The Sea Keeper's Daughters, book #23

 

Sometimes you never know what you will get with Lisa Wingate, but this one is a keeper!  Amazing story, great characters, and the end that you did not see coming will shock your pants off!

From modern-day Roanoke Island to the sweeping backdrop of North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Mountains and Roosevelt’s WPA folklore writers, past and present intertwine to create an unexpected destiny.  Restaurant owner Whitney Monroe is desperate to save her business from a hostile takeover. The inheritance of a decaying Gilded Age hotel on North Carolina’s Outer Banks may provide just the ray of hope she needs. But things at the Excelsior are more complicated than they seem. Whitney’s estranged stepfather is entrenched on the third floor, and the downstairs tenants are determined to save the historic building. Searching through years of stored family heirlooms may be Whitney’s only hope of quick cash, but will the discovery of an old necklace and a Depression-era love story change everything?  (picture and description from Amazon)

Happy Reading!

O:)

Melissa

A Castaway in Cornwall, book #22

 

It has been a good, long while since we have read any Julie Klassen, but she did not disappoint.  While I had forgotten how deep and thorough her text is, it did not dissapoint in the least.  I'm always amazed at how detailed her books are!  Most of the settings in her books are in England and for a girl who lives in Minnesota, she can take you to that cold, windy beach in Cornwall in a heart beat!

Set adrift on the tides of fate by the deaths of her parents and left wanting answers, Laura Callaway now lives with her uncle and his disapproving wife in North Cornwall. There she feels like a castaway, always viewed as an outsider even as she yearns to belong. While wreckers search for valuables along the windswept Cornwall coast--known for its many shipwrecks but few survivors--Laura searches for clues to the lives lost so she can write letters to next of kin and return keepsakes to rightful owners. When a man is washed ashore after a wreck, Laura acts quickly to protect him from a local smuggler determined to destroy him. As Laura and a neighbor care for the survivor, they discover he has curious wounds and, although he speaks in careful, educated English, his accent seems odd. Other clues wash ashore, and Laura soon realizes he is not who he seems to be. Despite the evidence against him, the mysterious man might provide her only chance to discover the truth about her parents' fate. With danger pursuing them from every side, and an unexpected attraction growing between them, will Laura ever find the answers she seeks?  (picture and description from Amazon)

Keep Reading!

O:)

Melissa

A Distant Shore, book #21

 

My mother in law was kind enough to let me borrow this so I wanted to read it before I started our next book club book.  When I first started it I did not like it at all, the story was just so sad.  But it was more like a flashback ~ you had to understand what happened to see where they were in modern times.

I feel like the description on the back did not truly define what the book was about, so I felt disappointed and confused.  In the end, it was a good book, just that it all wrapped up in a pretty little bow, almost too perfect.

She was a child caught in a riptide in the Caribbean Sea. He was a teenager from the East Coast on vacation with his family. He dove in to save her, and that single terrifying moment changed both their lives forever.  Ten years later Jack Ryder is a daring secret agent with the FBI and Eliza Lawrence still lives on that pristine island. She’s an untainted princess in a kingdom of darkness and evil, on the brink of a forced marriage with a dangerous neighboring drug lord, a marriage arranged by her father.  This time when Jack and Eliza meet, there’s a connection neither of them can explain. Both their lives are on the line, and once again, the stakes are deadly high. Can they join forces in a complicated and dangerous mission, pretending to have a breathtaking love…without really falling?  Sometimes miracles happen not once, but twice…along a distant shore.  (picture and description from Amazon)

So excited to get started on our new book club book!!

Keep Reading!

Melissa

Secrets of Willow Springs (book 1) , book #20

 

Read this for book club.  No one liked in especially.  Don't waste your time.  

Why?  Well, the story line could have been really great but it was not developed out enough.  The amish names were too generic and similar and I kept getting confused about who was who.  I had to make a cheat sheet.  There is one in the front of the book, but it would have been tricky to go back and forth on the paperwhite.  You already know how it is going to end ~ in general ~ by the middle of the book, but I stuck with them thinking the how they got there would be better, but it was not.  

And the end?  It just stops!  No closure, no ~ so what happens?? This is book 1, but I got the idea book 2 was just going to start up a few years later and not even go back to cleanly wrap up the mess left at the end of book 1!!

Secrets from the past come to light in this Amish Fiction Book. Her family’s hidden history could destroy her. Will forgiveness set their future free?  Emma Byler can’t wait for her sixteenth birthday and to experience a taste of freedom. With her Amish Rumspringa relaxing some of her usual restrictions, she’s desperate to spend time with a special boy. But she fears tensions at home and her father’s increasingly short-temper could make him pull back the reins.  Sixteen years ago, Jacob Byler made a promise. But as his daughter’s celebration draws near, he dreads the emotional upheaval she’ll go through when she learns the truth. And all he can do is pray that God will grant him the courage he needs to come clean.  As Emma tries to deal with her father’s worsening behavior, she’s forced to keep her own confidences. And Jacob reaches the breaking point when his son befriends a youth who could topple the whole house of cards.  Will honesty shatter the close-knit family, or will their faith help them open their hearts?  (picture and description from Amazon)

Nothing to see here ... just keep going ...  :(

Doing Life with Your Adult Children : Keep your Mouth Shut and the Welcome Mat Out; book #19

 

This book has been sitting my by bedside for a while and I decided it was time to pick it up and read it.  Luckily, we haven't had too much trouble yet, but its good to be prepared.  Most of it was basic stuff, but still good.

If you have an adult child, you know that parenting doesn't stop when a child reaches the age of eighteen. In many ways, it gets more complicated. Both your heart and your head are as involved as ever, whether your child lives under your roof or rarely stays in contact.  In Doing Life with Your Adult Children, parenting expert Jim Burns helps you navigate one of the richest and most challenging seasons of parenting. Speaking from his own personal and professional experience, Burns offers practical answers to questions such as these:

Is it OK to give advice to my grown child?

What's the difference between enabling and helping?

What boundaries should I have if my child moves back home?

What do I do when my child doesn't seem to be maturing into adulthood?

How do I relate to my grown child's significant other?

What does it mean to have healthy financial boundaries?

How can I support my grown children when I don't support their values?

Including positive principles on bringing kids back to faith, ideas on how to leave a legacy as a grandparent, and encouragement for every changing season, Doing Life with Your Adult Children is a unique book on your changing role in a calling that never ends.  (picture and description from Amazon)

Now that I have a REAL job where I get up and leave by 6:30 I'm not sure if I'll be able to read as much as I like to, but you can't keep a good reader down! :)

Keep Reading!
O:)
Melissa

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