Not This Time

Not This Time, by Vicki Hinze is the third book in a series. In this third installment, best friends Sara and Beth have to work together to rescue Sara's husband, Robert, who has been kidnapped. But is Sara what she seems? Is Robert? Is Beth capable of harming her best friend's husband, whom she openly dislikes? The authorities think that maybe she is, even as she works with them to find Robert, and the people behind his alleged kidnapping. Everyone in the village is either in danger, under suspicion, or both. In the midst of the chaos, Beth continues to fall harder for Joe, a man who comes with his own secrets, and who is trying his best to get past the hurt in Beth's past to show her he can be trusted.

It took me longer to get interested in this book than usual. Part of that was not realizing it was part of a series until I had already begun reading. The characters seemed to have backgrounds that I wasn't familiar with, and there were references to events in the past that I can only assume were covered in previous books. Also, it felt weird to me to keep talking about the "village," but that grew less weird as the book went on.

As a reader, I don't like when it feels like an author is deliberately obtuse about information. This story felt like it was working hard to keep the reader from guessing the mystery, and that bothered me a lot. A well-written plot shouldn't have to give false leads, or continue to hint at information that the author refuses to reveal. At that point, I begin to stop caring about the details.

I would give this book 2.5 stars. I don't recommend it as a stand alone book, but perhaps, with more background on the characters, it might make a decent series.

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I received this book for free from Waterbrook Multnomah publishers as part of their Blogging for Books progam, in exchange for my honest review.

God Gave Us Love - by Lisa Tawn Bergren

God Gave Us Love, by Lisa Tawn Bergren, with art by Laura J. Bryant, is a sweet board book about how God wants us to love everybody, even if we don't "like them" all the time. Grampa Polar Bear explains to Little Cub how God designed us to love, because He is Love, and that there is that something of Him in each of us that makes us "want to love others as God loves us..." even though "we don't always feel like loving them." Little Cub realizes that Grampa is right, and the book ends with her asking God to "help her love others better...even the otters."

I love Lisa Tawn Bergren's "God Gave Us..."books. I love that they help me teach important concepts to my three boys about God and, in this case, His love for them. It is important to me that she doesn't water down these concepts, and her spiritual points are strong, yet clear enough even for toddlers. This book gives us another way to explain God's love, the love that was so big that He sent His Son to die for us, to show us love. For now, my boys can say the words, but hearing over and over about God's love, in forms like this story, will continue to reinforce the concept until their little hearts really understand it.

I give this book 5 stars as a children's book.
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I received this book for free from Waterbrook Multnomah publishers as part of their Blogging for Books progam, in exchange for my honest review.

Dawn Comes Early - by Margaret Brownley

Dawn Comes Early tells the story of two women: Miss Walker, the owner of Last Chance Ranch, who has chosen a solitary life on the ranch, and Kate Tenney, a woman responding to a advertisement seeking an heiress to the Last Chance Ranch. Miss Walker is seeking a strong, independent woman to run the ranch upon her passing, but she requires that the woman be able to handle the ranch, and that the woman signs a Spinster Pact - agreeing to remain unmarried in order to take possession of the ranch. Kate has been seeking stability her entire life, and has also forged a deep mistrust of men, so this situation seems an answer to prayer for her. If she prayed, that is. When she arrives, she finds that the ranch is more than she bargained for, in terms of the work required of her, and that it might be less than she needs in life.

Overall, this was a pretty typical western romance book. There was the expected heroine who thinks she doesn't need a husband, and the strong, caring man who sets out to prove otherwise. Throw in some outlaws and meddling family members, and it makes for an entertaining read, although not a terribly exciting one. I liked Kate, and I liked the blacksmith Luke as characters. I did like, without trying to spoil the book, that the ending wasn't perfect. Since this is the first in the series, however, I expect that certain things may continue to work out in the next book. And I am okay with that. Sometimes books wrap up way more neatly than life ever could, and it was nice that the heroine had to make some hard choices, without everything coming together at the end, in spite of them.

I give this book 3 stars. I am intrigued at the prospect of this series and these characters continuing.

Close Enough to Hear God Breathe - Greg Paul

I never thought I would post a review on a book I didn't finish. This book is my first. I tried several times to just get through it, but every time I had to put it down. I waited and tried again, and the same. I finally give up.

I was excited to read this book - closer intimacy with God? Yes, please! Putting aside the trappings of this life to feel the heart of God? I was all about it. However, from the very beginning, between the author's crass descriptions of John the Baptist, and the irreverence with which he personalized Jesus Himself, I found myself disengaging from the text. The more I read, the further I felt the book wandered until I couldn't remember what the author's point was supposed to be. The stance he takes with the Bible ("The Bible, first and foremost, is a story...") did not sit well with my theology and beliefs, nor did his treatment of Christ on the cross.

So with that, I had to put the book aside, a little more than half finished. Maybe one day I'll give it one more try, but for now, I say no, thank you, and give this book 1 star, because even with the difficulty I had reading through it, I still found a point or two that I could apply to my life. His statement that "two things are necessary for me to be able to hear someone breathing: I must be quiet and I must be close," can help me draw closer to God, even if the rest of the book cannot.

I received this e-book for free from Thomas Nelson publishers as part of their BookSneeze program. I was not required to publish a positive review.

Saving Grace - Annie Jones

Saving Grace is a sequel to The Prayer Tree, which I did not read. The book takes four women who have apparently formed a prayer circle and unlikely friendships, and are looking for a way to stay connected as their lives are slowly moving them apart. Naomi decides that the town's eccentric widower, Miss Grace, would make a perfect project to bring them back together. While she initially presents a challenge, and other obstacles threaten to derail their project, the women eventually, and predictably, break through her tough facade and strengthen their friendships, their relationships, and their faith.

It has been awhile since I have struggled this much to get through a fiction book. While the story didn't seem uninteresting on the surface, I found myself just not caring about the characters. The love story seemed contrived, and the suitor all too eager for it to work out, making me think there might be a twist to that story, but that never came. The storyline with Miss Grace was too predictable - the crotchety elderly lady who seems to not want friends, who eventually softens and enjoys the effort made for her benefit.

Maybe if I had read the first book, I might have been more invested in these women as characters, but having read it as a stand-alone work, I can only give it 2 stars.



I received this e-book for free from Multnomah Waterbrook Publishers as part of their Blogging for books program. I was not required to publish a positive review.

Life, In Spite of Me - Kristen Jane Anderson

"Disbelief filled me. I was looking at my legs...lying about ten feet away."
Kristen Jane Anderson, the co-author of Life, In Spite of Me: Extraordinary Hope After a Fatal Choice, is also the main character in the non-fiction work. As a 17-year-old girl struggling with depression and feelings of worthlessness, with nobody telling her differently, she attempts to commit suicide, by laying down on a train track in front of an oncoming train. She survives, even when by all medical and engineering accounts she should have died. However, the train takes both of her legs, leading to a long recovery, and the repetitious refrain of "God must have kept you alive for a reason, Kristen."

The book begins with the night in question, and works both backwards to define how she came to the point of wanting to end it all, and forwards to where she works through both the physical recovery and the spiritual struggle of why she is still alive. She questions whether she would have gone to Heaven or Hell had she been successful, and she begins to work forward in her relationship with God. Her recovery isn't easy, and she relapses several times into depression, before she begins to realize "focusing on myself was the wrong thing to do. God should have been my main focus...and he wasn't." Once she turns her eyes and focus to God, she finds that she has "a beautiful story to share." From there, she feels the call to minister to others who may find themselves hopeless, and lost in darkness with nobody else to show them the Light.

The story of Kristen is an amazing one. Although it speaks directly to readers who may have considered suicide, or know someone who might, it also speaks of God's amazing grace and goodness, his faithfulness to get us through even the toughest, unimaginable situations. Kristen is honest in speaking of her weaknesses, and the story is a compelling transition from a lost soul to one found in Christ. I was amazed that Kristen even came to the point where she was "grateful" for having lost her legs, and could say that it was "worth it," because it brought her to to Christ, and it gave her the opportunity to speak to countless people who were struggling through Reaching You Ministries.

You can read Chapter 1 HERE.

I give this book 4 stars out of 5.

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I received this book for free to review as a part of the Blogging for Books program through Waterbrook Multnomah publishing group. I was not required to provide a positive review.

The Inconvenient Marriage of Charlotte Beck - Kathleen Y'Barbo

Set in the late 1800's, Charlotte Beck, at almost eighteen years of age, is pretending at being a woman to convince her father and stepmother that she should be allowed to make her decisions. Given the freedom to make choices, however, time and again she makes the childish one, bringing humiliation to herself and her family. Alex Hambly is trying to be the responsible one in his family, filling in for his brother's shortcomings, and ensuring his family is provided for. Thrown together, the two of them wreak havoc on each others' lives and emotions. Charlotte's father presents them with a potential solution for each of their life's desires: marry each other, and Charlotte gets to go to college, and Alex gets to save his family financially. Not a marriage proposal teeming with the potential for love, or is it?

I really enjoyed Charlotte and Alex as characters - I loved the feisty heroine, and the bemused, unintentional adversary. Their interactions were lively, even with the obvious outcome of them actually falling in love with each other. While in some romance stories, the broadcasting of the "happy ending" becomes annoying, these characters were well-written enough that I found myself wanting them to just give up the charade and admit it already - I wanted them to be together. Nobody else could handle them.

Again, it seems, I was unwittingly roped into a book that was part of a series, without realizing it until too late. Maybe I need to start reading the descriptions more carefully before selecting books for review. There were definitely some questions regarding side characters as I read that, more than likely, would have had fuller answers had I read the previous stories of their pasts.

Overall, I give this book 3 stars. The characters were enjoyable, regardless of the somewhat predictable plot, and I wish I had gotten to know them from their fictional beginnings.

If you want to read an excerpt from the book (although maybe you'd like to find book 1 and book 2 first) go HERE.

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I received this book for free from Waterbrook Multnomah Publishing group for this review. I was not required to post a positive review.