Carol Moncado

Irish immigrant Seamus Hanley is a lost soul, haunted by his past as a U.S. Army deserter and living alone in the wilderness of the Rocky Mountains in 1849. But after witnessing a deadly stage coach crash, he finds purpose in the scattered wreckage — a letter with a picture of a beautiful and captivating woman named Ashlyn living in San Francisco at the height of the Gold Rush.

Moved by her written plea for help, he abandons all and sets out on an epic journey across the wild and picturesque American frontier. While being pursued by those who want to hang him, Seamus encounters fascinating characters including a young Pauite Indian who makes the ultimate sacrifice in helping Seamus to cross the snowy Yosemite Valley.

Battered but changed for the better, Seamus reaches San Francisco on Christmas Eve as the city burns in the tragic fire of 1849. But there is little time for rest, as an even greater, more harrowing adventure involving Ashlyn is about to begin.

This is Michael’s sophomore offering and he does not disappoint. From the beginning, he grabbed my interest and didn’t let go. He has a way with descriptions that I envy and wish I could emulate.

The story lines are interesting. The characters are memorable. I laughed and cried with them. From Seamus’s neighbor at the beginning to the appearance of his uncle near the end, nearly every character had some definable quirk that made him or her unforgettable. The final resolution was a bit of a twist I didn’t see coming.

Michael is an author to watch. I normally read books with a bit more romance in them, but Michael held my interest regardless.

I’ve just downloaded his upcoming release, Songs of Shenandoah,  for review and look forward to reading it soon.

Overall rating: 8.25 out of 10 stars [mostly because I prefer more romance]

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an ecopy in exchange for my honest review.

The sadness and the tenderness of life are felt so acutely in the presence of beauty, and love is revealed more in our sorrow than in our joy. -Solomon, from Solomon’s Song

The wisest of all kings, beloved son of King David and his wife Bathsheba, builder of a prosperous empire, lover to many wives and concubines-King Solomon was once merely a son of David with no guarantee of ever taking the throne. On the cusp of adulthood, with no direction in life, Solomon found himself infatuated . . . in love with a lowly shepherdess, a young maiden chosen for his father to serve David in his later years.

Overhead clouds ceased to discharge life-giving rain, and the anxious people looked to King David for relief from the famine. In their weakness they turned from Yahweh and sacrificed to foreign gods. But David’s eldest son, Adonijah had a plan, one that could cost the Benjamites their lives. Revenge.

Solomon was still Bathsheba’s eldest son’s and with it came certain family expectations. His mother wanted nothing less than the throne for her eldest living son. He must marry a princess first, and then he can marry any common woman he desired.   

Solomon struggled against family expectations and his chief rival, his own brother, Adonijah; he fought against the most disappointing aspect of his quest to become ruler, “Love is nothing, when pitted against strength and power.”

Ugh.

I’ve said many times I only offer to review books I expect to enjoy and therefore rarely give lower than a 7 or so [and really, rarely less than an 8]. This is going to be an exception :(.

I wanted to enjoy Solomon’s Song, and while it’s not BY FAR the worst book I read this year, it’s definitely not in my top 10. :/

I found the whole thing odd. Solomon and Shulamit [which struck me as an odd name] were infatuated with each other early on, sure, but love? Didn’t buy it.

It was 300+ pages of fairly torturous will they/won’t they wherein Shulamit becomes Solomon’s step-mom [in a sense, she has an unconsummated marriage to King David]. Included in there is some intrigue – how would Solomon end up being king? Would the Benjaminites get their revenge on King David’s family by attacking Bathsheba and/or Solomon? How exactly will Adonijah get his comeupance?

And so on.

By the end I was just waiting for Solomon and Shulamit to get back together. But even that was a let down. 🙁 They’re “married” and then the epilogue is a weird combination of scripture and the author telling us what happened, not a true epilogue in the story sense.

I wanted to give it a better rating. I wanted to enjoy it more. But I just didn’t. 🙁

Overall rating: 6 out of 10 stars

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an ecopy in exchange for my honest review.

When truth doesn’t make sense, will lies prevail? Cathy Cramer is a former lawyer and investigative blogger who writes commentary on high-profile homicides. When she finds a threatening note warning her that she’s about to experience the same kind of judgment and speculation that she dishes out in her blog, Cathy writes it off as mischief . . . until her brother’s wife is murdered and all the ‘facts’ point to him. The killer has staged the crime to make the truth too far-fetched to believe. Working to solve the murder and clear her brother’s name, Cathy and her two sisters, Holly and Juliet, moonlight as part-time private investigators. Juliet, a stay-at-home mom of two boys, and Holly, a scattered ne’er-do-well who drives a taxi, put aside their fear to hunt down the real killer. Stakes rise when their brother’s grieving five-year-old son is kidnapped. As police focus on the wrong set of clues, the three sisters and their battered detective friend are the only hope for solving this bizarre crime, saving the child, and freeing their brother.

I think this may have been my first Terri Blackstock book, though I know I have at least one other in the house [however, my TBR stack gets bigger and bigger… and there’s lots of books still in it… including that one…].

The book was more of a suspense with a bit of romance. Most suspense books I read tend toward “romantic suspense” where the two threads share more equal time. Regardless, I enjoyed Truth-Stained Lies and getting to know this family. It seems to be the first in a series and I hope to see future books and get to know them better.

The twists and turns will keep you guessing until the very end. I did guess “whodunit” fairly early on – it’s possible others could have guessed sooner, but I did pick it up on the first relatively big clue. Other twists kept me guessing until the very end.

I look forward to the next next release, Distortion, comes out next spring. It’s definitely on my “to look for on NetGalley” list!

Overall rating: 8.25 out of 10 stars

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an ecopy in exchange for my honest review.

Jody Hedlund Brings History to Life Like Few Others 

In 1763 Massachusetts, Susanna Smith has grown up with everything she’s ever wanted, except one thing: an education. Because she’s a female, higher learning has been closed to her, but her quick mind and quicker tongue never back down from a challenge. She’s determined to put her status to good use, reaching out to the poor and deprived. And she knows when she marries well, she will be able to continue her work with the less fortunate. 

Ben Ross grew up a farmer’s son and has nothing to his name but his Harvard education. A poor country lawyer, he doesn’t see how he’ll be able to fulfill his promise to make his father proud of him. When family friends introduce him to the Smith family, he’s drawn to quick-witted Susanna but knows her family expects her to marry well. When Susanna’s decision to help an innocent woman no matter the cost crosses with Ben’s growing disillusionment with their British rulers, the two find themselves bound together in what quickly becomes a very dangerous fight for justice.

Jody Hedlund brings true stories to life like no one else – and this story is one of my favorites.

The love story of John and Abigail Adams is the stuff of legends – literally – and Jody does a great a job of bringing them to life.

Ben is a Patriot, though they’re not truly up and running like they would be a decade later. Abigail Adams is credited with saying, “John is so ambitious, he is always the first in line to be hanged.” You can see in Ben how John became that man. John was one of the main agitators for Independence and the British were determined to bring them all down. Of course, they don’t, but that’s neither here nor there in Rebellious Heart. In fact, it ends long before the Revolution truly begins.

Ben is a poor farmer-turned-lawyer, defending the innocent, though everyone else believes his client is the one who did the awful things he’s accused of. John was willing to defend the British soldiers after the Boston Massacre because he believed it would be worse for them to be represented by an incompetent barrister and have those soldiers be executed given the nature of the massacre itself [look it up; it wasn’t quite the massacre the papers etc of the time made it out to be]. Ben was that kind of man.

Abigail was a shrewd business woman [seriously – the woman found a way to make oodles of money LEGALLY and not unethically during the War – having John send home goods from France and selling them at even a modest profit was A LOT of money]. You see the seeds of who Abigail becomes in Susanna. She risks everything for a runaway who needs her help. She loves Ben unreservedly despite the difference in their ages and stations in life.

Though the story doesn’t follow that of John and Abigail exactly, it’s true to their characters and who they would become in the quest to become a country. Life in the colonies is often brutish with controlling British forces. So it is here, but Ben and Susanna not only survive but thrive and go on to become the founders of our country.

Or something like that ;).

John and Abigail spent much of their marriage apart. During this time they wrote letter after letter, often addressed to “My Dearest Friend.” You can find some of their letters available for download from Project Gutenberg as The Familiar Letters of John and his wife Abigail Adams during the Revolution. Many more letters can be found with a simple Google search or you can purchase other collections from Amazon [I may have gotten one of them last week] or elsewhere.

I went into this book expecting to love it and I wasn’t disappointed.

Rebellious Heart gets 9.25 out of 10 stars, and not just because of the Adams connection.

Thanks to Jody and the publisher for an influencer copy in exchange for my review.

When her friend vanishes from a cruise ship, reporter Darcy St. James isn’t satisfied with their explanation that she simply left her job of her own accord. Something isn’t lining up, and Darcy believes the only way to find the truth is to put herself in Abby’s position. Within days, Darcy learns her friend wasn’t the only person to disappear mysteriously. Last summer, a woman vanished under almost identical circumstances. 

Gage McKenna has taken a summer-long stint leading adventure excursions for the passengers of various cruise lines that dock for a few days of sightseeing. He’s surprised to find Darcy working aboard one of the ships, investigating a troubling report. Something sinister is going on and the deeper they dig the more Gage fears they’ve only discovered the tip of the iceberg.

It’s no secret that I’m a fan of Dani Pettrey’s [AND she just signed a new book deal! YAY!] and have been looking forward to each of the Alaskan Courage releases since I discovered them.

This is no exception.

The story line, set in large part on an Alaskan cruise ship, delves into the deep underworld of human trafficking, but never exploits or gets to “stomach turning.”

The romance is everything you’d expect from Dani Pettrey. I loved Darcy and her spunkiness, her determination, despite being “in over her head”, quite literally, at times. I loved Gage – he’s a McKenna – need I say more?! He’s tough and tender at the same time. He’s everything I love in a hero.

And the footprints on his heart?

Be still MY heart!

I can’t wait for Dani’s next release – or to hear about her new series coming a couple of books from now :).

Overall rating: 9 out of 10 stars

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy in exchange for my review.

Hannah Gregory is good at many things, but that list doesn’t include following rules. So when she is forced to apply for a job as a telephone switchboard operator to support her two sisters, she knows it won’t be easy. “Hello Girls” must conduct themselves according to strict–and often bewildering–rules. No talking to the other girls. No chatting with callers. No blowing your nose without first raising your hand. And absolutely no consorting with gentlemen while in training.

Meanwhile, young lawyer Lincoln Cole finds himself in the unfortunate position of having to enforce the bank’s eviction of the three Gregory girls from their parents’ home. He tries to soften the blow by supporting them in small ways as they settle into another home. But fiery Hannah refuses his overtures and insists on paying back every cent of his charity.

When one of Hannah’s friends finds himself on the wrong side of a jail cell, Hannah is forced to look to Lincoln for help. Will it be her chance to return to her dreams of studying law? And could she be falling in love?

With historic details that bring to life the exciting first decade of the twentieth century, Lorna Seilstad weaves a charming tale of camaraderie and companionship that blossoms into love. Readers will get lost in this sweet romance and will eagerly look forward to championing each sister’s dreams.

What I realized as I was getting the above set up is that the series is “The Gregory Sisters” which means… SQUEEE! There’s more to come! And since I loved the two little sisters… it’s all good ;).

Lorna sucked me in to the world of the early 1900s and the invention of the telephone and the motorcar! Poor Hannah and her sisters are being evicted after the death of their parents and lack of mortgage payments.

Poor Lincoln had no idea that was the situation when he was sent to hand over the eviction notice. He comes back to help them move and sparks fly.

Hannah is a modern woman, not afraid to speak her mind. She’s doing her best to care for her little sisters in their new rental home, but life is taking a toll. She had to give up law school in order to find a job, but she matches wits with Lincoln and helps with the defense of her childhood friend, Walt, when he’s accused of arson.

One thing I would have loved would have to do with her parents’ bedroom furniture. I’ll leave it at that for now, but as we’ll be seeing Linc and Hannah in the future [with the sisters’ books] it’s a possibility.

I’ll have to ask Lorna when the next one is coming out, but as for me, I can’t wait.

Overall rating: 8.5 out of 10 stars

Thanks to Lorna and the publisher for an influencer copy in exchange for my review.

Unassuming young seminary professor Augie Knox finds himself drawn into a frantic race to rescue a friend in Rome who has supposedly discovered the archeological find of the century. Antiquities thieves conspire to steal the treasure through trickery or violence. Channeling Indiana Jones but sans creepy critters, Augie must sift through motives and lies as ancient as the manuscript discovered in the caves beneath the Eternal City. Will the memoir of Paul the Apostle prove genuine, or is Augie risking his life for a fraud? More than anything, this suspenseful tale proves the storytelling mastery of Jenkins (Left Behind series). He and MacDonald intertwine Augie’s modern race against time with Paul’s measured 1st-century journey from prison to executioner’s block. Two strengths emerge from this setup: first, by alternating between modern and historical scenes, the authors balance out the frenetic pace of one with the quiet stillness of the other, all the while ratcheting up tension. Second, Paul’s “memoir” paints a vivid, plausible picture of his early years and conversion. While this work won’t create the frenzy of a real biblical memoir, it does offer an entertaining and ultimately uplifting experience.

In keeping with yesterday’s Biblical fiction review…

I wasn’t sure what to expect from this as it’s been a while since I read anything by Mr. Jenkins and never anything like this, but I was pleasantly surprised. About 3 chapters in, I was forced to put it aside for a while, but even in my head, kept coming back to it.

The modern day story line deals with Augie and a dear friend of his who is in a life or death struggle concerning an ancient artifact uncovered in the ruins of the jail where Paul spent the end of his life. Brought into this struggle are Augie’s friends and family back home in Texas – including his nearly estranged and dying father – and his fiance and her antiquities dealing father from Greece. This story is fast-paced and suspenseful – right up until the last moments and the satisfying conclusion.

The historical story line deals with Paul in his last days in prison before being beheaded for his faith. Luke visits him on a nearly daily basis, helping transcribe letters and Paul’s memoir [which is uncovered in the modern story line]. Though it lacks the life and death, whodunit aspects of the modern side of the story, there is no lack of intrigue. I would imagine the authors did their due diligence with their research and while the characters maybe fictional, much of what happens during that time period is not. From the burning of Rome to Saul’s conversion to Paul to the persecution of Christians, it’s all there.

Overall, a book I enjoyed and read quickly when I was able to get back to it.

Overall rating: 8 out of 10 stars

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an ecopy in exchange for my review.

She was a widow, a businesswoman, an adulteress.

Thanks to NetGalley for an ecopy and Wynn-Wynn Media for a paper copy in exchange for my review – not quite sure how I ended up with both…

Gideon O’Riley has been given another chance at a life with Lonnie. But will the fight for her heart risk it all over again?
  
After finally finding love with his sweet bride Lonnie, Gideon’s heart was torn when a woman from his past claimed to be his true and rightful wife, forcing him away from his family. God’s merciful hand saw Gideon through the heartache, and with Cassie’s blessing, he is able to return home. But his journey back through the Blue Ridge Mountains will hold a trial he never anticipated.
 
Meanwhile, Lonnie determines to seal off her heart from Gideon, convinced he is lost to her forever. Strengthening her resolve to move on is her growing fondness for the handsome Scotsman, Toby McKee—the young reverend she has come to care for deeply. His proposal of marriage offers a bright future for her and her young son. 
 
Yearning to allow joy back into her life, Lonnie must put aside the broken pieces of her heart that still love Gideon. When he returns to find her betrothed to another, he has to place his hope in God, trusting that the One who redeemed their love once can do it again.

This is the third book in the Cadence of Grace series. I went into the first one [Be Still My Soul] not getting what I expected. But I had to know what happened and so along came book 2: Though My Heart is Torn. Knowing what I was getting into, I liked it MUCH better.

And book 3? I couldn’t wait. [I read it MONTHS ago, as soon as I got it, but the review got lost in conference prep :p.] I had a chance to talk with Joanne while at the ACFW conference and am still hopeful that we’ll get a fourth, related book for the boy that didn’t get the girl.

Because Lonnie’s going to have to choose. Between Gideon, who she fell in love with after their very difficult start. And Toby, the man who helps take care of her broken heart when Gideon is forced to return to his first wife – one he thought he’d been divorced from for some time [annulled? divorced? one].

Gideon is free to come home – to find Lonnie and their son, but the trip takes much longer than expected and when he gets there, she’s already engaged to Toby.

Toby is a good man. He loves Lonnie and her little boy. But so does Gideon. As much as I wanted Lonnie and Gideon back together, I wondered if Joanne wouldn’t take the less expected route and put her with Toby. I would have been okay with that, too.

Joanne kept me riveted through the entire book and I was happy and satisfied with the ending [I’m pretty sure she made me cry more than once again :p]. I do hope she gets to write a fourth book for the other man, but I haven’t heard for sure if it’s going to happen or not.

Overall rating: 8.5 out of 10 stars

Thanks to Blogging for Books for a copy in exchange for my honest opinion.

A solitary artisan. A legacy of bread-baking. And one secret that could collapse her entire identity.

Liesl McNamara’s life can be described in one word: bread. From her earliest memory, her mother and grandmother passed down the mystery of baking and the importance of this deceptively simple food. And now, as the owner of Wild Rise bake house, Liesl spends every day up to her elbows in dough, nourishing and perfecting her craft.

But the simple life she has cultivated is becoming quite complicated. Her head baker brings his troubled grandson into the bakeshop as an apprentice. Her waitress submits Liesl’s recipes to a popular cable cooking show. And the man who delivers her flour—a single father with strange culinary habits—seems determined to win Liesl’s affection.

When Wild Rise is featured on television, her quiet existence appears a thing of the past. And then a phone call from a woman claiming to be her half-sister forces Liesl to confront long-hidden secrets in her family’s past. With her precious heritage crumbling around her, the baker must make a choice: allow herself to be buried in detachment and remorse, or take a leap of faith into a new life.

Filled with both spiritual and literal nourishment, Stones for Bread provides a feast for the senses from award-winning author Christa Parrish.

This book was well-written and well-researched. I read it quickly, but didn’t enjoy it as much as I wanted to.

I’m not quite sure why this is. Maybe I was expecting a bit more romance and I think it qualifies more as Women’s Fiction. It’s not chick-lit – too serious for that. I’ll admit to skimming sections of it. Each chapter began with a recollection from the main character’s childhood [though they were mostly chronological up through her mid-20s, all but one or two of them were age 16 and under]. Those didn’t hold my interest as much as the current storylines. Most chapters had a bread recipe of some kind and/or a section [up to 2 pages???] on the history of bread. I didn’t read any of the recipes, though I’ll likely at least look at them again for ideas and possibly to use, but after the first one or two, I barely skimmed the history sections.

Though I’m sure they were interesting, they did nothing for me here.

As for the main, “present day” story… It wasn’t BAD, but it didn’t suck me in and not let go like I prefer my books to do. It took quite a while for me to get into it without being easily distracted. Once I did, I sped through it. I would have liked more on the relationship between Leisl and her love interest, particularly at the end.

There’s a Very. Bad. Thing. That happens to one of the characters. I liked the character, but felt little more than “eh” when it happened. Normally, I would have expected tears :/.

I know this sounds like it was an awful book. It wasn’t. I didn’t love it, but I didn’t hate it. It’s quite possible my own current sense of “blah” about life in general plays a role in my perception of the book. I wish I could give it a better rating, but I just can’t. I’ll give other books by Ms. Parrish a try and see if it’s just this one or if she’s just not for me.

Ugh. I hate writing reviews like this especially for books I really wanted to like.

Overall rating: 6.5 out of 10 stars

Thanks to the publisher and BookSneeze for a free copy in exchange for my honest review.