The King's Mercy by Lori Benton

My thoughts:  As with all of Lori Benton's books, The King's Mercy is absolutely rich with historical information and is written with such realistic and detailed descriptions that you can sense a feeling of the humidity in the air, the sound of insects abuzz and the feel of slapping away a mosquito. The characters are so richly drawn verbally that you begin to love or hate them because your heart beats with anticipation, fear, love, dread, joy just as theirs.

Very well written with a depth of perception of the times, locale, and social mores that you will mentally engage on a level that takes you striving with the under dog from page one to the exciting conclusion.

Do the good guys win out? Sure they do. Can you accurately anticipate the ending? To a small degree you can.

The King's Mercy takes the reader to the shores of the Cape Fear River near Wilmington, North Carolina. The timeline is in the mid 1700s. The large "plantation" or estate is owned by a retired sea Captain whose wife is deceased and who has two daughters. He has a contingent of slaves to work his land, black smithy, and mill. One of the main male characters if the Scottish Indentured Slave who has been purchased and whose captivity by the English King has been granted a "mercy" which is indentured slavery.

I highly recommend this Christian historical fiction. It is heavy with Christian teachings which believers will enjoy.


About the book: This epic historical romance tells of fateful love between an indentured Scotsman and a daughter of the 18th century colonial south.

When captured rebel Scotsman Alex MacKinnon is granted the king's mercy--exile to the Colony of North Carolina--he's indentured to Englishman Edmund Carey as a blacksmith. Against his will Alex is drawn into the struggles of Carey's slaves--and those of his stepdaughter, Joanna Carey. A mistress with a servant's heart, Joanna is expected to wed her father's overseer, Phineas Reeves, but finds herself drawn instead to the new blacksmith. As their unlikely relationship deepens, successive tragedies strike the Careys. When blame falls unfairly upon Alex he flees to the distant mountains where he encounters Reverend Pauling, itinerant preacher and friend of the Careys, now a prisoner of the Cherokees. Haunted by his abandoning of Joanna, Alex tries to settle into life with the Cherokees, until circumstances thwart yet another attempt to forge his freedom and he's faced with the choice that's long hounded him: continue down his rebellious path or embrace the faith of a man like Pauling, whose freedom in Christ no man can steal. But the price of such mercy is total surrender, and perhaps Alex's very life.

DISCLOSURE: I received an advanced reader complimentary copy from WaterBrook and Multnomah Press to facilitate this review. Opinions are mine, alone and are freely given.

AMERICAN OMENS (The Coming Fight For Faith) by Travis Trasher [Giveaway]

⭐⭐⭐⭐
ISBN: 9780735291782
WaterbrookMultnomah Pub.
Buy on Amazon

My thoughts:  I found the book surreal in the technological advances purported to be in place twenty years in the future. But then.... where were we with technology 20 years in the past. So much is possible and we shouldn't be surprised at what advances actually might happen.

Reading thoughts? Hearing other voices speak in our heads? Far fetched? Perhaps. I dread the possibility that these things could happen. Yes, chips can be implanted and activities traced. But some other technological advances are science fiction.

What is not science fiction is the very real possibility that Christianity will not be looked favorably upon. And in American Omens that is definitely the situation.

People are manipulated. Cars are automated. One can speak into thin air and receive a spoken answer, or an answer in one's head, or pictures appear to hang in the air in front of you. The future of technology? Perhaps. But the future is also one of control either using technology or sheer force.

In American Omens, the main, yet shadow, character is The Reckoner. I fully expected this to be some sort of avenging angel or representative of God in an end-times scenario. That doesn't seem to be the case. But that might be different if this story line plays out in more books along this line if Mr. Thrasher pursues it as a series. This story is, after all, about the downfall or decline of Christianity in America and we have the whole World  in which we can look for prophetic or end-times stories.

About the book: In this taut thriller that depicts a future where belief is dangerous, faith is deemed hatred, and a group of powerful elite keeps watch, the Reckoner has come to wake up America.

The year is 2038 and Cheyenne Burne is a brilliant young programmer working for Acatour, the world's top technology firm. Her father converts to Christianity, and he suddenly disappears without a trace. When a stranger hands Cheyenne a coded message that sends her on a collision course with a clandestine group of believers, she must put her life in the hands of those following a man known only as the Reckoner. He claims he wants to bring back true faith in Christ to America and also reveal the forces behind the disappearances of the many renowned people who publicly declared their Christian faith.

Operating in the shadows and living off the grid, this mysterious prophet assembles a ragtag team--including a former bookseller whose store was shut down for selling prohibited books--to help him take the battle for transparency to the top. With a ruthless FBI agent closing in, can Cheyenne and the others expose the truth and lead a return to God in America before it's too late?

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Ends March 12 at 12:01 a.m. EST

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DISCLOSURE: I received a complimentary copy to facilitate a review. Opinions shared are mine alone and are freely given. Giveaway copy is provided and shipped directly to winner by author or publisher.

Ours for a Season by Kim Vogel Sawyer

An Old Order Mennonite couple's vows and beliefs are challenged in this stirring contemporary novel for fans of Cindy Woodsmall or Shelley Shepherd Gray.

My thoughts: Reading Ms. Sawyer's story woven around members of an Old Order Mennonite community helps this reader grasp some of the similarities and differences between this Old Order group and Old Order  Amish. Anthony Hirschler is the male protagonist and owns a construction company. He drives a truck, has a cell phone, etc. Marty, his wife also drives and has a phone. They dress in a manner similar to the Amish (ladies cover their hair, have simple dresses, and aprons). They stand out in secular communities as being set apart yet not as set apart as their Old Order Amish counterparts.

The Old Order Mennonites in this story still defer to the local community's religious order for making decisions in life and business.

Now the story..... I found Marty's pouty disposition and standoffishness irritating and personally felt she should let go of her feeling so unhappy and unfulfilled because she and her husband were unable to have children of their own. She seemed self-centered in this attitude and unfeeling in regard to her husband's feelings.

What I related to in the story..... Marty's best friend during her growing up years was Brooke who has become a very successful business woman out in the secular world. She is  a worldly woman with no family. Then cancer strikes and she needs Marty's help.

The description of Brooke's battle with cancer and the treatments really hit home to me. Several years ago my husband had cancer with all its ugly effects and happenings - surgery, chemo treatments, radiation, sickness, and a tiredness and weariness that only those who are brought low with chemo can know. My daughter also had cancer and these awful times. So it was hard to read this story that carried Brooke's story and her battle.

The story ends on a high note - and the story ends on a low note. Just as in life their are the high moments and there are the low moments. The story of redemption is alive and well in Ours For A Seasonn and the characters who need redemption so much. The thread of abuse and homelessness and the need to address  these issues is a major part of the story.

This is a good read that can have one experience a roller coaster of emotions during the reading.

About the book: Anthony and Marty Hirschler are part of an Old Order Mennonite community in Pine Hill, Indiana. The couple has grown apart since a doctor confirmed they would never have children. Marty longs to escape the tight-knit area where large families are valued, and the opportunity to do so arises when her childhood friend, Brooke Spalding, resurfaces with the wild idea of rebuilding a ghost town into a resort community. Brooke hires Anthony to help with the construction, drawing the Hirschlers away from Indiana and into her plan, and then finds herself diagnosed with cancer. Moral complications with Brooke's vision for a casino as part of the resort and the discovery of a runaway teenager hiding on the property open up a world neither the Hirschlers nor Brooke had considered before. Will they be able to overcome their challenges and differences to help the ones among them hurting the most?

DISCLOSURE: As part of the Ours For A Season launch team I received a complimentary Advanced Reader's Copy to facilitate a review. Opinions are my own alone and are freely given.

The Daily Question For You and Your Child: A Three Year Spiritual Journal by Waterbrook

My thoughts:  This is not a book of instruction, study, or devotion. It is a journal that can be used over a period of three years with your child. Each day's page has a question and you record your child's answer to that specific question for the day. Then one year later, you use the second set of blank lines to record the same child's answer to the same question. You repeat this the third year recording the answer in the third portion of lines.

The volume is hardcover and has very sturdy binding so it will most likely last through daily use for three years. The cover design will appeal to either boys or girls. And a means of personalization of the book is provided via the square in the cover in which a picture of the child may be inserted.

The concept of providing a means to address your child's development of emotional, spiritual, and social thinking is certainly worth trying and the recorded comments for each day's question will certainly be a future treasure.

A plethora of questions is available and they run the gamut from "What game do you like to play?" to "What is your favorite thing God created?". I do not think there are any Scripture verses in the book so the Spiritual aspect of this publication will be the emphasis or application that parents insert on their own as the subject arises. Teachable moments exist and one must always be ready to avail themselves of it.

In multiple child families, this would be a nice family exercise, providing the child/children can all write and express themselves. Each child can have his own book in which they write their own thoughts. Family discussion can be held but for the book to be unique to the individual child, the discussion should state that each opinion is worthy of expression.

For those willing to try a project with their child that would last three years, this is certainly worth pursuing.

About the product/book: A fun, thought-provoking 365-question guided journal and keepsake that sparks daily interaction with your child to create a memory book capturing your child's life, personality, and faith journey.

This interactive prompted journal allows a parent to create a keepsake of three years of their child's life. By answering each of the 365 questions together on the same date each year, readers will get a unique and precious picture into their child's feelings, development, and personality. Some of the questions focus on spirituality and the child's heart, while some are meant to capture their creativity, spirit, and sense of humor. All questions spark conversations and memories that span well beyond the pages of this book.

DISCOSURE: I received a complimentary copy from WaterbrookMultnomah to facilitate a review. Opinions are my own and are freely given.

Bringing Maggie Home by Kim Vogel Sawyer (Contemporary Fiction from WaterBook Press) [Giveaway]

About the book: Decades of loss, an unsolved mystery, and a rift spanning three generations

Hazel DeFord is a woman haunted by her past. While berry picking in a blackberry thicket in 1943, ten-year-old Hazel momentarily turns her back on her three-year-old sister Maggie and the young girl disappears.

Almost seventy years later, the mystery remains unsolved and the secret guilt Hazel carries has alienated her from her daughter Diane, who can't understand her mother's overprotectiveness and near paranoia. While Diane resents her mother's inexplicable eccentricities, her daughter Meghan---a cold case agent---cherishes her grandmother's lavish attention and affection.

When a traffic accident forces Meghan to take a six-week leave-of-absence to recover, all three generations of DeFord women find themselves unexpectedly under the same roof. Meghan knows she will have to act as a mediator between the two headstrong and contentious women. But when they uncover Hazel's painful secret, will Meghan also be able to use her investigative prowess to solve the family mystery and help both women recover all that's been lost?

About the author: Kim Vogel Sawyer is a highly acclaimed, best-selling author with more than one million books in print, in seven different languages. Her titles have earned numerous accolades including the ACFW Carol Award, the Inspirational Readers' Choice Award, and the Gayle Wilson Award of Excellence. Kim lives in central Kansas with her retired military husband, Don, where she continues to write gentle stories of hope. She enjoys spending time with her three daughters and grandchildren. Learn more at kimvogelsawyer.com.

Learn more & purchase a copy

GIVEAWAY

Begins October 3

Ends October 19 @ 12:01 a.m. EST

Open to USA addresses only.

Winner's copy is graciously provided via Litfuse Publicity Group, the author, and publisher.

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Watch for Chat With Vera's review soon!

Gathering the Threads (The Amish of Summer Grove #3) by Cindy Woodsmall from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing

My thoughts: The concluding book of the Amish of Summer Grove series, Gathering the Threads, takes an already unusual story for "Amish fiction" and packs a powerful ending as the threads of this group of people thoroughly mended together by family, life, faith, and community are finally sewn together into one beautiful finality.

This is not your typically sweet, quaint story of the people who are of Amish Christian beliefs and live in their strict community. It is one where the outside world has already broken the barriers and now openings to customs, people, problems, thought processes, and solutions so very different from their own bring to the forefront issues long buried or tolerated. And yet into their own rigidly  controlled faith community where the Bishop's rule overrides all thought and even Biblical injunctions, they find that they still have obligations to the laws that government people of all communities.

Interestingly, Gathering the Threads is also a story about an awakening to social injustices and a move to secure the protection of those abused in their homes. There is a need for change and a need for forgiveness.

And there is love or romance that is tenderly woven through and it is, of course, quite discrete and definitely a good, clean read.

While Gathering the Threads, can surely be read as a stand-alone book, it will be more enjoyable to read books one and two in the series. I personally recommend you read the books in succession simply because they are all good reads and worth delving into.

About the book: After three months of draus in da Welt, Ariana has returned to Summer Grove, the Old Order Amish community where she was raised for twenty years, and life with her Brenneman family. Skylar Nash, the Englisch-raised young woman is working in Ariana s cafe while getting to know her birth family and their Plain way of life. Skylar's time in Summer Grove has changed her outlook, just as Ariana has grown to see her personal faith in God in a different light than the manner she was taught while growing up. Both women will have to make decisions about their paths and Ariana must decide what role her childhood friend, ex-Amish Quill Schlabach, will play in her life.
Gathering the Threads is the third and final novel in the Amish of Summer Grove series."

Preorder at http://waterbrookmultnomah.com/pre-order
Book release date: August 15, 2017

About the author: Cindy Woodsmall is a New York Times and CBA bestselling author of numerous works of fiction and one of nonfiction. Her connection with the Amish community has been featured widely in national media. She lives in the foothills of the North Georgia Mountains with her family. Learn more at cindywoodsmall.com.

DISCLOSURE: I received a complimentary copy from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing to facilitate a review. Opinions are my own and freely given.

Life After by Katie Ganshert

My thoughts: Reading Life After is like taking a peek into the souls, hearts, minds, and lives of people. People who have been through a massive life changing event that shatters them to their very core. It is being enveloped in the emotions and heart wrenching hurt that they experience minute by minute and day by day.

Being the sole survivor of a horrific bomb blast in the city's train, Autumn feels and experiences the "why me" feelings of survivor guilt. And then there are those she is now learning to know, people who are now in her circle of acquantaince experiencing daily life who lost their loved ones in the same train explosion.

As the story unfolds new friendly relationships bloom and coping mechanisms begin to fall in place. However, the story is not just about people coming to terms and accepting what has happened to those lost in the bombing, it is about the difficulties they face in living their lives with their own personal shortcomings and interacting with family and friends.

Katie Ganshert's writing style is fresh and compelling. This is not a book to skim through. Even though it is a work of fiction, there is a wealth of wisdom and insight to be gleaned from the reading of this story.


About the book: Snow whirls around an elevated train platform in Chicago. A distracted woman boards the train, takes her seat, and moments later a fiery explosion rips through the frigid air, tearing the car apart in a horrific attack on the city’s transit system. One life is spared. Twenty-two are lost.

A year later, Autumn Manning can’t remember the day of the bombing and she is tormented by grief—by guilt. Twelve months of the question constantly echoing. Why? Why? Why? Searching for answers, she haunts the lives of the victims, unable to rest.

Paul Elliott lost his wife in the train bombing and wants to let the dead rest in peace, undisturbed and unable to cause more pain for his loved ones. He wants normalcy for his twelve year-old daughter and young son, to see them move beyond the heartbreak. But when the Elliotts and Autumn are unexpectedly forced together, he fears she’ll bring more wreckage in her wake.

In Life After, Katie Ganshert’s most complex and unforgettable novel yet, the stirring prose and authentic characters pose questions of truth, goodness, and ultimate purpose in this emotionally resonant tale.

Quotes to ponder from Life After:

• "We worship a God who might not give us the miracle, but He will always give us the comfort."
• “I guess that’s what life is...a whole bunch of little moments that don’t seem significant or life-altering at the time, but when you look back...they become the most profoundly beautiful things.”
• "I'm not the most religious man. But I do believe in God. And the last I checked, He's the one in charge."
• “Maybe comfort wasn't to be found in the why. Maybe comfort was to be found in the who. A God who wept."
• "You know what I've learned about God?" ... "Circumstances don't dictate who He is."
• “I guess that’s what life if, though, isn’t it? A whole bunch of little moments that don’t seem significant or life-altering at the time but when you look back...” She shook her head. “I don’t know. They become the most profoundly beautiful things.”
• “This man had shown her a piece of his soul. A jagged, ugly, honest piece that was raw and bleeding and unlovely. A piece of his soul that matched a piece of hers.”
• “She was a broken woman falling for a broken man who had a broken past and two beautiful, broken children.”

DISCLOSURE: As a member of Katie Ganshert's launch team, I received an Advance Reader's Copy to facilitate a review of the book. Opinions are simply my own and are freely given without compensation. Published by: WaterbrookMultnomah Publishing.