Bridge to Haven, book #18

If you will remember from last time, I read a Karen Kingsbury book. So I decided to keep up the "old school" authors and read this book I've had sitting around.  It was a classic Francine River and I throughly enjoyed it, once I got into it.  I felt like the cover art and summary on the back was a little decieving, almost spoiler alert, because what it talked about didn't happen until about halfway through the book.  Other than that, it was one I "consumed" pretty quick ~ again, as is par for the course for her books!   

To those who matter in 1950s Hollywood, Lena Scott is the hottest rising star to hit the silver screen since Marilyn Monroe. Few know her real name is Abra. Even fewer know the price she’s paid to finally feel like she’s somebody.  To Pastor Ezekiel Freeman, Abra will always be the little girl who stole his heart the night he found her, a wailing newborn abandoned under a bridge on the outskirts of Haven. Zeke and his son, Joshua—Abra’s closest friend—watch her grow into an exotic beauty. But Zeke knows the circumstances surrounding her birth have etched scars deep in her heart, scars that leave her vulnerable to a fast-talking charmer who lures her to Tinseltown.  Hollywood feels like a million miles from Haven, and naive Abra quickly learns what’s expected of an ambitious girl with stars in her eyes. But fame comes at a devastating price. She has burned every bridge to get exactly what she thought she wanted. Now all she wants is a way back home.  (picture and description from Amazon)

If you haven't read any of Francine's book, please go here and make a list!!  You need to read them all!!  These are the ones I highly recommend:

Redeeming Love

The Masterpiece

The Atonement Child

The Scarlet Thread

The Lineage of Grace series

And the Shofar Blew

She also has a new one coming out in February of next year I can't wait to get my hands on!  

 

The Lady's Mine

Happy Reading!!

Melissa

 

When We Were Young, book #17

 

Hhm.  What to say about this book.  While at first in Book Club we read A LOT of Karen Kingsbury, in the last 5 years or so we have not read as many.  She is a very prolific writer, and we even once went to see her speak.*  But I think her books for a while just got too much too fast.  She has written well over 100 books in the last 30 years.  

This one, I just never could figure out.  There were flashbacks, flash forwards, present time, a lot of story lines .... but I persevered.  I think I might like to pick up another one of her books, one that is not part of a series.  I have read several of her stand alones and they were good, so I might give her another shot.  

What if you could see into the future and know what will happen tomorrow, if you really walk out that door today. Pay attention. Life is not a dress rehearsal.  From their first meeting, to their stunning engagement and lavish wedding, to their happily-ever-after, Noah and Emily Carter seemed meant to be. They have a special kind of love—and they want the world to know. More than a million adoring fans have followed their lives on Instagram since the day Noah publicly proposed to Emily. But behind the carefully staged photos and encouraging posts, their life is anything but a fairytale, and Noah’s obsession with social media has ruined everything.  Distraught, Emily reaches out to her friend Kari Baxter Taylor and tells her the truth: Noah and Emily have decided to call it quits. He is leaving in the morning.  But when Noah wakes the next day, everything is different. Emily is gone and the kids are years older. Like Scrooge in A Christmas Carol, bizarre and strange events continue throughout the night so thatNoah is certain he’s twenty years older, and he is desperate for a second chance.  Now it would take a miracle to return to yesterday.  When We Were Young is a rare and beautiful love story that takes place in a single day. It’s about knowing what tomorrow will bring if you really walk out that door today—and the gift of being able to choose differently.  (picture and description at Amazon)

*Funny story about when we met her.  This must have been in the early 2000s and I was still part of the OG Book Club that met during the day.  [It started in the day, then some ladies who couldn't meet during the day started a night one.  Then all the ladies who went to the day one got jobs, so it fizzled out and now I go to the night one.]  There were about 10-15 of us going in two vans to somewhere in Alabama to hear her one night.  I guess I wasn't paying attention, I was just so excited to have a night out away from the kids.  I thought we were going to see Francine Rivers, another popular author at the time.  I even brought my Francine River book for her to sign!  But no one ways anything about it til we get there that it is Karen Kingsbury we are seeing, not Francine!  SMH  

But here is the interesting thing ~ it was actually Francine Rivers who inspired Karen to start writing more Christian fiction and not the other books she was writing.  

Keep reading!

O:)

Melissa