Summer in the Spotlight is book 3 in the Prince Edward Island Shores series, by Liz Johnson. Although it works to read as a stand-alone, I felt it would have been best to start with book 1. Even though I had read book 2, at times I was missing bits of backstory.
This book features Levi Ross, the youngest brother in the Ross family. The previous two books feature other family members. Their stories carry on in this one as secondary characters.
I’m not sure if it was just me and the things going on in my life right now, but it took me a long time to get through this book. Normally I like to linger on details, but I found it hard to make sense of them, so I skimmed. Even at that, it wasn’t until the last few chapters where Levi and Kelsey’s romance finally picked up, that the story carried me better. But the wedding at the end featured characters from previous books in the series. Somewhat distracting from the main story.
You might like this book if you are drawn to a painfully shy character matched with an accomplished extrovert. And again, I’d recommend reading the series in order.
My thanks to Revell for sending me this paperback at my request.
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.
Her Only Wish is a slightly confusing title to me, as Betsy actually has a list of wishes–her ‘Life List‘. Not to mention she wishes to experience the things on her Life List during one summer month while she is visiting a friend in Pinecraft, Florida.
Betsy’s health condition (asthma) has held her back until now. Her parents have sheltered her and prevented her from doing normal childhood activities like riding a bike and swimming. While she’s away from her parents for this month, she seizes the opportunity to experience this list of things she’s always wanted to do.
She starts by enrolling in golf lessons, where she meets August Troyer. August has also been emerging from controlling parents. He wrestles with life decisions. Should he become a missionary, following in the footsteps of his parents, or continue to manage the golf course for his aunt and uncle? To tell you the result would be a spoiler, but I can say that, like August, missions was a ‘calling’ that I also struggled with in my younger years. This story would have been helpful to me back then.
The story also features two sisters who offer swimming lessons to Betsy. Betsy and her Life List are an inspiration to them and to everyone she meets.
This is the second in the series, ‘A Season in Pinecraft‘. I haven’t read the first book, ‘Her Heart’s Desire‘. Her Only Wish stood alone fine without it. There is enough backstory for me to know that in the first book Betsy met the friend she’s staying with.
Her Only Wish is a sweet story, paced a bit on the slow side. As an older reader I like that, but it seemed to take me a long time to finish. Perhaps because I had distractions this month with company from out of town.
With every memory that emerges as her brain slowly heals from the accident, earthshaking consequences are triggered.
The accident erased the past eight years of her life. Now back home after nearly a year in a rehab center, random memories keep emerging. She must solve the personal mysteries of her own life. But can she trust her own mind? Or her husband? Or her mother? Friends?
And then there’s her teenage daughter, going through her own sorrows and struggles.
This is the first book I’ve read by Janine Rosche. I found it a bit of a roller coaster ride. Points of View alternate between mother and daughter, who are each coping in their own way with the loss of a family member.
It was interesting to learn something about the way memories can work after a traumatic brain injury, and how the brain can fill in with vivid, sometimes false memories. To be sabotaged by one’s own mind is tragic, not only for oneself but for family members and others who may be affected by your actions.
Issues touched on in the story include grief, faithfulness in love relationships, commitment, betrayal, and exploring what’s really important in life and values and family. It could trigger some great discussions for a book club.
Thank you to Revell for sending me this book at my request. This is my honest review.
Should there be a second time around for Mallory’s grandmother’s decrepit but quaint shop and suite above? It was too charming not to keep. Mallory Farrell, an interior designer, saw potential.
Besides, this place held nostalgic memories for her. Her grandmother must have left it to her for a reason.
But the whole seaside village was losing interest to tourists in favor of more appealing towns. Apathy had taken hold among the residents. And Grayson Matthews had already dreamed up a new mall as a revitalization scheme. It was going to be right here if she would sell him the building so he could tear it down.
What! Tear it down? No, no, no. That caused Mallory to dig in her heels. She saw romance in the old building. A peculiar definition of romance that she’d once found. She wrote it in calligraphy, framed it, and hung it on the wall.
Romance: A quality or feeling of mystery, excitement. Remoteness from everyday life.
I won’t spoil the story for you by telling you what happens to Mallory’s romantic, Parisian vision for the village. You’ll have to read it for yourself if you want to know. I’ll just tell you that I enjoyed very much being transported into Mallory’s world. Melody Carlson describes vividly the scenes and emotions of the characters.
Second time around for Mallory
I could relate to Mallory, a divorced mother of adult children, trying her best to make a go of her life. The seemingly insurmountable challenges she faces. Difficulties with people and how she handles them with a godly perspective, a combination of prayer, kindness, and drawing the line where necessary.
Thank you to Revell for choosing me to review this beautiful paperback. It’s always a pleasure to share my honest opinions and feedback. I would recommend the book to people who like interior decorating and charming shops in seaside villages. And Mallory’s peculiar definition of romance.
Click here: Second Time Around to see the book and other reviews on Amazon. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
Cat Cranwell is famous for a living. That is, until disaster strikes. She and her business partner Bobby Braswell are launching Club, a new social media app. Bobby promises it will soon outdo Instagram and Facebook.
The extravagant celebration party is held on Cat’s 30th birthday, in her newly acquired posh Manhattan apartment. As it’s about to begin, her woodsy park ranger Uncle Terry and his assistant ranger Zaiah turn up at the door. Just as her best friend Selena sets off a calamity with the caterer. In the middle of Bobby urgently trying to convince her to sign an international contract written in several different languages.
Fast Paced
Yes, Melissa Ferguson really knows how to move a story along at a breakneck pace. The whole story is written in first person. At first, I felt uncomfortable in Cat’s skin, as she’s not much like me. But when she was compelled to leave the city and take refuge in the mountains of Montana with her uncle, I began to feel there might be hope for her.
Will Cat be able to remain famous for a living? Or will she even want to? I won’t spoil the story by telling you. There are a few twists and turns. I had to go back and re-read the beginning before writing this review. The first time I skimmed and missed the details that launched Cat into dire straits. You have to read slowly enough to take in everything going on in those first few paragraphs because it’s all important in the story.
This is the second book by Melissa Ferguson that I’ve read. I recommend it to readers who like a fast pace with humor and some underlying serious thought. Thanks to Net Galley for providing me the ARC to review. This is my honest opinion.
Famous for a Living is due to be published May 16, 2023, but is available now to pre-order at https://amzn.to/3JDF3Zp. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Honor’s Refuge is the third book in the Love & Honor series. Personally, I liked it even better than the first one, Honor Bound, by Hallee Bridgeman, 2022, Revell (Baker Publishing Group). I didn’t read the second book, but they work as stand-alone novels too, so you don’t have to read them in order.
Whereas Honor Bound focuses on tribal warfare in Africa, Honor’s Refuge is all in America and focuses on a shelter for abuse victims. That’s a topic of special interest to me because I have both stayed in one and worked in one.
I appreciate the way the author skillfully balances suspense, better times, and romance. Important things happen during those better times between adrenaline and other hormone arousals. Things like other kinds of relationships, realizations, and God’s goodness.
This story continues with the life of Phil Osbourne, one of the characters in Honor Bound, and introduces Melissa Braxton, who runs the shelter. Melissa has been wondering where her younger sister ended up ever since they were tragically separated at an early age. I don’t want to give away spoilers, but trust me, the story is good. It kept me reading till I finished it, way past my bedtime.
At the end of the novel, there are thought-provoking questions to discuss with other readers or just think through yourself. And tasty recipes to try.
Connect with the author at HALLEEBRIDGEMAN.COM. Find this and other Revell books at www.revellbooks.com.
I chose and received this book from the publisher to give my honest review. Thank you, Revell.
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.
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.
Deep inside of the grumpy old man called Ove is a very sad heart. Bit by bit, over a lifetime of disappointments, he’s grown a thick crust. He’s not up for any more hurts–all he wants is to die in peace.
Yet it seems he cannot even do that. Because the people around him can’t do anything right and he must help them. Sonja would want him to. And that’s the kind of people he and his father before him are.
And his neighbours, including a stray cat, expect his help. Begrudgingly he starts by doing the least he can, accompanied by swearing and complaining. You’ll have to read the book to find out how that works out.
I found this book in the little give-one-take-one library in our complex. It was originally written in Swedish, and was translated to English. But the sentiments of the man called Ove could likely be found in any country. I know I could relate to him myself. Yes, I can easily get quite grumpy. After many disappointments in life, a person can grow a crusty exterior to insulate themselves, and use word-swords to strike out at the stupid people all around. I’m sure many people would sometimes just rather die in peace than deal with any more ****.
But magic happens. It happens in this story and it happens in life. Even opening your heart a tiny crack to help someone just a little, whether they deserve it or not, changes you deep down inside.
This Contemporary Fiction, written from the Point Of View of Ove, mostly, except for some Omniscient comments from the author, is not racy or romantic, but somber and darkly humorous. I’m not sure younger adults could relate much to Ove, but as I come from his generation, I definitely could. The first line, “Ove is fifty-nine,” immediately tips off potential readers as to the age category of the Main Character. In the first paragraph we find out that the type of car he drives is important to him, and that he’s uncomfortable and grumpy in a store that sells iPads because he doesn’t even know how to talk to the sales clerk about what he wants. Haha, I’ve certainly had that experience! A Man Called Ove was a bestseller, so perhaps I’m not the only reader that relates.
Find out more about the author at www.fredrikbackman.com.
This website is a participant in the Indigo Affiliate Program which allows it to earn commissions from Indigo if you make a purchase on indigo.ca after linking through this website.
The era subsequent to the Vietnam war in the United States is full of edgy racial integration. The Nature of Small Birds isn’t really a bird book–it’s a story of a girl from Viet Nam adopted into an American family. I enjoy watching the various birds that come to Vancouver Island, but am not really interested enough to buy another book about them.
It’s about adoption. Americans fight their enemies, then adopt their children.
When Revell presented me with a choice of books to review, I saw that this one was actually about an adopted girl from Viet Nam. One of her names means ‘bird’, and the author seems fascinated by birds.
Themes of family and adoption and Asia interest me. The back cover blurb says the girl plans to return to Viet Nam to find her birth mother. That sounded intriguing. What adventures in Viet Nam would it entail? But as I read on and on, every so often Mindy’s thoughts of returning to Viet Nam were touched on, but never got very far until the very end. We never do find out how it goes.
It’s about the era subsequent to the Vietnam war.
The book reads like three diaries–of the father, mother, and sister of the adopted girl. The timeline of the diaries alternates between 1975, 1988, and 2013, finally ending in 2014. It’s the story of how they came to adopt Mindy, and grew to love her. How she adapted to them, but kept her birth mother and homeland in her heart.
I like the writing style. It’s not hard to follow, and there are lots of homey details that I could relate to, about relationships, food, popular music, humble houses and cars. We see through three points of view, and are able to understand how Mindy and other characters feel through these.
Mainly, the story is a snapshot of the era subsequent to the Viet Nam war, in the United States. If you find the era and family vignettes evocative, you will like this book. If you’re looking for a suspenseful plot, that you will not find. Nor much information about actual birds.
Author’s website.
Susie Finkbeiner is the award-winning author of several books. She welcomes people to get to know her on her website at SusieFinkbeiner.com.
My website is an Indigo/Chapters affiliate. At no extra cost to you, if you click on the above link and make a purchase, I may receive a small kickback to help pay for the cost of keeping up the website. Enjoy shopping, and don’t forget to look for this review in the book section. https://www.chapters.indigo.ca/en-ca/books/the-nature-of-small-birds
I found this free ebook offer several months ago and downloaded it onto my Kindle app to read later. I always like Robin Hatcher’s books. The pace suits me–not too speedy, but not draggy either. Robin writes novels from a Christian viewpoint, but is not preachy.
Women’s Fiction–relatable events in a woman’s life, from teens to falling in love, motherhood and beyond.
Ribbon of Years appealed to me because it is the (fictional) life story of a woman, starting from the age of 15. There is a dual timeline, and it starts out with a woman discovering a box of the main character’s mementos; items that signify meaningful events and people in her life. As each item is removed from the box, the associated story from the main character’s life is told.
The first item in the box leads to the story of Miriam as a precocious fifteen year old who can’t wait to break loose from her parents and her little hometown. She sets out for Hollywood with dreams of becoming a movie star. I won’t spoil it on you by telling how this works out.
Her friend Jacob, who is in love with her as a teenager, is with her throughout the story, as are some of the other characters. Miriam goes through ups and downs over her life. I cried along with her several times, because I have gone through similar experiences.
Initially Miriam was disillusioned with her parents’ Christianity and church, and mad at God. But eventually she realized that God was her best (and sometimes only) friend. Her faith in God keeps her strong and steadfast through the journey of her life, giving her joy in spite of hard knocks that would have left others bitter.
If you, like me, appreciate stories that are more realistic and meaningful than run-of-the-mill formulaic romances or suspense novels, I recommend this book to you. As an older woman looking back over a lifetime of ups and downs and experiences that are not straightforward, I could relate to this main character. Very touching.
Affiliate Links
This website is a participant in the Indigo Affiliate Program which allows it to earn commissions from Indigo if you make a purchase on indigo.ca after linking through this website. Have fun shopping! I appreciate your support.
Author’s Website
Find out more about Robin Lee Hatcher and other books she has written at: www.robinleehatcher.com.
Moral Compass, by Danielle Steel, addresses the topic of rape in the setting of an elite boarding school in the United States.
The novel starts out on the first day back to school in September, with faculty arriving and observing students and their parents unloading baggage from cars. Many characters are introduced and we learn that it’s the first year that the school is accepting female students. We don’t get into the action until chapter three, at Halloween.
The pace picks up quickly from there. Danielle Steel brings out the unique personalities of the characters vividly. Each person involved reacts differently to the incident, and there are many more people affected than one might think. Faculty, board members, parents, police, lawyers, and the students themselves. Which way will the dominoes fall? Each family of the students involved has their own sub-story, with surprising results.
The complex relationships between all the characters is very interesting. As a reader I learned a lot about how the American justice system works.
Moral Compass appealed to me as a parent, a former teacher, and women’s worker. So glad my son picked it out as a Christmas gift for me.
Check out the above affiliate link to Chapters/Indigo, and look for Moral Compass while you’re in there. If you purchase anything through my link, at no extra cost to you, it will help me keep my website running. Thank you, I hope you find something you like.
![Famous for a Living by [Melissa Ferguson]](https://i0.wp.com/m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41ftuOCBLhL.jpg?w=525&ssl=1)
