A Family for Gracie

Amy Lillard writes entertaining Amish fiction and has entertained me for hours on end. A Family for Gracie, takes a third daughter in the Glick family, and puts her in a marriage in name only, but with five children. 

All Gracie wanted for all her life is a family of her own.   Matthew Byler has a family of five children--four boys and a baby girl.  The boys are just ordinary boys, sometimes rambunctious, sometimes awfully sweet, and sometimes just boys.  Gracie sees that the one thing this little family needs is a mother.  She proposes to Matthew and he accepts as long as the wedding is soon.

This was a marriage of miscommunication from the start.  Gracie wanted a full marriage and Matthew wanted only the convenience of having Gracie mother his children and do his housework for him. 

Amy has taken a common problem in many marriages and turned it into a plot that will entertain and enlighten her readers.  How she used the lack of communication in the book is something people can take to use in their own lives where there is a breakdown of communication. 

This is a five-star book with two thumbs up and a family in need of a mother.

My thanks go to Zebra Publishing and NetGalley.com for providing the galley I read.

Love and Other Mistakes

Jessica Kate is a new author for me.  She is described as sassy, witty, and gritty, and she fits all those descriptors.  Her book, Love and Other Mistakes, is full of sass, wit, and grit. 

Natalie has been helping her mother take care of her father since he has had a diagnosis of cancer.  Her job is about to go down the drain, and she needs another job quickly. 

A new job seems to land in her lap when her old flame lands back in town with an infant in tow. Sparks begin to fly between Natalie and Jeremy, but they weren't welcome sparks.  In the midst of the negotiations, Jeremy's niece lands on his doorstep in need of a place to live. 

This book handles (in some places, not very competently) marriage troubles, parent/child troubles, ex troubles, job troubles, and child health problems.

I think with time, Jessica will become a better writer.  There seem to be gaps in the plot and it feels as though the ending came hurriedly.  I give this three stars, but I would like to see more from Jessica.

I would like to thank for HarperCollins Publishing and NetGalley.com for providing the galley I read.

A Christmas Haven

There was something frustrating about this book.  It feels like I did in high school when I was trying to write a paper and the deadline was approaching and I just tied everything up in a tidy bow and left out important bits of information.   Cindy Woodsmall and her daughter-in-law, Erin, have been collaborating on books for a bit now and they do a wonderful job together.  This one "flub" won't keep me from reaching for their books, but it's one I can't truly endorse.

A Christmas Haven starts in the summer months and describes the life of Ivy, Holly, Sarah, Arlan, and Josh.  Ivy and Holly are sisters, Sarah and Arlan are siblings, and Josh is Holly's fiance'.  The five people come from three different Amish groups in varying degrees of strictness, with Sarah and Arlan being the ones from the most strict group. 

Ivy has been running a party planning business with her Englisch friend, Tegan, and wants to leave the Amish.  Holly has gotten special permission to go to school to get a degree for being a Licensed Practical Nurse, to help with the Amish people who take medications and need to understand them better.  Josh's bishop won't marry Holly and Josh unless she gives up her training.  Sarah is young and pregnant, and very ill, but her father won't let her seek medical attention.  Arlan is beyond aggravated with his father and runs away with Sarah.  Because of all the differences of opinions, it seems as though Arlan and Ivy will never have a civil conversation. 

It takes most of the book to get this all laid out, and in the last couple of chapters, it is all resolved and put to rest.   I'm sorry that this is at best a two-star book.

I wish to thank NetGalley.com and Waterbrook/Multnomah for allowing me to read and review this book.

The Printed Letters Bookshop

I've read a few books by Katherine Reay and I've always found them to be fascinating and somewhat griping.  In the Printed Letters Bookshop, Katherine brings together a group of ladies of disparate ages and situations. What they have in common is the bookshop.

When Madeline's Aunt Maddie dies, she finds out that she has inherited Maddie's house and the bookshop, . . . and the debt Maddie had left on both of them.  At the same time, Madeline loses her high profile job at a law firm.  She has to come north of Chicago to where the book store was.  She had to sell her car, sell off her furniture, and eventually sell her condo, all to save Maddie's house and store. 

Janet was divorced and had estranged children, but she was a creative genius in decorating the store for various holidays and seasons. 

Claire was married, but her teenage daughter was giving her grief and hiding out, while her son was just his same self and unaware of what was going on in their family.  Her role in the store was keeping the ledgers up to date and keeping track of the money. 

The three of them become friends and live and work through the store and its events.  And the three of them have to band together to save the store. 

This is a five-star book, with two thumbs up, and a book by your favorite author.

I wish to thank NetGalley.com and Thomas Nelson for giving me the opportunity to read and review this book.

A Perfect Silhouette

Judith Miller is one of my favorite authors and I will grab her books to read, especially when I need some down-time.  But when I read A Perfect Silhouette, I was thoroughly disappointed. There was so much Judith left unfinished.  Maybe she was leaving room for a sequel to this book, or to make a series, but there were unresolved issues in the plot and I cannot give this book more than three stars.

Mellie has moved to Manchester, NH, to work in the textile mills so that she can help support her sister. As part of her job at the mill, she has to live in a boarding house run by someone employed by the mill to offer a bed to sleep in and three or four meals a day.  There are a strict curfew and rules about church attendance and general conduct.  That much doesn't bother Mellie so much, but she knows she needs to make more money than just her wages at the mill.

Shopping with the girls one night, Mellie sees a photography studio and goes into the store to see if the owner would like to have her do scherenschnitte silhouettes for customers who cannot afford photographic portraits.  As a demonstration of her skill, she does a silhouette of the owner in just a few moments.  They come to an agreement where she pays him two cents out of every silhouette she sells.  It is absolutely a great boon for his business.

While working one night, she meets Morgan Stark, the son of the owner of the mill where Mellie works.  He is working under an assumed name at the mill so that he can get a feel for the conditions the employees are working under.  Because he is an engineer, he is included on a project for a circular loom that makes seamless fabric for feed bags.

Even though Morgan is falling in love with Mellie, he still has to keep his identity protected but his guilt over not telling Mellie the whole truth is eating him inside out.  When she does find out, it is in the most awkward way possible and Morgan has a long row to hoe to win her back. 

Like I said before, the book has an abrupt ending.  Throughout the book, I got the feeling that something was wrong with Mellie's sister, but there is no resolution there.  There are several other girls who have some unresolved issues as well, and the reuniting of Mellie and Morgan isn't as satisfying as it could have been.  It is almost as if the author got to the point where she had enough pages and just tied a bow on it. I am hoping that there will be more novels to come out to make this a series and fill in some of the gaps.

My thanks go to Bethany House and NetGalley.com for allowing me to read and review this book.  Three stars

A Song of Joy

Lauraine Snelling has an affinity for books about the Scandanavian immigrant.  Each story builds on a previous one and fills in a bit more about the characters. It makes the reader feel a part of the neighborhood.

Nilda Larsson works for Gertrude Schoenleber as her secretary and assistant.  Gertrude's brother doesn't feel that Nilda belongs in the board meetings of the family logging business, so he gets his son to court Nilda as a way of neutralizing Nilda's affect on the business.

At the same time another nephew of Gertrude's, named Fritz, spends his time being Nilda's friend and quietly courting her without being obvious about it. One of the talents Fritz has is playing piano and Nilda looks forward to his every visit so that she can have another lesson.

This book is a quietly, even-paced novel with well-written characters and deeply thought out settings. The reappearing characters get more depth and focus while the main characters shine like stars. I loved the way the plot played out in such a satisfying way.

This is a five star book, with two thumbs up, and a good report on your next piano lesson.

I want to thank Bethany House and NetGalley.com for providing the galley I read.

Andrew

Hi.  We're Alfie and Benji, and we are the twin brothers of Andrew.  Our Mammi and Dawdy moved into our house with us after Dawdi had a stroke and Mammi needs to take care of him. When they moved in, our Mamm moved us to the cellar to sleep on an air mattress.  We have a new neighbor, Mary Coblenz, who lives with Bitsy and Yost.  She's going to have a buppli, and a lot of people in our gmayna don't like her because she doesn't have a husband.  Part of the reason we think Andrew would make a gut husband for her is that we'd get to move back upstairs, and out of the icky cellar. 

Being eight years old is kind of hard.  We have to be thinking of many ways to get Mary and Andrew together.  Even we can see that they do, and we are just little kids. Once Andrew stops messing it up, maybe he will see it too. 

Jennifer Beckstrand writes Amish fiction as though she were Amish.  Andrew is the first of a series of three books about the Petersheim brothers.  I imagine that Alfie and Benji will be a delightful part of the other two books. They did such a wonderful job with Andrew and Mary. 

I want to thank Kensington Publishing and NetGalley.com for allowing me to read and review this book.   It is a five star book, with two thumbs up, and a peanut butter honey ball.