Book Review: Kind by Kellyn Roth

Okay, a group of my friends is doing a fun thing!  We're all coming together to make a surprise blog party for our mutual friend, Kellyn Roth.  She's a dedicated writer and a great encouragement to all of us and is also the founder and manager at the Reveries Company author services group.  You've perhaps read my review a few posts ago for "Souls Astray," which I really enjoyed, so for today's party I'm reviewing a short story of hers, "Kind."

 

 

Here's the synopsis:
Lt. Neil Hudson is sure to have a rotten Christmas.

How can he have anything but a rotten Christmas when he's stuck in war-torn Germany away from his family, friends, and all hope of a decent turkey dinner?

That's when the Slades come into his life.

Here's my review (which is overly short because the story is short):

5 stars

Neil Hudson is the protagonist of the tale, and I instantly bonded with a lonely military man feeling growly about Christmas away from home.  When he accidentally stumbles on a family in need, though, my heart went head over heels for him, and for what he did when he started reaching out to them.  So many books automatically portray all Germans as bad, but this view is fresh and engaging; the German people were all too often the first victims of Hitler's regime.  Here is a warm and Godly family trying to eke out survival after the total downfall of their society. 

It was also refreshing to find a Christmas story that didn't focus on romance.  I feel like the Christmas story market is highly oversaturated with Hallmark-style works (which have their place for light entertainment, but shouldn't be the only thing available) and that it leaves those who don't enjoy that style high and dry for the season.  This book avoids clichés and is even set in one of my favorite time frames, WW2! 

I read Christmas stories throughout the year, but if you're one that doesn't, perhaps you'd be in the mood to include this story in a bit of midyear "Christmas in July" in about ten days.  It's free if you have a kindle unlimited account, and of this post is just 1.99 for the ebook purchase.  I highly recommend it for personal reading and also family read-aloud.

Here's Kellyn's website:
https://kellynrothauthor.com/

Also, a lot of sweet folks wrote notes to Kellyn in a Google doc, but since I'm a serial misser-of-deadlines, I didn't get it added in time.  So, Kellyn, here is my note of encouragement!

Dear Kellyn,
You're a huge encouragement to me as a writer and I strongly admire your commitment to excellence, even down to researching the small things of life in other eras, such as how people shopped, and even to stopping for a while in editing to get that one awkward sentence right.  You take that a step further by mentoring other authors and even running a company to help writers get it right.  You're one of my top favorite indie authors, and I'm glad and proud to call you a friend.
~Hannah

Book Review: A Borrowed Dream by Amanda Cabot

4.5 stars
Finished reading 8/17/18

Synopsis:
Catherine Whitfield is sure that she will never again be able to trust anyone in the medical profession after the town doctor's excessive bleeding treatments killed her mother. Despite her loneliness and her broken heart, she carries bravely on as Cimarron Creek's dutiful schoolteacher, resigned to a life without love or family, a life where dreams rarely come true.

Austin Goddard is a newcomer to Cimarron Creek. Posing as a rancher, he fled to Texas to protect his daughter from a dangerous criminal. He's managed to keep his past as a surgeon a secret. But when Catherine Whitfield captures his heart, he wonders how long he will be able to keep up the charade.

With a deft hand, Amanda Cabot teases out the strands of love, deception, and redemption in this charming tale of dreams deferred and hopes becoming reality.

My review:
This is the second book in Cabot's Cimarron Creek series, set in Victorian-era Texas.  The first book, A Stolen Heart, featured Catherine quite a bit as she befriended the new-in-town Lydia Crawford, the heroine of book one.  From that book we saw her lose her mother and lose her trust in a man she had loved.

This story picks up with Catherine still teaching at the local school as she was in the first book.  She is living alone and trying not to be lonely, so when an abused boy catches her eye it's easy for her to dream of rescuing him and taking him in.  But his abuser is his drunken father, who's not about to give up his boy, and her efforts to convince the man that the boy is worth sending to school are sure to meet with some decided resistance.

Austin, the hero, is new in town.  He has more secrets than any man ought to have, and a little girl who's sure to steal everyone's heart.  He seems to know quite a bit about health and wounds for a normal rancher, but he brushes it off and goes on with hardly an explanation, which of course makes the heroine and the readers instantly wonder what he means by the knowledge and how he came to know it.

Before long Catherine finds herself acting mother to both the abused boy and to Austin's lonely little girl, and these are some of my favorite parts from the story.  I really, really enjoy such stories!  And then we also have more of the continued mystery from the first book, which I won't specify because of spoilers, other than to say how much I enjoyed getting to know Grace through this story.

We just get comfortable with the town and characters, though, when danger arrives in town, and it's time to keep those pages flying to the very end.  Wow...I didn't see some of the stuff at the ending coming!

In all, an enjoyable and suspenseful read!

Thanks to the publisher for a free reading copy.  A favorable review was not required.

Book review: Far Side of the Sea by Kate Breslin

Far Side of the Sea, Kate Breslin: 5 stars

Finished reading 2/10/19
Synopsis:
In spring 1918, Lieutenant Colin Mabry, a British soldier working with MI8 after suffering injuries on the front, receives a message by carrier pigeon. It is from Jewel Reyer, the woman he once loved and who saved his life--a woman he believed to be dead. Traveling to France to answer her urgent summons, he desperately hopes this mission will ease his guilt and restore the courage he lost on the battlefield.

Colin is stunned, however, to discover the message came from Jewel's half sister, Johanna. Johanna, who works at a dovecote for French Army Intelligence, found Jewel's diary and believes her sister is alive in the custody of a German agent. With spies everywhere, Colin is skeptical of Johanna, but as they travel across France and Spain, a tentative trust begins to grow between them.

When their pursuit leads them straight into the midst of a treacherous plot, danger and deception turn their search for answers into a battle for their lives.

I devour Kate Breslin books like potato chips, so no surprise that I loved this one!  Here's my review:

What a treat to read another Kate Breslin book!  I've really struggled this year to read any ebooks, but this one was a quick and absorbing read and kept me flipping pages despite that difficulty.  While there isn't a lot about faith, it's clear they are steadied by their belief in God.

The twists and turns in the plot left me reeling.  We met Colin in Not By Sight very briefly, but this book stands alone.  I loved seeing more of Marcus in this one!  Colin is an interesting young man from the very beginning, and I found it easy to care about him and Johanna from the very beginning.  I guessed one plot facet at 53% and thought "there--I got it--that's the big reveal!" only to have it told to me at 62% and have plenty of book left to read.  :)  So the plotting was extremely well done and very absorbing.

I do love a good spy story and this one is one I'd easily recommend. 

Thanks to Bethany House and NetGalley for a free copy.  A favorable review was not required.

Book review: The Illusionist’s Apprentice by Kristy Cambron

Not a fancy picture because I read the ebook version!  Pardon it, please.  But still a beautiful cover!


This week, I read Kristy Cambron’s fourth book, one that is more mystery than she normally writes—exactly what I always like to hear, with my love for mysterious doings in stories!  I gave it four stars. Here’s the review I posted on Goodreads:

I tried to start this a couple times a few months ago and never got past the first chapter or two.  Thanks to a group read, I dove in and soon found myself entirely absorbed.  Then I had the opposite problem of being unable to lay the book down at all!

The mystery of Peale and his double death soon morphs into a bigger mystery of who is calling the shots in a very literal sense.  I enjoyed the atmosphere of the Prohibition years and the unique character Wren is.  Add to that Elliot and his fascination with Wren and her art of illusion, and we have all the elements for a good tale.  The story has several shocker twists that left my mouth ajar.

I didn't care for the lack of specification about what a seance could do (for those who don't know, it is a summons of demons)...it was rather chuckled as a materialistic fraud, but the portion of the story that dealt with actual spiritualism was somewhat dismissed as being unreal.  Spiritualism as a sort of religion wasn't mentioned or defined beyond using the word to describe characters and to mention seances to contact the dead as a mainstay of their philosophy.  Wren and Elliot speak of faith and prayer and make a few comments about "only one man ever rose" as an oblique reference to Christ (which isn't truth anyway, since they are talking of people being summoned from death—Jesus was different because He had the power to raise up from the dead without being summoned—He Himself restored many, including Lazarus, Jairus's daughter, the widow's son, and the saints at His death).  In a story so full of spiritual cloak-and-dagger, I missed Jesus.  I needed to see that clear ending conclusion that the Jesus way was the ultimate answer to the claims of the spiritualists.

Also, several phrases were too modern for the twenties...most notably "gone missing," a 1990s term used more than once.  "Alright" used for "all right" also bugged me.

But, overall, a beautifully written book that is worth a read and very hard to put down!

Thanks to NetGalley for providing a free copy for an honest review.

Book review: The Sea Before Us by Sarah Sundin

I must say, I have read every Sarah Sundin book to date and was eagerly awaiting this release.  The only downside?  Now I have to wait until next year for Adler's story!  Here's the glowing five-star review I posted on Goodreads.

Oh, what a delightful read!  I won't deny that I didn't wish to slap Dorothy a few times for her naïve attitude toward the guy who had too many women in his life, but even then the character roused some caring attitude in me.  She believed his words because she wanted to believe them, and she didn't want to believe the opposite.  And, given that she had staked every hope in her battered life on what he said was true, I can even forgive her the willful blindness.  Not saying it was right to accept his kisses when she knew she wasn't the only girl getting them, though!

I did love her work and found it very interesting.  The whole idea of making a map for the invasion based on pictures was something I wasn't aware of and was fascinating.  

Wyatt was a neat hero.  His good humor and his strong faith put me on his side right away, and it was a delight to watch him encourage all the best qualities in Dorothy.  He's determined to be a man of honor, and when Dorothy challenges him on things like his decision not to contact family, he's humble about it.  

The plot...oh, my!  There were a couple of epic twists that had me on the edge of my seat.  Who knew a little poking after an embezzler could lead to such a discovery?  Whew!  

Highly recommended, especially to lovers of WW2.

Thanks to Revell for a free review copy.  A positive review was not required.

Book review: Beneath a Prairie Moon by Kim Vogel Sawyer

Ah, happy sigh!  This is one of the books that I have to digest before I can manage to review it.  The cover is gorgeous, but the story inside just as much so.  I knew I would love it, since it's Kim Vogel Sawyer, and each phase of the story was like unfolding a new leaf of enjoyment.

It's impossible to be tempted to peek ahead because the plot twists around on itself so many times, which is right up my alley.  I love having books surprise me with unexpected occurrences! No great predictability in this story, excepting only that the hero and heroine are going to end up being interested in each other.  

I loved the original twist on the matchmaker story!  A bride who's been returned to the agency more than once and gets reassigned to assistant and etiquette coach.  But do we see a prissy etiquette story?  Ah, no!  That's not all there is to it, because...Twists.  Indeed.  All the way from sunburn to kidnapping.  

One of my favorite things was the deep spiritual lessons.  I've heard the topic as naseum in other CF books, but this approach is fresh and engaging and feels authentic.  

Content/language: Nothing objectionable.  Could be given safely to ages 14/15 

Thanks to Blogging for Books for a free review copy.  A positive review was not required.

Book review: A Dangerous Legacy

Along with having one of the prettiest covers of the year, this one is one of my favorite Camden has ever written.  I gave it a rating of 4 out of 5 stars.  Here is what I said in my review on Goodreads:

I definitely enjoyed this tale of New York, reporters, Morse Code, and danger.  It came in the mail today, and I was glad to dive right in.  I intended to read a single chapter and get back to the other book I'm reading, but the story grabbed me from the beginning.  

Lucy is likable from the start, and it's easy to identify with her longing to find justice and to shake off her uncle's stalkers, who are content to spy on her life and keep her and her brother from realizing their full potential in life.  From there the story moves swiftly, as she encounters Sir Colin Beckwith and as he stumbles across her family's nasty history.  With Colin's eyes fresh on the family secrets, Lucy and Colin quickly realize that much more is going on in the family than she first imagined.  In other words, the Saratoga Drakes aren't scrupulous about crushing more than family, if others get in the way of their plans.

Before long, Colin is mixed into the issue, despite his being an unlikely ally.  After all, he's a reporter at heart, and the draw of a good story is hard to resist.

It fell just shy of five stars for me, but makes four (very good) easily.  It's Camden's best in years (since Beyond All Dreams, in my opinion)—well-researched, detailed history, and two lead characters with clear chemistry.  (Their banter is excellent.  Brings to mind classic movies like Desk Set and His Girl Friday...)

Things that helped shy away from an "excellent" rating: 

-An "oh my heavens" exclamation

-"Hear, hear" misspelled as "here, here" (pet peeve)

-Woman referred to as "hero"...in 1903, she'd be offended.  She's a heroine.

-Content.  Lucy entered a situation that requires a forced bathing (not something she was expecting ahead of time).  For me, it got a bit too far into her feelings as the two women scrubbed her down.  It's only a paragraph, but I'm intensely visual and didn't want to have that image.

It's also MUCH better edited than the last two releases, and the words flow with a lot more authenticity.  Definitely worth a read!

Thanks to the publisher for a free review copy.  A positive review is not required.

...This is the first book I got through Bethany House Publishing's blogger reviewer program.  I was so excited to have this copy come in the mail!  Be watching for more Bethany House new release reviews here in the near future.  

Has anyone else read Elizabeth Camden's work?  Do you have a favorite of her books?

Book review: A Heart Most Certain

A Heart Most Certain, by Melissa Jagears

This book was such a delightful read!  Here's the review I wrote for it:

When the author asked if I'd be willing to be an influencer for her new book, I jumped at the chance...because I'd already loved the novella set in this town, and I really liked Lydia and her fascination for books.  

It was a delightful moment to get this in the mail and realize what sort of enjoyment I was in for!  I'd just gotten it started, though, when a sickness and death in the family brought my intelligent-reader brain to a halt.  There was no way I could create a nice, reasoned review...so now, this is embarrassingly late!  

I savored so many details in this story.  My favorite part was Lydia's passion for good reading, something I obviously share with her.  I was very impressed that Jagears didn't only include known classics of today (which is an author pet peeve of mine, as it is unrealistic) but mentioned others such as Laura Jean Libbey, a popular writer of the day who is mostly forgotten today.  +1 for that detail!

The little working details were all there, too, careful as worldbuilding in a fantasy (which, indeed, does share many characteristics of a recreation of a historical world).  Lydia's good dresses were handmedowns; many of her gowns show careful mending.  This in particular is delightfully refreshing, as many heroines are portrayed with lavish and perfect wardrobes.  For certain scenes, the horses and carriages/conveyances are mentioned, with a few words of why certain styles are suited to rich men/poor men/etc.

Well, then...the hero.  I suppose if you've read the back cover, you're pretty sure who he turns out to be.  The town's most famous miser is a hero in disguise, only--best part--he doesn't think he really is.  A fine man content to hide his qualities under a disguise?  One who prefers to help fallen women than to hurt them or censure them?  Well, it makes for good reading.

I'll stop here, lest I betray too much of the content...but I love it, and if you enjoy history, or just-right romance, or a good bit of page-turning suspense, be sure to give this book a try!

Thanks to the author for my free copy.