A Cowboy's Touch

by

Denise Hunter

ISBN: 9781595548016

Paperback 311 pages

Thomas Nelson Publisher

MY REVIEW:

Abigale Jones lives in Chicago and is a reporter for her mom's magazine "Viewpoint". She works way too much as  has high blood pressure and a lot of headaches.  Her sister is a doctor and she tells Abigale that she need to slow down, but her mom had to just make her take a leave from the magazine and to go to Moose Creek, Montana to check on her great aunt.  Her dad had died because of high blood pressure and they were trying to take care that she did everything she was suppose to do in order for that not to happen to her.

When she gets to her great aunt's house there is not place for her to sleep except on an old sofa, so when the opportunity comes alone for her to be a nanny for the summer to a little girl just up the road she takes that.  As she and Maddy grows close, Abigale begins to really like the "Big Sky Country".  Maddy had lost her mother before she and her cowboy dad moved from Texas to try to leave old memories.  She needed a woman figure in her life as every summer she had a new nanny and that was very upsetting for her.  Maddy's dad Wade Ryan owned a large ranch and was busy all the time so he couldn't spend the time with her as she needed.

Everything was going alone great until Abigale's reporter nose found a story that she could not turn down as the future of "Viewpoint" was in trouble, so even though she was suppose to be resting she was still trying to save the magazine. Then everything begin to fall apart, with her and the new friends she had made in Montanna.

I loved this book, it has everything in it that a reader like myself loves.  Denise really did a great job with writing it.

Thanks so much to The B and B Media group for sending me this book for review.

 

HERE BURNS MY CANDLE

by

Liz Curtis Higgs

ISBN: 9781400070015

WaterBrook Press

Paperback, 465 pages

Synopsis

A mother who cannot face her future.
A daughter who cannot escape her past.
Lady Elisabeth Kerr is a keeper of secrets. A Highlander by birth and a Lowlander by marriage, she turns to the auld ways, desperate to conceal a generations-old scandal that taints her family's name.

Her husband, Lord Donald, has secrets of his own, well hidden from the household, yet whispered among the town gossips. Elisabeth cannot--must not--discover the truth, or all will be ruined.

His mother, the dowager Lady Marjory, hides gold beneath her floor and guilt inside her heart. Though her two abiding passions are maintaining her place in society and coddling her grown sons, Marjory's many regrets, buried in Greyfriars Churchyard, continue to plague her.

One by one the Kerr family secrets begin to surface, even as bonny Prince Charlie and his rebel army ride into Edinburgh in September 1745, intent on capturing the crown.


MY REVIEW:

See my review for "Mine is the Night"  and now this book "Here Burns My Candle" is just as good as Mine is the Night. As Lady Marjory Kerr and her daughter-in-law Lady Elizabeth Kerr were leaving the city and their home where Lady Marjory had already had to bury her husband and her two sons were living in the castle with her alone with their wives.  There was a loud sound in the night as they were notified that the Bank was bring all the money to hide in the Castle, but Lady Marjory didn't have their gold in the bank unknown to anyone, her husband Lord John Kerr had never trusted  banks.  She pulled up some boards and got a bag of gold out for their needs and put the rest back in.

This was set in Edinburgh during the Jacobite Rebellion in the year of 1745.  The two sons went to help defend their city, and this left the women alone.  But the son Donald was not as he seemed to be, he ran around on Elizabeth, and wanted her to forgive him every time.  How many more times could she do this. 

As the uprising begin to come closer to the castle and both sons "Donald and Andrew"  were killed the women had to flee and had lost everything Lord John Kerr had earned except what they could sew in the hems of their clothing.

This book is a great read and I think Liz did a lot of research to go back to the seventeen hundreds to be able to write this book. She seemed to know what she was writing about filled our heard with this history, romance and adultery. 

I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review"

 

Aloha Brides

 By 

Yvonne Lehman -

Barbour Publishing, Inc. (2011) - Paperback -

368 pages - ISBN 1616261218

 I have read and still own a lot of Yvonne's books, I love the novella where there are three or four stories in one book.  The word Aloha means love.

This on is no different as all the stories in Aloha Brides are in Hawaii, and also back in the 1800s before it got so populated.

MY REVIEW:

The first story is "Aloha Love" and you get a little chuckle our of it now and then with Aunt Mitilda. I am getting ahead of myself here as I forgot the first chapter that talks about a rancher Mark MacCaula, his mother and his little girl Leia.  He was raising horses to race, but his young wife had gotten killed on one that she was teaching Leia, then three to ride.  So Mark was a very depressed man and all he could think of was winning the race between his horse the King's.  They all lived in Hilo, Hawaii.

Mitilda arrives on the scene in the second chapter when she shows up at her brother-in-laws home and wanted to take Jane, her niece to Hawaii to see her sister-in-law before she died.  Jane was engaged to a rich oil man names Adam, she had his ring but was in no hurry to get married.  Milita, Jane and a mail in Jane's home Pilar set out on a six month journey by sea to Hawaii.

Then the story really get good as they all fell in love with Hawaii and its people.

The Second Story in this book is "Picture Bride" and the Third Story is "Love From Ashes" and all three are leading into the others with some of the same people in all stories.  This is a great buy for anyone that loves good Fiction books with romance, and history.

This book was sent to me by Barbour Publishing for my review.

 

 THE HEART'S JOURNEY

by

JEN STEPHENS

USBN: 9780979748554

Paperback, 381 pages

Sheaf Punlisher

Doctor Ryan Sterling had been killed in a car accident and he left behind a wife Kate and a little six year old daughter Madeline (Maddie) and a brother Nathan who also was a doctor.  It had been three years since Ryan's death and Kate felt like it was time to move back to Harvest Bay, Ohio where her family lived and where she grew up. 

When they almost got to her parents home, she had a flat tire and stated to  change it when a man on a beautiful horse rode up.  She didn't know him but her insisted on changing the tire for her.  She didn't know that this man who was Adam Sullivan, but he also lived in Harvest Bay with his little daughter Chloe.  His wife and Chloe's mother Alexandra had left them, so he was having to raise his little girl by himself, with help form friends and family.  Kate had fell away from God as she felt so alone since the death of her husband, she had left God behind also.

As the story goes alone, I didn't want to put it down, and as Kate and Maddie made it home to her parents and her grandpa Clayton.  She bought her grandpa's old house and started to make a life for herself.  She had been a second grade teacher in Nashville Tennessee, and now she was to be a forth grade teacher in her old school.  She had no idea that Adam was a football coach in the same school

Doctor Nathan felt so alone in his high paying job in Nashville and missed Kate and Maddie so much that he considered moving himself.  When he went to visit Maddie on her birthday and found out the Harvest Bay family practice was needing another doctor he begin to think about moving closer to his family, Kate and Maddie .

 

This book was sent to me by Sheaf Publishing for my review.

 

A COUSIN'S CHALLENGE

by

Wanda Brunstetter

Publisher: Barbour Publishing, 

9781602600621

Paperbook, 293 pages

Book three of the "Indiana Cousins" series by Wanda Brunstetter.

I have read the first two books and this one just flowed right into the family of cousins.  This boo features Jolene who had lost her hearing in a car accident and she was living with her aunt in Pennsylvania where she lad learned how to sign and read lips.  She was teacher in her hometown of Topeka, Indiana, now they were wanting her to come home and teach some deaf children and this is where she goes back to her hometown.

After she arrives home and greets her cousins, some had married and some had not.  Ella had always liked Jake but he was a young man that just could not settle down.

In this book there is a lot going on, while accidents happen, more that I think I have ever read in one of Wanda's books.  As another young man lost his hearing when their propane tank exploded, so he could not do what he loved anymore and that was to help his dad in the family business of making and tuning wind chimes.  He love to hear them and to tune them.  Now this part of his life is over.

When Jake came back home "again" when his dad fell and broke both of his legs, so he had to work on the pig farm, which he hated.

In this book there are two love stories and they all are very good.  As I read this book I realize that the Amish people have their problems as we do in the English community.

Thanks to Barbour Publishing for sending this book to me to review.

 

Plain Proposal

by

Beth Wiseman

ISBN: 9781595548504

Paperback, 296 pages

Thomas Nelson Publisher

Miriam is a nineteen year old Amish girl and loves her way of life, she also has her eyes set on Saul whom she had grown up with.  She is the only daughter with three brothers, and they received a letter saying that Shelby a cousin was coming to stay a while.  Shelby's parents had never stayed at home and now they were getting a divorce so they always sent Shelby to a relative.  This family is Englisch so how would Shelby fit into an Amish world?

As the summer passed and Shelby loved to stay with this Amish family and Miriam felt as is she had a sister, the two of them were going fishing with Saul and Jesse.  None of these teens had been baptized into the church yet and Saul didn't think he wanted too.  He loved to cook and had applied as an assistance chef  and had the job, now if his dad would stop his drinking and take care of Saul's two young brothers.  The mama and sister had gotten killed and sometimes Saul's dad just could not take it and got into the wine.  Other times he was a good hard working man, but Saul was afraid to leave his brothers alone with him all the time.

How will things work out for Shelby when she had to go back to one of her parents?  As both the young men had their eyes on Miriam, one had plans to stay with the community and one wanted to leave and work out into the English world.

I have read all the other books in this series "Daughters of the Promise" and loved every one of them.  Every book that I have read by Beth Wiseman is great,

Thanks to BookSneeze a division of Thomas Nelson Publisher for this book to me to review.

 

A Cousin's Prayer

by

Wanda Brunstetter

IBSN: 9781602856004

Center Point Publisher

397 pages

This is he second books of the series "Indiana Cousin's" and as the first one it features one person more that the others.  In this on Katie Miller is still very depressed from losing her fiancée Timothy.  She is really having a hard time with something she has no knowledge of what it is but if she leaves home she gets really sick and has an attack that feels as she is going to die.  "I know how this is because I go through the same thing, I do not like to leave my house".    Everyone is really worried about her and she finds a friend that she went to school with and she can talk to him more that she can anyone else.  Freeman Bontranger has his own bicycle shop and loves his work.  The Amish are like the rest of the country they are having a hard time with jobs and making a living. Freeman befriend Katie and tell her things about himself he has never told anyone else.  The family encourages her to go to a counselor but at first her Mom went with her and answered all the questions, so the counselor told the Mom for her not to come in with Katie anymore.  Katie told her mom that she didn't even want her to go with her in the car that they hire.  Freeman started going with her, but another young woman has set her mind to have Freeman and she stats telling tells about Katie. This is a very good book and I want to think Barbour Publishing for sending me this copy to review.

 

A Cousin's Promise

By

Wanda Brunstetter

              ISBN: 9781602600607  

Paperback, 277 pages

    Barbour Publishing

The first in the series "Indiana Cousins" and a great book as always when Wanda Brunstetter writes about the Amish.

This one starts with a group of the Amish young single people on their way to Hershey Park for a day of fun, they had hired an English driver and with no knowledge what lay ahead for them.

As a bee got in the van and Katie started trying to get someone to get it out   and the driver looked back for a second and that was all it took as they swerved onto the wrong side of the road and meet a large truck.  When some of them awoke they were broken up and three were killed.  No one imagined how this was going to affect their young lives in the future.

As you read this book, you hurt and even cry with these young people.  Some of them were engaged and this affected them.  Will anything ever get back to normal in the Amish community in Indiana.

This book was sent to me by Barbour Publishing for my review.

 

THE WINNER IS 
ABI

 Thanks to all of you for entering, I will have another contest in April

CONTEST IS NOW CLOSED
winner has been notified

 In Honor of our Golden Wedding Anniversary

I have a signed copy of Heart of Lies available for a give-away provided by Jennifer at ZONDERVAN Publisher

Contest will run from March 3 through March 17th

 

IBSN: 9780310293705

Paperback: book 2 in Irish Angel Series

Zondervan publishing

Releases Feb. 24, 2011

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My Review: 

The story takes place in Louisiana, 1875 where Maddie Grande lived in a little shack on the Bayou with her brothers that were twins, but they really were not her brothers but had grown up together under the law of the late Dexter Grande.  He had picked up street children of the street of New Orleans and taught them how to steal for him.  These three were all that was left of the "tribe" as they called themselves.

Maddie kept having a bad dream where she and another little faceless girl were ripped apart when they were young.  She had no idea who this little girl was and then she also had bad memories of her own.  She lived with these two brothers Terrance and Lawrence as she had no where else to go and they were still working the street of New Orleans, making an un-honest living.  They would leave and stay gone days at a time and she cooked and did for them, until they brought home a little rich girl name Penelope.  Now everything breaks out as they left the little girl with Maddie.

The Pennington detective had been hired by a lady to find her long lost sister, but he also got involved with the kidnapping of Penelope.  He found Maddie but not the little girl so they both went on a GIRL hunt.  Penelope had ran off and no telling what would happen to a nine year old in the Bayou.

I really enjoyed the advance copy of this book as I had already read the first in the series "Heart of Stone" and both of them are really good, I love the story lines and the way Jill Marie Landis pulls the charterers together.

The copy of the book was sent to me by Zondervan Publishing for my honest review.

 

ISBN: 9781414331621

Salt River an Imprint by Trndale House Publishers

Hardback, 269 pages

pre-order now 

From The Author:

“I wrote Scars of a Chef as a way to inspire and encourage readers in all walks of life to discover, develop and follow their passions”. “I think they’ll enjoy getting an inside peek at the culinary world as well.”

Read My Review Here: