WHAT A PAIR

(Double Trouble, It's Just the Beginning)

Ages 8 and up

by

Wanda E. Brunstetter

ISBN: 9781616266615

Paperback, or e-book

153 pages

Go HERE to find more books for kids

About the book:

Welcome to Holmes County, Ohio, where twins Mattie and Mark Miller can’t seem to agree on anything. When their disagreements start to cause big trouble in their Amish community, will these energetic nine-year-olds call a truce and acknowledge that their differences are what make them so special? You’ll fall in love with the first release in the Double Trouble series from bestselling author, Wanda E. Brunstetter.

My Thoughts:

There are so many mothers that are reading about the Amish faith and the families that make it up.  This is a book that your child can read that explains the faith and as they read alone with Mom.  In the front of the book there is an explanation telling what the Amish Faith is all about and it also has a list of the words that are different than we use.  So your child can understand as they begin to read this very good book.  I am a great-grandmother and I loved it and chuckled alone nodding my head as I read.

Wanda E. Brunstetter is one of the first authors that wrote only about the Amish, and she is one of the best.  There are so many now trying to get in on this popular story line, but I still love anything that comes out by Wanda.

Now about this book for the child age 8 and up.  The twins Mattie and Mark Miller of an Amish couple are so different you would never know in their actions that they are twins.  They are nine years old and do not agree on anything.  With this being the way they are you can bet they are always getting into trouble. 

They would pull tricks on their friends and scare them almost to death and then the parents would have to step in.  As most children they always loved to go to their grandparents house but they didn't know that grandpa and grandma Troyer knew about all the little tricks they played, and they loved the little frog house grandpa came up with never realizing he knew about the frog Mark had put in the sugar bowl.

That is just a little sample of this story so go out or order your child one for some good summer reading.

Thanks so much to Wanda E. Brunstetter and Barbour Publishing for sending me this free book, so I could post a review.

 

Blog Tour by Glass Roads

ISBN: 978146599951

Paperback, 355 pages

Howard Books

AFTER ALL(a Hanover Falls Novel)

written by

DEBORAH RANEY 

Deborah Raney is a great author and all the books I have read of hers I always enjoy. Thanks to Glass Roads for sending me this book free for my review.

 The story begins the day David was buried after the fire in the Handover Falls homeless shelter had burned and these men had been killed.  She did not bury him in Handover Falls where the others were buried but had him buried beside his parents in Springfield.

After eighteen months had passed Susan Marlowe is just now beginning to heal somewhat after her husband David had died in a fire alone with four other firefighters.  She then discovered that David had carried a secret to the grave with him.

She and her sons begin their lived anew after the fire, but what is this secret?  Surly there would have been something she had noticed about David.  But when she found out, she knew she should have seen it a long time before David's death.

Can she learn to find peace again and will she ever find another man to take her late husband's place in her life?

The Good Dream

THE GOOD DREAM

ISBN:978-0312-36777-0

by

Donna VanLiere

Book will release July, 2012

also available on CD 978-1-4272-2187-2 and as an e-book 978-1-250-01150-3

Publisher: St. Martin's Press

Publication date: 7/3/2012

Edition description: First Edition

Edition number: 1

Pages: 320

READ THE FIRST CHAPTER HERE!!

From The New York Times bestselling author comes a poignant, heartbreaking, and ultimately uplifting novel about an unlikely path to motherhood, and of two lost souls healing each other

1950 Tennessee, a time and place that straddles the past and present. Ivorie Walker is considered an old maid by the town (though she’s only in her early thirties) and she takes that label with good humor and a grain of salt. Ever since her parents passed away, she has hidden her loneliness behind a fierce independence and a claim of not needing anyone. But her mother’s death hit her harder than anyone suspects and Ivorie wonders if she will be alone forever.

When she realizes that someone has been stealing vegetables from her garden—a feral, dirty-faced boy who disappears into the hills—something about him haunts Ivorie. She can’t imagine what would make him desperate enough to steal and eat from her garden. But what she truly can’t imagine is what the boy faces, each day and night, in the filthy lean-to hut miles up in the hills. Who is he? How did he come to live in the hills? Where did he come from? And, more importantly, can she save him? As Ivorie steps out of her comfort zone to uncover the answers, she unleashes a firestorm in the town—a community that would rather let secrets stay secret.

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MY THOUGHTS:

This is Donna's first novel but not her first time at writing, she brought happiness to a lot of people with her "CHRISTMAN HOPE" series and now enjoy her first full length novel as I have.

Ivorie Walker is a young woman in her late twenties and unmarried.  She works at the school library but her mother was always trying to find her a husband as both her parents were up in years.  "This really relates to me as my mother was forty-five when I was born.  I was the tenth child for her"  Ivorie alone with her family  live in Morgan Hill Tennessee a small community about seventy miles from Knoxville but somewhere she had never been.  She has six brothers and all are married with families.

Ivorie did not like any man that was thrown at her, she found something wrong with all of the ones that lived in their small community.  Her dad died in 1948 and Mother was crippled with arthritis so she did most of the work in the gardens and house.  When Ivorie turned thirty her Mother passed away in January and now the house was too quite and cold.

Then there is the Boy that is being treated very bad at his home and he has some terrible dreams that he is drowning and a woman always pulls him out.  He does not know her but she always rescues him.  Someday he will get away from that shack and the man that treats him worst than a dog.

The boy meets Ivorie and finds himself into more trouble from "THE MAN" than ever before.  He is beaten and cursed at for going down past the river.

This book is so interesting that you will not want to put it down and that is why I read it so fast.  I wanted to see what the next page holds.  This book will be out in July so be sure to pick up a copy or pre-order one, you will be so glad you did.

I want to thank the author Donna VanLiere for sending me this free advanced copy for my review.

A PERFECT SQUARE

2nd in Amish series

written by

Vannetta Chapman

ISBN: 978-0-310-33044-8

Paperback, 344 pages

Zondervan Publisher

My Thought:

As the time draws near for Esther and Tobias to be married, Esther and her friend Deborah are out with Deborah's daughter to pick flowers they see someone lying dead in the nearby creek.  This property belonged to Reuben the brother of Tobias.

When the people came out to claim the body Reuben will not say anything and they are blaming him, but he just let's it past and keeps his thoughts to himself.  Tobias can't understand his brother keeping everything bottled up inside and letting it fall on his shoulders.

As Esther, Deborah and the owner of the quilt shop Callie decide to find out themselves what had happened to this person.  At he same time old man Ira Bontrager comes to the women and ask them to help him find out what happened to his daughter that has been missing since 1965.

In the first book of the series the women are good at solving mysteries, but can they solve these two? 

If you like to read about the Amish then you will love this series as it is also a mystery.  Something different and new with this community as they usually just keep to themselves and don't try to solve mysteries nor to get involved. I really loved the books and I didn't want to lay them down.

 

Thanks so much to Zondervan Publishers for sending me this free book in order for me to do a review.

 

WHERE LILACS STILL BLOOM

by

Jane Kirkpatrick

While "Where Lilacs Still Bloom" is a historical fiction book, it  has a biography feel to it and it takes place around 1948. Hulda Klager was actualy a  real person and she  did indeed grow lilacs. She was a German immigrant and love to grow about anything.  She started by trying to grow apples that were easy to peel, as she loved to make her apple pies.  But she really got her fame from developing over 250 varieties of lilacs.  She was a wife and a mother and had her garden in her own back yard, as that is where she experimented with her flowers.  She had no formal training and it just came natural to her to be able to do this. 

As you read through the pages you will get to know Hulda and her family and go with them through the hard and good times of their lives.

In the front of the book there is a picture of Hulda in her garden with some vistors.  If you are ever in Washington State near Mt. St. Helens you can still visit her Lilas garden that is located on the property where she lived.

I read Jane Kirkpatrick's book "The Daughter's Walk" and enjoyed it very much.  As for me I am not a gardener but my husband is.  If you want a plant to die just place it in my care. 

I was provided a book to review by Blogging For Books. I was not required to write a positive review. My opinions are my own.



 

The Face of Heaven

by

 Murray Pura

ISBN: 0736949496

Paperback, 300 Pages

Harvest House Publishers

Releases Sept, 2012 on the 150th anniversary of the battle of Antietam!

ABOUT THE BOOK
(Taken from Goodreads)  Following on the heels of The Wings of Morning, the first book in Murray Pura's Snapshots in History series, comes this compelling saga of the Civil War.
In April 1861, Lyndel Keim discovers two runaway slaves in her family's barn. When the men are captured and returned to their plantation, Lyndel and her young Amish beau, Nathaniel King, find themselves at odds with their pacifist Amish colony
Nathaniel enlists in what will become the famous Iron Brigade of the Union Army. Lyndel enters the fray as a Brigade nurse on the battlefield, sticking close to Nathaniel as they both witness the horrors of war?including the battles at Chancellorsville, Fredericksburg, and Antietam. Despite the pair's heroic sacrifices, the Amish only see that Lyndel and Nathaniel have become part of the war effort, and both are banished.
And a severe battle wound at Gettysburg threatens Nathaniel's life. Lyndel must call upon her faith in God to endure the savage conflict and to face its painful aftermath, not knowing if Nathaniel is alive or dead. Will the momentous battle change her life forever, just as it will change the course of the war and the history of her country?

The Face of Heaven is a dramatic story that will release on the 150th anniversary of the historic battle of Antietam, September, 1862. 

My Thought:

I read Wings of Morning and was so glad when I received this advanced manuscript free from Jeanne of Wynn Wynn Media to post my reviews.

I like to read about the Amish and I also love history so this book covers both.  Coming into the story on the heels of Wings of Morning, Lyndel Keim finds two runaway slaves in her family's barn.  But the men are captured and this hurt Lyndel and her boyfriend Nathaniel's hearts so they deside to enlist with the Union Army.  She as a nurse and and he as a solider.  Nathaniel was hurt really bad in the war of Gettysburg and they just have to trust God to heal him.  Lyndel didn't know where he was of if he was alive or dead, as the war rages on.

They both went against the Amish teaching of not fighting in a battle of any kind so they were both banished from the community.  The battle and the banishing changes their lives forever.

 

ANGEL EYES

 written by

Shannon Dittemore

Debut novel, first in a series of three.

As this is Shannon's first novel, she will take you to another world as you read this book.

When Brielle Matthews returns to her small hometown of Stratus, Oregon, she was so upset as her best friend had been murdered in the city and she had a cold feeling that she could not shake.

Jake is new in town and he has moved in next door with his guardian Canaan and when they started to school he and Brielle has a few classes together.  Brielle finds out there is something about him that she just can't place.   goes out into the woods alone to take photographs, she falls and breaks her ankle, only to be saved by Jake and healed by his hands.

Brielle just could not shake this icy feeling but when Jake and Canaan went out of town she was asked to keep a gold ring for Jake.  When she would put ring on she was filled with peace.  She placed it on her head and could see a Celestial world around her.  After Jake and Canaan returns, Brielle tell them about the way the ring made her fill, they ten told her that Canaan is Jake's Guardian Angel there to protect him from the evil.

When Brielle learns this it make her start to believe God is who they say he is and there was a reson that her mother and Ali, her friend had to die.

I want to thank BookSneeze program for sending me this free book in exchange for my review.

RELENTLESS PURSUIT

by

Kathy Herman

ISBN: 9780781403429

Paperbak, 392 Pages

David Cook Publisher



Relentless Pursuit started out with a bang and people started dying and some just being sick from somthing in the town of Les Barbes, Louisiana.  It seem all had ate or bought something from a local market.  This had everyone scared and really upset.  They found that someone had injected cyanide in water bottles and it was just one brand as far as they could tell.

Sax Henry came to town looking for his sister he had lost track of when they were in their teens.  They had an abusive father and Sax could not take it anymore, now he is feeling guilty for leaving his younger sister. It has been twenty-eight years and now both parents were dead and he just wanted to find her and ask forgiveness.  He had changed his name and in a rock band that traveled a lot, but he had some time between tours.

There are a lot of characters in this book and they are not all who they seem to be.  It kept my interest for a long time and then there was so much about the water bottles that I got bored there for awhile. But I had to see if the killer was who I thought it was and sure enough it was.  Also I had the sister of Sax fighured out a long way back.  But I read so much that in some books I just know how it will end.

I want to thank Jeanne from Wynn Wynn Media for sending me this free book to read and review.

FOLLOWING YOUR HEART

by

Jerry S. Eicher

Publisher's Description

Readers will delight in this warmhearted novel by bestselling author Jerry Eicher (more than 350,000 books sold), a former Amish man, who writes with authenticity and compassion about the people he grew up with.

Susan Hostetler a young Amish woman who had left her community for life in the outside world, returns home to her family with her English friend, Teresa Long, and TeresaÂ’s newborn, fatherless son. Teresa has come in hopes of settling with the Amish people.

Deacon Ray gets wind of the situation and forbids the unwed mother from attending the church services, fearing she will pollute the young people of the community.

SusanÂ’s estranged boyfriend, Thomas Stoll, who still has hopes of winning her back, fears the trouble with Teresa will drive Susan back into the English world.

Thomas convinces Yost Byler, an old bachelor, to propose to Teresa and adopt her child after the marriage. When Yost visits Deacon Ray with his plan, Deacon Ray agrees to the idea and removes the restriction, allowing Teresa to begin attending instruction classes.

Outraged at this turn of events, Susan is unable to persuade Teresa from her plans to marry Yost. Yet throughout it all, Deacon RayÂ’s son, James, notices the depth of TeresaÂ’s devotion to the faith and to her son, and finds himself drawn to her.

With two Amish men interested in her, Teresa has a decision to make...and so does Susan. Will Susan stay in the community she loves....or venture back to the freedom she enjoyed in the English world?

Book Two in the Fields of Home series

ISBN: 9780736944786
Paperback, 271 pages
Harvest House Publishers

MY REVIEW:

Susan Hostetler had been living in the English world as you all know that read book one in this series.  She had met another young woman that had a baby out of wedlock, so she brough back to her parent's home in the Amish community.  Teresa Long had a little baby boy, and it seemed the parents were fine with her living in their home, but the leaders of the church were not.  They would not let her attend their worship services but Susan took the baby with her.

Susan had left behind a boyfriend that she had caught kissing another your woman so she broke up with him.  As soon as he found out she was back here he came begging her for forgiveness, but she just could not let it go.  She felt as though if he cheated on her once he would do it again, but her parents thought other wise, they wanted her to get back together with him.

Mean while Teresa was having some Amish suiters of her own and one was the Deacon's own son.  Is Deacon Roy didn't want her to attend their church meetings what was he going to think about his son falling his son.  Teresa was wanting to go Amish when she first came but Susan was not sure if she wanted to give up the English life where she had some guys that she had went out with a few times waiting for her.

I want to thank Harvest House and Jerry S. Eicher for sending me this free book for my review.

 

WILDFLOWER from WINTER

Written by

Katie Ganshert

ISBN: 9780307730381

Paperback, 320 pages

WaterBrook Press

Click here to download the first chapter of Wildflowers from Winter now.

Katie Ganshert is a new author to me, but I really enjoyed the book.  This is one story that you can not guess how it will end.

Bethany Quinn is a young architect that works in Chicago and is on her way home (or where she grew up) to Iowa.  Her mother, whom she has never got alone with called her home because her grandfather had a heart attack.  Her dad had died when she and her brother was young, and her mother had moved them to an old mobile home that she hated.  She had spent as much time growing up with her grandfather on her dad' side.  But after she moved away ten years ago she just did not want to go back.  She even forgot about her best friend Robin who was now married.

When she got to Peaks, Iowa everything looked the same as when she was growing up EXCEPT a young man was living with her grandfather and taking care of the farm.  She was really surprised when she met Evan Price and a little jealous because of the way he had taken care of her grandfather.

There is a lot of tragedy in this story, and Bethany is having a hard time believing that God will take care of things in His own time.  She had stopped believing when she had been forced to go sit and listen to Pastor Fenton, whom she hated. 

Her grandfather passed away and she found out that she was left five hundred acres of farm land but Evan was left the farm house.  What was she going to do with a large farm, when she lived in Chicago?

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

CHASING THE SUN

ISBN:9780764206153

Paperback, 347 pages

BethanyHouse Publishing

Read about the author HERE

If you like to read stories taking place in the 1800s then you will love this one.  The civil war is going on and the folks in Texas are seperated between wanting the North or the South to win.  Hannah Dandridge was helping he father raise her two young siblings as her step-mother had died in childbirth.  Her dad got the word that his grandfather had been killded in the war and he left his family in the hands of their housekeeper and her family to go aid his grandmother, whom was dying.  But he never returned.  The rance they lived on had been given to him because he supported the South and he and his lawyer partener were in business together, but he had no idea what his partener was trying to do. 

When the REAL owner of the ranch returned from the war William Barnett was suprised to find someone else was living in his house.  He stayed on for the time being and helped Hannah and the others run the farm and to try and keep the Indians from attacking.

What will Hannah do when she finds out for sure her father was dead and she was going to have to raise her 3 year old sister and 7 year old brother.  Will she marry her dad's former partner Herbert Lockhart a much older man or will she find another way to survive.

Thanks so much to Bethany House Publishers for sending me this book and I choose to review it.

MINDY STARNS CLARK and

LESLIE GOULD

co-wrote

THE AMISH BRIDE

ISBN: 0736938621

Paperback, 336 pages

Harvest House Publishers
Releases August 1, 2012

The Amish Bride

Mindy Starns Clark & Leslie Gould

Bestselling authors Mindy Starns Clark and Leslie Gould offer readers The Amish Bride, Book 3 in the Women of Lancaster County series, which tells the stories of young Plain women as they explore their roots, connect with family, and discover true love.
Ella Bayer and Ezra Gundy are in love and hope to marry someday, but she is a young Mennonite woman while he is an Amish man. Though both Plain, one of them will have to forsake what they believe to embrace another way of life.
Hoping some distance will cool the relationship, Ezra’s family sends him to work at an Amish dairy farm in Indiana. But Ella disregards what her family wants and follows Ezra. In short order she finds a place to live, a job in a bakery, and an unexpected but budding friendship with a handsome Amish farmhand, Luke. When a family tragedy forces Ella back to Pennsylvania, she must face all she’s been running away from. And once she has made peace with those around her, she has an important decision to make: Whose Amish bride will she become—Ezra’s or Luke’s?

My Thoughts:

First I want to thank Jeanne from Wynn Wyn Media for sending me this Manuscript/early galley form copy of this book.

As Ella was now nineteen and her boyfriend rode a motorcycle, she was a Mennonite and he was Amish but had not yet been baptized.  Ella wanted to go on to school and be a bakery chief then she was going to join the Amish so that she could marry Ezra.

Ella had a book that had belonged to one of her great-grandmothers but most of it was written in code.  Her Mammi wanted her to see if she could break the code and to learn what all the drawings meant.  She was trying but wasn't having much luck but she loved all the old recipes that was written where she could read them.  She also was wanting to go to the "Home Place" that her Mammi talked about where she grew up in Indiana.

Ella lived with her mother and brother as her dad had left when she was around three, now he was wanting to meet with them but she just could not forgive him and didn't want to see him.  All she could think off was to get a job and save enough money to go on too school to learn to be a chef.  As Ezra's family wanted him to learn how to farm and was going to send him to a farm so he could be taught, Ella was scheming how they both could be in Indiana at the same time.

This book was an okay read but the early type of the book was hard for me to see as the ink was not very good.  But a book is a book and I love the written ones and will never settle for an e-book. 

Beyond Hope's Valley

ISBN: 9781433668708

Paperback, 290 pages

with receips in back of book

B and H Publishing

Go HERE to see the book traler:

I remembered the other series "Beside Still Waters" where two of the Sommer's daughters were killed in a buggy accident and this hurt the family so much alone with other things that they moved to 'Montana from Indiana in a rented house.

Marianna's old boyfriend came to Montana to see if he could talk her into getting married, she found out that she still had feeling for him even after she had met an English boy and really liked him, but he had gotten into trouble and wrote and sang songs.  Something the OLD ORDER AMish didn't want.  The Sommers found out that the English Bible told them more and explained it to their understanding more that their old German one.  They begin to be friends with the English and started to believe more in their way of worshiping.

One of their sons Levi  had gone back to Indiana and was going to get married to Naomi and rejoin the old Amish faith.  Marianna had also come back with Aaron after he came to Montana to see if she still loved him, so they were planning on getting married also and this was the first time she saw the house that Aaron had built just for her.

Naomi was expecting a baby out of wedlock and everyone thought it was Levi's so the parents wanted them to wait until the baby came to be married.  Abe and Ruth and some of their children were hiring a driver to go back with them to get the remainder of their household items also to go too Levi and Naomi's wedding.  But the driver that was going with them was the famous singer and song writer Ben Stone, Marianna's English boy friend.  He had been on tour but something came up and the tour was canceled so he was back home.  What is Marianna going to say when he shows up with her parents?

When they all arrived in Indiana that is when things begin to take shape in this story.  Good story line and if you have read the previous books then you will really enjoy this one, so that you can see just how the family is doing and what is going on in their lives.

Thanks so much to Jeane at Wynn Wynn Media for sending me this book for my thoughts.

Read and Excert HERE

of
EVERYBODY'S DAUGHTER

by

Michael John Sullivan

ISBN: 9781936558445

Paperback, 326 pages

Fiction Studio Books

READ ABOUT THE AUTHOR HERE

My Thoughts:

I started to read this book yesterday and after I read a few pages I thought this was going to be one of those books that I never enjoy.  But all night I was thinking about the words I had read and thought to get at it again this morning.  I am a retired lady so I can read as long and when I want.  I started reading this morning and finished it today.  I could not lay it down.  I loved it!!!

Now for my review:

Michael Steward had raised his fourteen year old daughter Elizabeth alone and had given his life for her as his wife Vicki had been killed the day she was born in a car accident.  Michael still held this against the young man that hit her.  He worked in a church a lot and after I read on I found out why.  He and his daughter had found an old  book in the basement and had found a way to go back in the past to the time of Jesus.  They had met Leah and he had fallen in love with her, and that is all he thought about was "why hadn't he brought her back" to the future with him.  But it was not to be. 

As he worked in the basement cleaning and cleaning all the time he wanted to find the way to go back to Jerusalem and find Leah again as the tunnel had been in the basement.  As he was putting some boxes in a corner he found the cross that would led him back.  He could not help himself and so he went down the tunnel.  He came acros a cobra that struck at him but just hit his jeans.  When he got to the end of it, he pushed and pushed until he got the lid off, and then he placed a rock on top so that he would know how to find his way back home.   He found Leah but it was in the wrong time period and she was married to a roman soldier.  Then his daughter Elizabeth followed him but she was not supposed too.  They didn't find each other and when he returned she was gone.  She could not be found so the FBI got involved and had found some of her blood in his car so they suspected him of hurting his daughter.

Both Michael and Elizabeth got to met Jesus in different times of His life. 

You will have to buy this  book and read what all happened, it will kept you under its spell under you read that last word.

Thanks so much to B and B Media for sending me a free copy and I chose to review it.

ISBN: 88450167829

Christian Music CD

Circle of Friends Ministries

http://www.lisatroyer.com/
 http://www.ourcircleoffriends.org/events/links/
Lifeway Worship

I was really surprised when I received this CD full of worship music, as I am a Southern Gospel music fan, but these songs were really good.

The book is out but I received the music CD and when I listened to it, there are eight songs included on it.  There are not much I can say about a music CD, but listen to it, you an go to

http://www.lisatroyer.com/ and listen to some of the songs. I will pass this on to my daughter as she attends a "Praise and Worship" church and she really really loves this type of music, I am just old fashion and love the older music and church services.

Thanks to B and B Media for sending me this CD and I chose to review it.

Lost and Found written by Ginny L. Yttrup

 author of "Words"

ISBN:

9781433671715

Paperback, 340 pages

B and H Publishing Group

I had the privilege of reading "Words" and I really loved the book, so this one has to be just as great if not better!

Ginny Yttrup is an author, freelance writer, and writing coach. She has two grown sons and lives near Sacramento, California. Words was her first novel.

My Thoughts:

As I begin to read the Bouvier family was having a charity brunch in a Georgian-style mansion that was built in 1912 in California.  Jenna was not happy about having to go downstairs and attend.  She was not happy about anything anymore.  She had married a man a lot older that herself (or let's say forced to marry).  Gerald Bouvier was forty-five to her twenty-one years and he was controlled by his mother. 

At this time a lot of jewelry was missing that should have been in Jenna and Gerald's safe, she was so worried about what was going to be said when that was found out, she also was not as beautiful as she once was.  She had a scar running down her face and Jenna just could not see past that.  She had rather stay out of sight but the Bouviers would have none of that as it might look bad on them.

Jenna is a Christian and she wants to do what she thinks God would have her do but her husband and French mother-in-law was sure making it hard on her.

At the brunch her brother was in attendance with a young woman that Jenna didn't know but was supposed too.  Andee Bell was a young woman that had the world in her hands and would do what ever she could to keep it that way.  These two young women became friends in a long distance kind of way.

Can they both find and keep the love they so want and deserve?

This novel keeps you so interested that it would be so nice to be able to read it all in one setting. 

Thanks to Wynn Wynn Media for sending me this book to review.

A Plain Death

written by Amanda Flower

An Appleseed Mystery

Amanda Flower, an Agatha-nominated mystery author, started her writing career in elementary school when she read a story she wrote to her sixth grade class and had the class in stitches with her description of being stuck on the top of a Ferris wheel. She knew at that moment she'd found her calling of making people laugh with her words. Her debut mystery, Maid of Murder, was a 2010 Agatha Award Nominee for Best First Novel and the first in a series featuring amateur sleuth India Hayes. In July 2012, Amanda will debuting her second mystery series, the Appleseed Creek Mystery Series, which is set in Ohio's Amish country. In addition to being a mystery author, Amanda is an academic librarian for a small college near Cleveland. Visit her online at www.amandaflower.com.

This biography was provided by the author or their representative.

ISBN: 978143333676970

Paperback, 336 pages

B and H Publishing

Releases July 1, 2012

                                                      

My Thoughts:

This is the first time I have read anything by Amanda Flower but I loved this mystery about the Amish and the English joined together trying to solve a death (or murder).

As I started to read Chloe Humphrey was moving to Appleseed Creek Ohio to start a new job as the head of the computer department at Harshberger College.  She had rented a house over the Internet and had no idea what it would be like.  As she neared town she saw a green truck stopped and the two men were harassing a young Amish woman.  She stopped and almost got into trouble herself but she got the girl to get in the car with her and this is were the trouble began.  Becky the young Amish woman was leaving home because her strict Amish faith would not allow her to paint

portrait's.  Becky just took it upon herself that Chloe was taking her home with her to stay or that is what she wanted as she had no job and no where else to go.

When Chloe went to work, Becky took Chloe's car and was going for an interview without permission, but when she started down a hill the car had no brakes and she could not stop.  As she rounded the bend and Amish buggy was right in her way and she hit it, not knowing this was the Bishop of her church.  This killed the Bishop and now what was she to do.  She didn't even have a driver's license, would she be charged with murder?

I really loved this book and it kept me so interested that I could not even imagine how the book would end.  I loved this advanced copy from Jeane of Wynn Wynn Media for sending it to me and I chose to review it.

                    

Amanda Flower, an Agatha-nominated mystery author, started her writing career in elementary school when she read a story she wrote to her sixth grade class and had the class in stitches with her description of being stuck on the top of a Ferris wheel. She knew at that moment she'd found her calling of making people laugh with her words. Her debut mystery, Maid of Murder, was a 2010 Agatha Award Nominee for Best First Novel and the first in a series featuring amateur sleuth India Hayes. In July 2012, Amanda will debuting her second mystery series, the Appleseed Creek Mystery Series, which is set in Ohio's Amish country. In addition to being a mystery author, Amanda is an academic librarian for a small college near Cleveland. Visit her online at www.amandaflower.com.

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FALLING TO PIECES

by

Vannetta Chapman

ISBN: 9780310330431

Paperback. 332 Pages

Zondervan Publisher

First in a three book series:

See the book trailer HERE:


 

In this story Vannetta brings an Amish woman and an English woman together in a way that I have not read before.  Deborah Yoder really needs to sell her quilts to help out with financies in her family, while Callie Harper had inherited a qult shop from her aunt. 

In Shipshewana a murder and selling quilts brings the two women together.  Deborah is Amish and is tall and harty and the mother of five.  Callie is English and tiny, young single.  Deborah reveals her plans to auction off her quilts on-line, on a computer of all things in a town where most of the residents don't have electricty. 

A murder takes place and both women set aside their differences to try and solve it and to catch who ever the killer is. 

I love Amish stories and this one was just great as the two different women work together for the same reason.  The idea of a "friendship quilt" really works well with these two women.  Can't wait untill the next book comes out.

Thanks to Zondervan Publishing for sending me this book to read and enjoy and I am doing my own review.

A Wedding Transpires
on Mackinac Island

by

Cara C. Putman

               ISBN: 9781616265359

            Paperback, 319 pages

             Barbour Publishing

                                                                       

As Alanna Stone was getting on the ferry to carry her to Mackinac Island she was thinking that she had swore that she would never return.  It just held too many memories for her.  But abiding by the request from her parents, she was on her way.

When she arrived she was going to live in a cabin next to her first love Jonathan Covington who had betrayed her.  She was determined not too let him into her life again.  But secrets and a murder threw her back into the public.

Jonathan had never married and resisted the urging of his family and friend to find that perfect woman.  Would Alanna's return bring back feeling he thought was gone?

I want to thank BARBOUR PUBLISHING for sending me this book to read and review.

Maps of Fate is the second book in the series of Threads West An American Saga

Written by Reid Lance Rosenthal

I really love history and have done the genelogy of my family, so when I got the offer to receive this book from Laura Kennedy the Publisher's assistant of www.threadswestseries I grabed the chance.  I really enjoyed finding out about my family's backgrounds when on one side came from Germany before the Civil war and the other are from England.

I have not read the first book in this series but I enjoyed this one anyway.  This book is set in 1855 and continues the lives of four generations.  As the family goes west they incounter all types of problems, alone with the Indians at that time.  The many  threads of the people in the story shows the struggles of the settlers, the cowboys,  the mountain men,  the  Native Americans and the slaves from about 1855-1875.  The author really brings this story to life and it is a book that you don't want to lay down.  As I read I wanted to get in there and help them out, that is the way the story will bring you into it.  A very well written book and as this was the first one I have read by the author Reid Lance Rosenthal, I sure want to read more.  Need to get the first one in the series "Threads West" to read and then read this one again.

ISBN: 9780982157622

Paperback, 450 pages

Rockin' SR Publishing

SAVING HOPE

by

Margaret Daley

ISBN: 9781426714283

Paperback, 335 pages

Abingdon Press

Book 1 Men of the Texas Rangers series

I have read a lot of Margaret's books but most of them were the smaller ones, I was really surprised when I received this one from Wynn Wynn Media to read and I chose to review it.  This book will really open your eyes and minds and I hope you get a copy and read for yourself as I can never do it justice.

A teenager Rose went missing from the Beacon of Hope School ( a  home for girls who were taken out of prostitution) and the Texas ranger and the school director Kate Winslow were really worried that this might be human trafficking.  Kate goes missing alone with Texas Ranger Wyatt Sheridan's own daughter.  Wyatt begins to try to find this ring of evil doers and to get it stopped before the ones he loves is harmed. Rose is fifteen year old really wants a new life and puts others before herself.

After Wyatt's wife died he swore that he would never fall in love again but as the race to find the women continures he finds himself having feelings for Kate. 



I have read a few books before concering human trafficking and it really will touch your life to read about what really happens out in this sinful world.  I have some young women granddaughers and worry about them as they seem to not to think about who they hand out with.   I just pray that God will take care of them as I think if something as this should happen in my family I could not take it.



Truibute Blog Tour

of

THE QUAKER STATE AFFAIR

by

Dan Romain

Publisher: Two Harbors Press

ISBN: 9781937293406

Hardback, 375 pages

You can order book here

About the Author:


Dan Romain is a nationally recognized business consultant who built one of the most successful insurance firms in the country. A graduate of the University of Washington with a bachelor’s degree in economics and a member of the Omicron Delta Epsilon International Economics Society, he currently resides in Seattle, Washington, with his wife, Lori, their two children, Danielle and Brian, and their black Labrador, Kona. He has been widely credited as one of the few who accurately predicted the economic melt down.
 
About the Book:
 

What happens when “some day” finally arrives?
A mysterious explosion in Taiwan. Nuclear secrets stolen from Los Alamos. China’s manifest destiny at hand.
In the near future, America and China go head-to-head in a battle of technological bluffs, setting in motion a chain of events that could lead to skyrocketing oil prices, the end of the dollar, the American way of life, and the republic itself. The only man who might have an answer in the midst of the international crisis is Patrick “Mac” McDaniels, a world-renowned physicist who wants nothing to do with the government. Has he been conducting revolutionary energy research in secret? And if so, will McDaniels be America’s salvation—or its ruin?

My Thoughts:

It is always in the news about the economic of this country and others, what will happen to us if the dollar falls!  This book tells about what might happen when America has finally fallen and the collapse had began.
As McDaniels is aboard his anonymous sea craft in the Boston harbor, where only the most important people know about this place. He is checking all his plans and the food and items he will need as he is carried away on the tide on Wednesday morning.  No matter what he has in store and his way of escape he still is so worried about what is happening.  As he waits he hopes that the sea will erase his worries.
In November on a fateful Sunday the financial markets in Asia begin to fail.  In an hour's time the "Nikkei" in Tokyo closes down.  When Taiwan's market begins also this will eventually close the exchange.  All the Asian's markets are failing so America is bound to be next.p
By 10:00 P.M on a Sunday, Eastern time the bank of Japan had stopped all transactions for the next twenty-four hours.  The fall had begin, what the world had been worrying about for the past century had occurred.
This book is a look at what might really happen to the world economy and we in America have always had it so much better than some of the other countries
 what will we do.  Our money will not be worth anything, so that mean even the billionaires can't buy.  This is really a scary story because the way things look right now it could very well happen.
Thanks so much to Tribute for sending me this nice hardback book to read and review.

Indiana Cousins Trilogy

by

Wanda Brunstetter

About Indiana Cousins Trilogy: Enjoy the pleasure of owning the complete Indiana Cousins trilogy all under one cover. Follow four young Amish women who are forever changed after a traffic accident takes their friends and leave them scarred. Loraine’s fiancé is severely injured and breaks their engagement. Katie’s boyfriend is killed, and she sinks into depression. Jolene loses her hearing. Ella tries to hold her cousins together, but even she struggles with the loss of her brother. How will God take a tragedy and turn it for good in their lives? Book Description This jumbo volume encases three bestselling and highly praised novels by Wanda E. Brunstetter. On a quiet September weekend, plans for a fun outing turn tragic when a van load of Amish teenagers is struck by a semi-truck. Four young women’s lives are forever changed by the event. My Thoughs: I love to get a set of books combines into one and this one is just that, plus it is about the Amish and written by my first and formost favorite author Wanda Brunstetter. It is really hard to write just a little about each of the books but I will try, I like to tell the complete story. A Cousin's Promise 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. A Cousin's Prayer is the 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 book 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