In Dreams Forgotten

SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!!  The dream is Judith's dream for a family.  The parents who raised her have passed away and she wants to find the remainder of her family if at all possible. 

The year is 1906.  The Place is San Francisco.  The overarching event is a massive earthquake that devastates the entire city.  The characters are continuing the story begun in Hidden Places (reviewed here).

In Hidden Places, Camrianne Coulter falls in love with Patrick Murdock.  Now the girls are trying to get Caleb to notice Judith, because she fell in love with him at first sight. 

Not many characters have changed, a few new ones have been temporarily added.  Caleb is still fighting corruption, Patrick still wants his business back, Judith still wants to find her family remnants, and Kenzie wants to just lick her wounds.

Tracie Peterson still has a masterful touch in bringing these characters to life and giving a glimpse into the world of San Francisco in 1906.  In Dreams Forgotten, Tracie shows that not all dreams need to be forgotten, but God may have a different dream for you. 

This is a five star book, two thumbs up, and a dream come true.

My thanks to Bethany House for allowing me to read and review this book.  The galley I read was supplied through NetGalley.com.

A Seat by the Hearth

Priscilla Allgyer left home and moved to Baltimore to get out from under her father's hyper-criticism.  But what she did was jump from the frying pan into the fire. She got involved in a relationship with a man who physically abused her.  In desperation, she takes her six year old son and goes back to Lancaster.  In order for her to stay, her father lays down some rules:  she must re-join the church, serve her shunning time, and find a husband.

Mark Riehl is the first face she sees when she returns to town.  Mark has always had the reputation of being a flirt--always chatting up the other ladies to the point that two of the ladies believe he is going to ask them to marry him.  Oh yeah, he also works for Yonnie Allgyer--Priscilla's father. 

Mark tried to get Priscilla to talk to him, to open up to him, and allow him to share her burdens.  He found her in the barn crying and was trying to talk to her there and she was trying to get away from him, but her sleeve got caught on a nail and tore. That is when Yonnie and John, the bishop, come in and find them together.  Yonnie demands that they set the soonest wedding date possible.

Once Priscilla agrees to marry Mark, Yonnie has a self-satisfied look about him.  He had manipulated the situation to his desires.  His daughter is no longer his problem. 

Amy Clipston does her research on the Amish life and makes the research come alive in her characters.  A Seat by the Hearth is one of those slices of Amish life.  My favorite part is when Mark comes in on Yonnie's tirade on Priscilla.  He rips Yonnie a new one for his treatment of Priscilla and moves her out from under her father's thumb.

This is a five star book, two thumbs up, and a man who will stand up for you in all circumstances.

My thanks to Zondervan Publishing for allowing me to read and review this book.

Stealing Time

Barclay Pearce is known as one of the best thieves in London and it is his skills that make him invaluable to the Royal Navy.  He gets his assignments from a man only known as V.  He has taken in a plethora of street urchins (read "orphans") and began to teach them things that are more important than pick-pocketing, general stealing, and living by their wits. 

Evelina Manning has been fighting for women's rights and been involved with the suffrage movement.  It is through her efforts that she met Barclay.  She had little idea how important this meeting was to Barclay.  He needed to meet up with a clock maker and Evelina's father was a clock maker--one of the best in London.

When I first began this novel, it seemed so familiar to me, like I was reading it a second time.  The characters were like meeting old friends again. There was a logical reason for that--this is book three of a series of World War I spy novels by Roseanna M White.  She has the knack for working romance into her spy novels, or maybe it's working the spying into her romance novels.  It's hard to say.

An Hour Unspent also includes the lives of Barclay's "adopted" brothers and sisters, one of which dares him to steal an hour off Big Ben.  It also relates the story of Evelina's mother and her aunt Beatrice, especially Beatrice's overbearing, insulting of Evelina's family. 

This is a five star book with significant historical references -- like when wristwatches came into common use, two thumbs up, and a clock maker to help you steal an hour from Big Ben.

My thanks to Bethany House for allowing me to read and review this book.  The galley I read was provided through NetGalley.com.

The Teacher's Bride

I absolutely adore Kathleen Fuller's Amish novels.  She writes believable characters with a twist of humor. In The Teacher's Bride, Ruby is the kind of woman who acts without thinking through the consequences of her actions. 

Christian is the local teacher who never moves without a thorough examination of all possible consequences. Christian wants a wife and he has a specific girl in mind, but all of his attempts fall through.

Ruby wants a husband, but she's willing to set aside her wants to help Christian become approachable toward the girl he wants to court.

Sometimes I will cherry-pick my reading list to find something a bit lighter in depth.  This book fit that particular attribute to a T.  It was hard to put down and kept me involved in the story from beginning to end.  Five Stars, Two Thumbs Up, and a raspberry pie.

My thanks to Zondervan Publishing for allowing me to read and review this book.

The Best of Intentions

Grace Abernathy has been sent to Toronto by her mother to see her widowed sister and

her sister's baby.  When she lands in Toronto, she finds that her sister has passed away and the baby's father's family has taken in the baby.  Grace wants to get into the home where her nephew is being kept and see how he is being treated.  Quite by accident, she meets the sister of the man who is the official guardian for the baby and the sister tells her they are looking for a nanny.

Susan Anne Mason has written a very nice, but very predictable novel.  Grace meets her nephew's guardian--Andrew Easton and feels an immediate attraction.   The flow of the story is

• girl meets boy
• girl gets boy
• girl does something really stupid
• boy's parents interfere
• girl and boy break up
• girl gets boy back again. 

Three stars. 

My thanks to Bethany House for allowing me to read and review this book.  The book was provided through NetGalley.com. 

The Christmas Heirloom

One heirloom has been passed from generation to generation, from Lady Densby to Maddie Winslow. Lady Densby gave the broach to her companion, Sarah Gooding.  From Sarah the tradition began to hand it down mother to daughter.  After Sarah was given the broach in England, she immigrated to the States.

Move forward a few generations for Ruth Albright to use her broach as collateral for a loan, in order to rent a house for her daughter and her.  When she goes in every week to make a payment to redeem the broach, the owner of her house keeps trying to cancel her debt.

Now it's post World War II, and Fleeta Brady is the county's crack shot who wants to own a gun shop.  When Hank comes to town and beats her in the turkey shoot, he makes a connection with Fleeta.  When Fleeta takes her life savings to buy a gun shop, she's finds out she's been taken by a con-artist. But Hank was taken with her and comes back to see her.  He finds the lukenbooth in the nest of a jay bird that has been making a nuisance of itself.

Maddie Winslow has been paired with her best friend's widower in the Mission: Christmas to help a family in the community have a good Christmas.  She's been in love with this man since she was in high school.  When she finds the luckenbooth, she researches how it came down to her. Her grandmother, Fleeta to find out its history and the legend that goes with it--that the owner of the broach finds love.

The Christmas Heirloom is a great collection of novellas by well-loved authors who ply their craft with quality and attention to detail.  Sometimes these novella collections can become trite or sickeningly sweet, but these four stories are quite realistic and quite intriguing.

I appreciate Bethany House Publishing for providing the galley through NetGalley.com, so that I could read and review this book.  Five Stars, Two Thumbs Up, and an Heirloom Broach to hand down to your daughter.

The Sound of Thunder

Jan Drexler is starting a new series--the Amish of Weaver Creek and it is going to be hard to wait for the second book of the series to come out.  Her first book in the series: The Sound of Distant Thunder is the kind of book that makes the reader think of difficult issues and how to deal with them. 

Through the characters of Katie Stucky and Jonas Weaver are faced with such a dilemma.  Jonas and Katie want to get married, but the sounds of war are fast upon them and when the draft is initiated, Jonas is wondering what to do about it.  He knows slavery is wrong, but according to the Amish rules, taking arms to fight is equally wrong.  The decision is taken out of his hands when his brother is drafted, and Jonas goes in his stead. Jonas' experiences in the war help him to find a place where he can be useful without taking up arms against another.

While Jonas is gone, Katie stays home to help take care of her parents' homestead.  Her mother goes through a depression every year that worries Katie, and she does all she can to help her mother out.  During all this, Katie's father dies and adds more turmoil to the Stucky's lives.

Jan Drexler imbues her characters with a liveliness and believability that make this book hard to put down.

This is a five-star book, with two thumbs up, and a quiet place that brings peace in spite of the war.

Revell Publishing provided this galley through NetGalley.com for me to read and give my honest opinions.

Lady of a Thousand Treasures

Eleanor has been tasked with chronicling the antiquities of one of her parents, Baron Lydney.  She is to determine whether his remaining son is worthy of the collection.  When she was younger she was in love with the son, Harry.  This book takes the reader to England, and Italy, and back again. 

It took me a while to "get into" the book, and truly I never did.  Sandra Byrd is a great author, but in order to get the details into the book, she let the plot drag. I am not going to say this is a "bad" book, it could be that I was having a bad day when I tried to read it.

Three Stars.

I want to thank Tyndale House Publishers for allowing me to read and review this book.

Amish Homecoming

Zondervan has pulled together four novellas by four expert authors on Amish life.  They are also very good at writing romance stories in the Amish culture. This collection tells stories of prodigals, of people who moved from their community to another and then come back, of people who leave their faith and return to it. 

Some of the characters have been abused by others in the novel, some have lost people precious to them, some have bridges to build, others have to find home.

Eva comes home with a little girl to meet her parents.  She doesn't expect to stay long, there is too much bad blood between her mother and her.

Sarah comes home after Hurricane Harvey destroys where she lives.  She, too, has a little girl, and the father of the girl is one of the first people she sees. 

Irene comes back to her Amish community after her Englisch husband dies.  She is living with an older couple helping them around the house for room and board.  Their son comes by and sees Irene as taking advantage of his parents.

Carolyn wants to open a bakery within two weeks.  Atlee Shetler has come to visit his friend Thomas, but wants to do something than just sit around.  He comes around to help her get the bakery ready to open. 

This is a five star collection, two thumbs up, and a chocolate orange twist.

I appreciate that Zondervan Publishing for allowing me to read and review this book.