Something I Haven’t Told You is a repeated theme in Alison’s story.
As an adult, she looks back over her teen years, from the time she falls in love for the first time and finds herself pregnant at the age of fourteen. She faces shame, her father’s rage, and life-altering decisions. But she finds support in her sister, mother, and others. Despite being jerked into adulthood, life is good.
I started writing this novel nine years ago, after some years of volunteering at a pregnancy centre. Alison is a purely fictional character. My aim was to show the various repercussions that affect not only the young girl but also her family and entire community. The reactions of family members, counselors, school, doctors, the church. What can be supportive, and what is the opposite of supportive. God’s grace and forgiveness.
I hope readers will not only enjoy the story but also learn how to best support someone in a similar situation.
Many thanks to Cynthia Hickey of Winged Publications and Diane Tatum, editor. Also, to my many supporters who have encouraged me on this writing journey.
Available now on Amazon.com or Amazon.ca to download. Free to Kindle subscribers. Click here to download the book or order in paperback.
Dancing in the Rain is an anthology of five stories.
Dancing in the Rain
Each story in Dancing in the Rain features an experience of cleansing rain that renews the soul. Candace West writes ‘McDonald’s Farm’. Eleanor Bertin writes ‘Who Sends the Rain?’. Angela D. Meyer writes ‘Rekindling Her Dream’. Deb Elkink writes ‘Clanging Symbols’, and Sara Davison writes ‘The Poppy’.
Each of the stories in Dancing in the Rain could be a separate book, and the e-book took me longer than expected to read through. I had been expecting shorter novellas. The authors are a group of writers who have published several anthologies together in the past.
Five writers, Five unique styles
Each author has her own distinct writing style. Although all the stories feature rain as a cleansing, renewing experience, there isn’t a lot of further commonality. Settings range from Vancouver Canada to places in the States, to Japan. Writing styles range from light and easy to follow to relatively heavy and more serious. Forgiveness, hope, and second chances are threads that link the stories.
As a Canadian writer myself, I was interested in the fact that there are Canadian authors and settings included in the anthology. I was already Facebook friends with Deb Elkink. Her story particularly stood out to me because it is based in Japan in the 1970s and is centered around cross-cultural experiences. As a traveler, ESL instructor and international homestay host, I could relate to the interesting differences in cultural thinking and symbolism. Whereas that story occurs in Japan, the others are all in North America.
Anthologies provide an opportunity to get to know new authors. I found each story appealing in its own unique way.
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Horses, women’s rights, love and marriage in 1905 America.
Horses, women’s rights, love and marriage in 1905 America. A young woman and her horse. Family expectations, loyalties, needs and desires. Secrets brought to light.
the SECRETS of EMBERWILD
What will become of Nora and her dearly loved horse now that her father has died? Her uncle takes charge, but something doesn’t seem right.
At the same time, Silas turns up, asking questions about his father’s death 15 years ago and the horse that went missing.
A series of suspicious accidents occur. Something is wrong, but what is really going on, and why? And who is the culprit?
In 1905, women’s roles and men’s roles were distinct. Men took care of horses. Women cooked and kept the house. But Nora’s horse is all she loves.
Bringing history to life
Horses, women’s rights, love and marriage in 1905 America. Stephania McGee brings to life the difficulties of an independent woman of the era. It wasn’t easy to step out and make choices. Women were expected to obey and fit into the lives cut out for them. Nora had to consider her mother, the reputation of her family, and her own needs for protection and provision. But what about the needs of her heart?
McGee has put a lot of research into the writing of this novel. We learn about horses and racing at the time, as well as the lives people lived. I particularly enjoyed the way she describes places, horses and people. The mystery combined with threads of romance is reminiscent of Agatha Christie’s style, with the real culprit revealed at the end.
Thank you, Revell, for sending me a beautiful copy of this book to review. I’m glad I chose it. I recommend it to horse lovers and readers of historical women’s fiction.
This book can be purchased at Chapters.indigo.ca, by clicking here.
Medical missionary meets special forces captain in an African jungle. He kills to save her from a terrorizing warlord. That’s the mix.
Cynthia Myers, the missionary doctor, is first repeled by, then attracted to Captain Rick Norton. They’re on opposite sides of the fence; her side being love and mercy, his killing the enemy.
The author successfully explores the boundaries between the two. Must they stay on opposite sides, or is there a way they can meet in the middle? Is killing ever justified? Is there a place for Christian warriors to kill enemies?
Hallee Bridgeman, via the soul-searching heroine, clarifies these issues in the minds of readers. She speaks from first-hand knowledge as the wife and daughter of warriors. I personally found it helpful in sorting out my own stance.
Are they just too different?
Bridgeman also brings out the dichotomy between values and ways of thinking in different cultures and classes of people. The heroine struggles to find a place to fit in when she returns to America. Will this medical missionary resolve her own prejudices and acknowledge her love for Captain Rick Norton?
At the back of the book, the author provides a list of thought-provoking questions for a book club. This will surely lead to interesting discussions.
She also shares recipes for delicious-sounding home made hamburgers and potato chips, the favorite foods of the main characters.
I’m glad I chose this thought-provoking novel from the ones Revell offered me to review. Beautiful cover, too. Thank you, Revell.
when the morning glory blooms isn’t about morning glories. But they do thread through this novel. The morning glories represent life and seeds of life.
It’s about Single Mothers
The novel centres around unwed mothers from the 1890s to present times. Starting from the point of view of the mother of a teen mom in 2012, it jumps back and forth between that family and their friends, a young pregnant single woman in 1951, and an elderly woman telling her story of starting a home for unwed mothers in the 1890s. It’s interesting to see what has changed over time and what has stayed much the same.
The author
Cynthia Ruchti is an acclaimed author and speaker, and is now an agent with Books & Such Agency as well. I met her online a year ago when I attended the American Christian Fiction Writers Zoom conference, and I asked for an interview regarding the novel I’ve been working toward getting published. I didn’t know at the time that she had also written a novel centred around a teen mom. I’ve been meaning to read it ever since she told me about it. What a privilege and honour to have had that opportunity to communicate with her. Of course my first-time, as yet unpublished novel cannot compare with hers. But I so appreciate her feedback and tips, and am glad now to have read her novel along the same theme.
Sort of the same, but not exactly (as the saying goes)
when the morning glory blooms portrays lives of single mothers over three eras, whereas my novel sticks to the contemporary experiences of one particular teen mom. Both include the mother of the teen as one of the ‘pov’ (Point of View) characters, but in her novel the teen mother is not a pov character, whereas in my novel she is the Main Character. Both of our books portray the stress the family goes through, and the sometimes hypocritical reactions of the church.
While my novel begins with the Main Character as an adult reflecting back on her teen years, then goes back to tell her story, when the morning glory blooms jumps back and forth between three time periods and stories throughout the book.
I love desciption in a novel. Cynthia Ruchti uses many similes in this story to make the writing vivid. I’m not so adept at that; my description is pretty straightforward. Perhaps I need to use more similes, but they tend to throw my thoughts off the storyline.
We all got here through pregnancy
Since the beginning of time, pregnancy has been how the earth is populated, whether within the parameters of marriage or not. Every one of us has made mistakes and needs God’s grace. Unwed mothers and their babies particularly need the help and support of the church and their families. I recommend reading when the morning glory blooms to gain an inside view of such situations.
If you live here in Nanaimo and attend First Baptist Church, you can borrow when the morning glory blooms from the library. I asked if they had it, so they ordered it. Thank you Juanita.
The Last Way Home tells the story of Eli Ross, an NHL hockey player who returns home to Prince Edward Island after more than a decade away.
It’s complicated. Why had he never returned, even for a visit, before now? I don’t want to spoil it for readers by giving away reasons.
Will his brothers and mother accept him? He doesn’t expect them to, but he has nowhere else to go.
And then there’s Violet Donaghy, a young lady who, he finds, his family has taken under wing as a family member. She’s cold to him, and extremely secretive. Which he can’t blame her for. After all, he’s not telling anyone his own secrets either.
No sooner does he arrive home, than a disaster occurs, and he decides to prove his integrity by pitching in to help. Helping Violet is like trying to help a snarling cat. But he ignores the snarling and persists. You’ll have to read it to see how that goes.
Plot and Writing Style
The plot seems to fit into a Prodigal Son trope. Both Eli and Violet carry a lot of angst resulting from years of hidden guilty feelings.
Despite his unrelenting efforts, Eli seems to be stuck on a train headed for doom. Will he be able to ditch it in the end?
The story is compelling, but it took me reading on a ways before I began to really like it. Revell asked me for an honest review, so here you have it. To be honest, I’m wondering whether authors these days are trying so hard to ‘show’ rather than ‘tell’, or to stay in a ‘deep point of view’, that the reader is left feeling a bit boggled at times. For example, instead of simply saying that a character felt anxious, we read that her stomach hit the floor. The first time this happened in the book, it took me a while to figure out whether it was literal or a figure of speech. And that was just the start. Both main characters really had problems with their stomachs dropping, hitting the ground, sinking or twisting.
The Last Way Home causes one to rethink secrets along with Eli and Violet. Is divulging them the best thing to do? Or could it cause more harm than good?
Learn more about the author and her books at LizJohnsonBooks.com.
Read other reviews of The Last Way Home on Goodreads by clicking here.
1857 small town Texas with a mix of charming and nefarious characters. Alexandra arrives from New York and must keep her wits on alert. Having escaped from a threatening suitor, she has come to be with her father. Sadly, she is not welcomed by him.
The Spark of Love
However, Mesquite Springs is a very friendly community. As is the guardian angel, in the form of Gabe, who feels compelled to protect her. He takes her under his wing, but all isn’t as it seems.
Who Can She Trust?
He happened to travel on the same coach, and both were surprised to find the hotel still under construction. The townspeople immediately find them lodging and befriend them. But they aren’t the only newcomers, and some are not to be trusted.
My Favourite Kind of Story
This is the third in the Mesquite Springs series. I read the first book, Out of the Embers, but missed the second one. It was nice to run into some of the characters again. I wish the series could carry on.
Amanda Cabot has a very likable writing style. I love her use of words. The characters are charming and the plot intriguing. The setting makes me wish to live in a place like that.
Visit AmandaCabot.com to learn more about the author, sign up for her newsletter, and see what other books she is writing.
Thanks to Revell for sending me this beautiful paperback to review. I’m so glad I chose it–it’s my favourite kind of story.
Her family tree yielded a legacy she never expected. An unfortunate genetic disorder called fragile X syndrome, manifested in her dear little son. Could this be true? Too scary to believe and accept.
This dual-timeline novel alternates chapters between Talie’s story in the recent past in the U.S.A., and Cosima’s story in the mid 1800s in Ireland and England. Talie inherits Cosima’s diary. What she finds in there shocks her. She wonders if she has inherited the fragile X syndrome as a carrier, and passed it on to her son.
The dreaded legacy becomes real
She begins to observe the differences between her son and other toddlers, and is increasingly horrified. Their family doctor assures them that his development is merely slower than some, and he will catch up. But she gets a blood test, and consults with experts. Gradually the truth comes out. Thankfully she has an amazingly supportive husband, whose strength she is able to lean on.
But what are the implications? What does this mean for her as yet unborn child? Will he or she inherit the same genetic flaw? What about Talie’s sister, who has just met a new love interest? Should she drop him because of the possibility that her children may not be normal?
Talie grapples with all these earth-shaking, life-altering, new challenges. She repeatedly returns to Cosima’s diary, afraid of learning more, but at the same time drawing strength from her godly example.
the Oak Leaves is written from the perspective of an author who herself has a son with fragile X syndrome. Her own family tree yielded a legacy she never expected. Maureen Lang’s son is like Royboy, the brother of Cosima. Fragile X is a mysterious and elusive genetic flaw that affects some more than others, and can skip several generations before it once again emerges in an unfortunate form.
Why did this unexpected disaster happen to me?
One wonders why God allows such curses. This is a theological issue that every one of us must wrestle with at some point. Is there some reason for tragedies? It’s the age-old question that plagued Job in the first book ever written. Simply put, some would remind us that the earth is still under Adam’s curse. Although Jesus came to redeem us, we are not yet made perfect. The Bible says that the whole world groans awaiting the day when our redemption is complete. Meanwhile our faith is developed and strengthened as we hang in there together, supporting and encouraging one another.
Visit www.tyndalefiction.com for updates on Maureen Lang’s books.
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A Dance in Donegal transported me from Canada in 2021 to a village on the west coast of Ireland in 1921. I haven’t quite returned home yet. If I really went there and encountered all that this main character did, I doubt I would fare as well as her, though. She was transported from Boston, alone in the unknown.
Vivid Contrasts
A young American woman moves to her mother’s hometown in Ireland.
My thanks to the publisher for sending me a copy of this book to review. I chose it out of the several they published this month because it’s based in Ireland. Two of my great-grandparents were Irish and I’m curious about their land and lives. I wonder if they came from villages like this. Thank you to the author for painting a vivid word-picture. You showed us the setting and the interactions of villagers, good and bad. Simple and poor living conditions, generosity, gossip, lies, loyalty, betrayal, sickness, superstition, hatred and love. Most of all, the miracle of God’s love, which changes lives. You even gave us tastes of the language, integrated in phrases.
Tea and brown bread seem to be mainstays. I wonder whether it’s the same brown bread we eat nowadays here in North America, made with yeast. Perhaps they used a quicker molasses and soda recipe.
Writing Style
Chapters are short; nice for me as I read in between doing other things. The pace is comfortable. I like how the author gets into the heads and hearts of the main characters. Readers can almost feel their emotions with them. However, some of the physical emotive description seemed overdone to me. I couldn’t relate to tears splashing onto my breast, or bile in my throat as a reaction.
I’m glad the main character survived her first few months. At the end, somehow it seemed like a beginning from which the story could continue. Maybe there will be a sequel.
To learn more about the author and upcoming books, go to JENNIFERDEIBEL.COM.
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I received this book from the publisher in exchange for a review, and I chose this one because I like historical fiction with some romance to give it spice. Speaking of which, the main character in this novel is a cook, so you can pick up a few cooking tips from her!
Out of the Embers
Although it is Book One of a series, it reads well as a stand-alone too, as all the strings are tied up at the end. The author tells you what Book Two will be about and includes the first chapter. The focus will shift onto different characters in the same town.
Out of the Embers starts with Evelyn, a young woman who works in an orphanage in 1855, with Polly, a recently orphaned little girl. They are returning to the orphanage with the horse and wagon when they discover that the orphanage has been burned to the ground and there are no survivors.
Fleeing to get away from whoever did this, they end up in a pretty ranch town at the foot of a mountain. A handsome cowboy finds them caught in a thunderstorm and invites them to his home where his mother and sister insist that they stay.
Evelyn and Polly settle in happily to Mesquite Springs but there is always this underlying fear that somebody is after them. Indeed it’s true! More than one person is after them! But I’m not giving away any spoilers, so you’ll just have to read it yourself to find out!
This Christmas novella is set in Stirling, Scotland, in 1894. Â It’s a romance with a different twist. The main story takes place over a period of only three days, from Christmas Eve to Boxing Day, with flashbacks to an incident that occured twelve years previously. Â The author has done her research and it’s interesting to enter into this time and place through the experiences of the characters. Â The main protagonist is a young woman in her 20s who lives away from her family, considered quite independant for those days.
There is a train accident because of a heavy snowfall, through which she gets to know a handsome redheaded man with a terrible secret. Â He wants to be forgiven, but is it possible?
Themes of honesty versus hiding truth, and how holding onto grudges ruins lives emerge. Â Everyone feels bad for the crippled younger brother, but does he deserve their pity?
Liz Curtis Higgs likes to travel to Scotland to do her research and has posted photos she took in Stirling at www.Facebook.com/MyScottishHeart.Â
