Recommended Reading
A BEAUTIFUL FALL, by Chris CoppernollHigh-powered Boston attorney Emma Madison is celebrating her latest courtroom victory when she gets a call from a number she doesn’t recognize. Area code 803 – home. Juneberry, South Carolina – eight hundred miles, twelve years, and a lifetime away from Boston. Emma’s father has had a serious heart attack. Emma rushes to his bedside, and a weekend trip threatens to become an extended stay. She has to work fast to arrange the affairs of his small-town law practice so she can return to her life and career in Boston.
And then Michael Evans shows up. They’d shared hopes, dreams, and a passionate love as young college students during a long-ago summer. But Emma walked away – from Michael and from Juneberry – to finish college and start a new life. Michael has never forgotten her. Enveloped in the warmth of family and small-town life – and discovering that she still cares for Michael – Emma knows she’ll have to make a choice between the career she’s worked so hard to build and the love she left behind.
**************************************
AN IRISH WOMAN'S TALE, by Patti LacyA shattered cup. Cheap tea. Bitter voices asking what's to be done with the "little eejit." Mary, an impetuous Irishwoman, won't face those painful first memories--until her daughter's crisis propels her back to County Clare. On the rocky cliffs of her homeland, Mary and her new friend, a gregarious Southerner, learn why God tore Mary from Ireland forty-five years earlier. As Mary begins to glimpse God's sovereign plan, she is finally able to bury a dysfunctional past and begin the healing process. Irish folk songs and sayings are woven within the text of this contemporary Christian women's novel.
*************************************
BON APPETIT: BOOK TWO by Sandra ByrdAs she settles into her new home in a French village to study and work, Lexi’s exuberant twenty-something optimism encounters Gallic resistance. Determined to find her footing, she finds a church, a friend, and little Celine, whose father, Phillipe, is a handsome widower. But what about Dan who visits her in romantic Paris?
**********************************
Back to Life, by Kristen BillerbeckA Trophy Wives Club Novel
Lindsey realized when she married Ron, a man 17 years her senior, that the odds were he’d see heaven before her, but she never expected to be a widow at 35. There’s too much of life left for her to just sit around in mourning. But she can’t seem to kick start the rest of her life.
That is until she gets some help from Ron’s first wife, Jane, who shows up unexpectedly at her door one day as the executor of her husband’s estate. Jane is everything Lindsey’s not… independent, stubborn… and a lot older. Plus she has one surprise after another… including a son named Ron Jr. (she insists he’s not “really” Ron’s son). But an unlikely friendship develops as each woman begins to reevaluate what is really important, and owns up to the mistakes they’ve made in the past.
Told in the alternating voices of Jane and Lindsey, and with the return of many of the witty characters of The Trophy Wives Club, this book is a lighthearted, relatable read for when life goes in a direction you never planned. With faith and friends, there’s always light at the end of the tunnel. If you would like to read an excerpt of chapter 1 of Back To Life, go HERE
*************************
A Passion Redeemed, by Julie LessmanBook 2 in the Daughters of Boston series is Charity's story, a woman who puts her faith in her beauty rather than in God. It is a story of redemption and faith rising from the ashes of temptation, desire and shame.
Depth of beauty … shallow of heart, Charity O’Connor is a woman who gets what she wants. She sets her sights on a man who wants nothing to do with her. Although the sparks are there, he refuses to fan the coals of a potential relationship with a woman who ruined his life. Charity burned him once, destroying his engagement to the only woman he ever truly loved. He won’t play with matches again. But Charity has a plan to turn up the heat, hoping to ignite the heart of the man she loves. And she always gets what she wants—one way or another.
***********************************
From a Distance, by Tamera Alexander
Determined to become one of the country’s premier newspaper photographers, Elizabeth Westbrook travels to the Colorado Territory to capture the grandeur of the mountains surrounding the remote town of Timber Ridge. She hopes, too, that the cool, dry air of Colorado, and its renowned hot springs, will cure the mysterious illness that threatens her career, and her life.
Daniel Ranslett, a former Confederate sharpshooter, is a man shackled by his past, and he’ll do anything to protect his land and his solitude. When an outspoken Yankee photographer captures an image that appears key to solving a murder, putting herself in danger, Daniel is called upon to repay a debt. He’s a man of his word, but repaying that debt will bring secrets from his past to light. Forced on a perilous journey together, Daniel and Elizabeth’s lives intertwine in ways neither could have imagined when first they met . . . from a distance.
*********************************************
Deep in the Heart of Trouble, by Deeanne Gist
A Texas-Sized Tale of Unexpected Love. Essie Spreckelmeyer is the last woman anyone in Corsicana, Texas, expected to see with a man on her arm. Independent and outspoken, she’s known more for riding bicycles in outrageous bloomers than for catching a man’s eye.
And the last man who seems willing to give her a second glance is Tony Morgan, newly hired at Spreckelmeyer’s oil company. The disinherited son of an oil baron, Tony wants most to restore his name and regain his lost fortune--not lose his heart to this headstrong blonde. She confounds, contradicts, and confuses him. Sometimes he doesn’t know if she’s driving him toward the aisle or the end of his rope. That’s how life is ... Deep in the Heart of Trouble.
****************************************
Amber Morn by Brandilyn Collins On a beautiful Saturday morning the nationally read “Scenes and Beans” bloggers gather at Java Joint for a special celebration. Chaos erupts when three gunmen burst in and take them all hostage. One person is shot and dumped outside. Police Chief Vince Edwards must negotiate with the desperate trio. The gunmen insist on communicating through the “comments” section of the blog—so all the world can hear their story. What they demand, Vince can’t possibly provide. But if he doesn’t, over a dozen beloved Kanner Lake citizens will die . . .
Where the Heart Leads, by Kim Vogel Sawyer
After graduating from Boston Tech, Kansas-born Mennonite Thomas Ollenburger wonders what God has in store for him. When he meets Daphne and accepts a position as a journalist at her father's Boston newspaper, his job requires him to support a presidential candidate with questionable values. Thomas is torn---and God seems silent. What should he do? 352 pages, softcover from Bethany. To learn more about Kim, visit her web site at www.kimvogelsawyer.com/.
