40 was a true delight!  And I realized there are several more in the series!  

As the head of a thriving investment firm in St. Louis, Lacy Preston thinks she has it all… until her fast-paced life is disrupted one day by a single phone call. She’s shocked to discover that her estranged grandfather has died and left her his sprawling old house in Snowy Pine Ridge, New Hampshire.  Although it’s the last thing she wants to do, especially with the holidays approaching, Lacy decides to head to Snowy Pine Ridge to oversee the sale of the property. She has no intention of staying in the cozy little town, and no intention of keeping the historic building her grandfather—a man affectionately called St. Nick by the locals—passed on to her.  But as she works on renovating the old house to put it on the market, she gets to know the residents of the town, including local dog-sledder Derek Morse, who almost runs her over with his sled the first time they meet.  Derek has lived in Snowy Pine Ridge all his life, and he has no use for the big city folks who sometimes come through… even if this particular city slicker has the most arresting green eyes he’s ever seen and a laugh that rivals the jingle of Christmas bells. Still, when she comes to him asking for help with an abandoned puppy, he can’t say no.  Lacy certainly isn’t looking for love this holiday season. But as she and Derek navigate the hijinks of the mischievous pup, delve into a mystery from her family’s past, and uncover a buried secret, she starts to realize that sometimes…  Love finds you even when you’re not looking for it. (picture and description at Amazon)

Book #41 was a quick read, only 100ish pages, and it was probably a small book, since I read it in about 2 hours.  It was ok, but nothing to write home about.  Sorry!

Jake and Marlee, a tired married couple, are about to call it quits. Over time they have drifted apart; the sparks are dead. Marlee is convinced she married the wrong man, and Jake feels tied down to the wrong woman. Jake is distant and tired of being controlled, while Marlee is tired of being the only one trying to the save their marriage. They go to bed Christmas Eve, in separate rooms, each rationalizing... life is too short to be miserable... love shouldn't hurt like this... their marriage must end for happiness to return.  But then something peculiar happens: The ghosts of Marriage Past, Marriage Present, and Marriage Future reveal to them their past choices and present realities, and how their future might look if they do not change their stories.  Jake and Marlee experience a Christmas gift that will radically change their thinking and cause them to look at marriage not for what they can get out of it, but for what God can do in and through their marriage. (PIcture and description at Amazon)

Now I have to find a new one to read quick before I see what Deanie chooses for us for Book Club on Thursday!

Don't you love Christmas books?!?

Melissa

The World's Greatest Detective and Her Just Okay Assistant, book #39

 

So, funny story about this book.  It caught my eye this summer and I added it to my list of possible books for our FHS Book Club, since it is not a "Christian" book.  Amazingly, everyone chose it to read for our second book!  I was thrilled, until .... I realized it is a new book so it was very pricey.  But no one seemed to mind so on I went.  

Then I started reading it and really, really loved it!  It was the type of book I thoroughly enjoyed, written in a funny, lighthearted style.  But the -- Yikes!  I realized all the other books we have read for that Book Club are NOT written in funny, lighthearted style!  And then I got afraid no one would like it and they would say mean stuff about it!  So, fingers crossed, maybe some people liked it! :)

Olivia Blunt is thrilled to be hired as assistant to the nationally renowned investigator Aubrey Merritt. She longs to become a valued contributor to the great detective’s work, but Merritt is a difficult, exacting boss, and the learning curve is steeper than she expected. After weeks of boring computer work, Olivia is finally invited to join Merritt on an important case. On the night of her sixty-fifth birthday party, Victoria Summersworth somehow fell over her balcony railing to her death on the rocky shore of Vermont’s Lake Champlain. She was a happy woman—rich, beloved, in love, and matriarch of the preeminent Summersworth family. The police ruled her death a suicide, but Victoria’s daughter Haley thinks it was murder. Merritt and Olivia soon discover that the Summersworth family is complicated web of lies, ambitions, and resentments. As the list of suspects grows, Olivia makes one apparent mistake after another. When she blunders into a truly dangerous situation, she realizes Merritt might be right: she might be in over her head with this whole detective thing…or she might be unravelling a mystery even bigger than the one they started with.  (picture and description at Amazon)

So now, finally, I get to start reading Christmas books!

O:)

Melissa

I'll Be Home for Christmas, book #38

 

So, finally a Christmas book ...

Back story ~ If you remember I like to read Christmas books in November and December, because there are so many good ones I want to read!  However, November started with me reading our Book Club book and then I learned that our Faculty Book Club would meet after Thanksgiving, and that book is not a Christmas book either!  So, I decided to sneak in a Christmas book in between the two.

I started reading one book I had gotten from the stash at my MILs house, however it was not only NOT a Christian book, I didn't get too far into it to realize this was NOT the type of book I wanted to read!  So for the first time in recorded history, I actually stopped reading the book and picked up another one.  

Ugh but this book was just a drag to read.  It is set in the mid-1940s during WWII and I don't know if it was the style or the long drawn out plot or what, but I feel like if this had been a shorter book there is a chance I would have liked it more.  Blech!  

With Bing Crosby's "I'll Be Home for Christmas" playing in the background, Maggie Culpepper and William Byrd proclaim their undying love to one another. But with the U.S. at war and Maggie's personal home front under attack, the Southern belle impetuously joins the WAVES (Women Accepted for Voluntary Emergency Service).  When Christmas draws near and Maggie finds herself miles and miles away from her Georgia hometown...and her beloved William...will she realize that, no matter where she spends Christmas, home is where her heart is? (picture and description at Amazon)

I have started the one for our other Book Club to finish it and then jump all in to Christmas books!

Have you read any good Christmas books lately?

Melissa

Candle in the Darkness, book #37

 

This book threw me for a doozy.  I've read SO MANY books on the Civil War ~ men/boys gone off to fight, women/slaves/children left at home, etc etc and they never really bothered me.  (Well, except for this one)  But for some reason this one really bothered me.  Poor Caroline was really caught in the middle of her passion and true love.  I wonder how many other women were in her shoes back then?

The daughter of a wealthy slave-holding family from Richmond, Virginia, Caroline Fletcher is raised to believe slavery is God-ordained and acceptable. But on awakening to its cruelty and injustice, her eyes are opened to the men and women who have cared tirelessly for her. At the same time, her father and her fiance, Charles St. John, are fighting for the Confederacy and their beloved way of life and traditions.  Where does Caroline's loyalty lie? Emboldened by her passion to make a difference and her growing faith, will she risk everything she holds dear? (picture and description at Amazon)

I am supposed to be jumping into my next book for the FHS Book Club, but I think I need to sneak a Christmas book in first :)  

Keep Reading

Melissa

Match Me if You Can, book #36

 

Usually I love all of my hometown girl Krista Phillips' books I have read, but this one did not live up to what I had hoped.  It *is* a novella, so I guess she had to pack a lot into less than 150 pages, but I think I might have liked it more if there was more room to flesh it out a little. Also, the premise of this series is absolutely ridiculous.

However, for the record, I was looking for a quick read to hold me over to November when I like to start reading Christmas books.  However also, I just learned that I guess the other people in the two book clubs I'm don't enjoy reading Christmas books in December, as they picked reguloar books.  So I'm just going to read them fast so I can get onto what I really want to read 😊

There is no way this matchmaking thing is going to work...Ava Raleigh is going to strangle her best friend. Conned into going on a trip to the Bahamas for "Matchmaking" Week, Ava determines to do everything she can to not be matched. Former NFL football player Sean Jackson is only on this trip because he loves his mother-nothing more. Sure, he feels guilty that some woman is paired with him and will be disappointed that he isn't interested-but that's bound to happen to most of the couples anyway, right? Will this unwilling match end up finding love after all, or will the past come back to haunt them both? (picture and description from Amazon)

It's almost Fa-La-La season!

Melissa

Ten Years Taken, book #35

 

This book stumped me.  Let me tell you why.  

I was going to read it after I finished the insane Rachel Price book, but I knew I would need a little break since it looked like they were going to be somewhat similar.

I was the one who chose this book for our regular book club, and I was so excited to read it.  I absolutely LOVE Susannah B. Lewis as a person and her FB posts make me laugh out loud and ponder many things.  I had just had the opportunity to see her (and my other two podcast besties Angela and Fran) at a women's conference back in October.  That was the first time I had met her and she was just as lovely in person as she is on FB.  Real, gritty, hilarious, in love with Jesus and her fam.  I have read another one of her books and thoroughly enjoyed.  

And don't get me wrong, I loved this book too.  It looks like it was written earlier, in fact this may have been one of the first ones she wrote, although Amazon says this is a revised edition, so I'm not sure what was revised.  My challenge was, there was language in here that made me uncomfortable to read.  That made me uncomfortable to think about this being from a Christian author. At this point, I'm going to give her the benefit of the doubt, in that this was probably written when maybe she didn't have as much Jesus in her.  And we all know, nobody's perfect.  I am *certainly* not throwing the first stone, as I know there are just as many that could be thrown at me.  I was just a little embarrassed that I had raved over Susannah and how amazing she was as a Biblical teacher to my Book Club Buddies, only to then read the book and see the language in it.  

On a rainy September day in 2001, a stranger enters Elle Holley’s car and forces her to drive hours away from her Nashville home. The terrified young mother fears her life will soon end at the hand of her abductor. But Elle learns that her kidnapper, Jonathan Marsh, is a prominent Houston businessman who claims to be saving her from a life of middle-class monotony by taking her home to Texas, marrying her and molding her into the ultimate socialite. With a new identity, Elle is forced to play the role of Jonathan’s loving housewife, and it doesn’t take long for her to discover that her new husband is an incredibly powerful and cunning man. Elle is accepted by high society, and she slowly forms friendships, but soon secrets are uncovered that leave her wondering if her husband is truly the villain. Will Elle Holley ever be reunited with her daughter and with her life of middle-class monotony? (picture and description at Amazon)

But we keep reading anyway ... 

:)

Melissa

Autumn by the Sea, book #34

 

This book has been sitting by my bedside table for a while just waiting for the perfect time to read it, and October was the perfect time!  I have read other book by this author, but it has been a while.  She does get a little detail heavy at times, but the story was great!  I can't wait to read the others in the series -- after I read my Christmas books! :)

Abandoned as a toddler, Sydney Rose has spent years wondering who she really is, homesick for a life she’s never lived. When a private investigator crashes into her world, she finds herself heading to a tiny seaside town in Maine to meet a woman named Maggie, who’s searching for the granddaughter she lost decades ago.  If not for Maggie, Neil MacKean might still be back in Scotland, bereft and alone. Instead, he has a full life in Muir Harbor with an adopted family he loves and a blueberry farm to run. But the farm is struggling and strange occurrences have him concerned. Worse, Maggie’s once again caught up in the past, convinced she’s finally found her long-lost granddaughter.  Worried for Maggie, Neil is suspicious of the city girl who shows up at the farm. But there’s something about Sydney that tugs on him, drawing out secrets he never meant to share. While Neil grapples with the future of the farm, Sydney wrestles with a past that’s messier than ever. Together, they’re pulled into a mystery complete with a centuries-old legend, unexpected danger . . . and a love as deep and wild as the sea. (Picture and description at Amazon)

I'm finishing up one book for Book Club, then I will be ready to start reading Christmas books!  I usually read them in November and December because there are so many good ones!

Happy Halloween!

Melissa