Monday 22 July 2013

Dolled Up to Die



ABOUT THE BOOK:
When Cate Kinkaid receives a frantic call about a triple homicide, she drives to the scene against her better judgement-aren't triple homicides more up the police department's alley?-only to find that the victims are not quite who she expects. Now she has a new rule to add to those she's learned in her short stint as an assistant private investigator: always find out if the victims actually have human DNA. Because these three do not.
But who would shoot this nice lady's dolls? What possible reason could the shooter have? And then there's the startling discovery of another victim, who definitely does have human DNA . . .


ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Lorena McCourtney is the New York Times bestselling and award-winning author of dozens of novels, including Invisible(which won the Daphne du Maurier Award from Romance Writers of America) and Dying to Read. She resides in Oregon.

MY THOUGHTS:

What a fun author Lorena McCourtney is and what a great book Dolled Up to Die is!

If you want a great read or one of those books that you can just sit down and forget everything, Dolled up to Die is JUST WHAT YOU NEED!  You can laugh, you can wonder who done it, and in the end you will just plain LOVE IT!!


Thanks Revell, a Division of Baker Publishing for allowing me this complimentary book in exchange for my honest review

Wednesday 17 July 2013

In Golden Splendor





This week, the

Christian Fiction Blog Alliance

is introducing

In Golden Splendor

• B&H Books (July 15, 2013)


by

Michael Reynolds


ABOUT THE AUTHOR:








Michael K. Reynolds is the writer and producer of Emmy and Telly Award-winning film campaigns and has more than two decades of experience in fiction, journalism, copywriting, and documentary production. He owns Global Studio, a marketing agency, and is also an active leader in church and business, speaking in both ministry and corporate settings. Michael lives with his wife and three children in Reno, Nevada.

ABOUT THE BOOK



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.


If you would like to read the first chapter of In Golden Splendor, go HERE

Thursday 11 July 2013

Grounded





This week, the

Christian Fiction Blog Alliance

is introducing

Grounded

Worthy Publishing (May 7, 2013)


by

Neta and Dave Jackson


ABOUT THE AUTHORS:




As a husband/wife writing team, we are enthusiastic about books, kids, walking with God, gospel music, and each other! Together we are the authors or coauthors of over 120 books. (You can see our Publication Record by clicking HERE.) In addition to writing several books about Christian community, we have been privileged to coauthor numerous books with expert resource people on a variety of topics from racial reconciliation to medical ethics to ministry to kids in gangs.


But over the years the we have especially enjoyed writing for children and young people! This includes our award-winning TRAILBLAZER series, historical fiction about great Christian heroes and heroines for young people ages 8-12, and the four-volume HERO TALES: A Family Treasury of True Stories from the Lives of Great Christians, and the companion book, Heroes in Black History.


Somewhere along the way, our own children grew up! Son Julian is Director of Experience Design for the Alder Planetarium in Chicago where he “provides the experience of exploring space” for visitors. He has two sons, Liam Isaac and Elijah David. Daughter Rachel graduated from Eastern Mennonite University and after working in the field of rape-crisis prevention went on to earn a Masters Degree in counseling from the University of Illinois. She is now a counselor at “Uni High School” in Champaign, Illinois. She is the loving mother of Havah Noelle (our first grandchild!) and Noah Zion, our youngest grandchild. The Jackson family also includes a Cambodian foster daughter, Samen Sang, who has four children.


We live in Evanston, Illinois, where for twenty-seven years we were part of Reba Place Church, a Christian church community. We are now members of a multi-racial congregation in the Chicago area.


ABOUT THE BOOK



...But Hope May Be Just Across the Street


Grace Meredith is a beloved contemporary Christian recording artist whose career--and personal life--hits unexpected turbulence. She feels grounded--in more ways than one.
Grace s fiancé, bothered by her outspoken stance on purity and her near-constant travel, has broken off their relationship. Exhausted and unable to continue her current concert schedule, Grace returns home to Chicago, where she is soon stranded in a major snowstorm. Facing new questions about her future and her faith, Grace finds herself connecting for the first time with the residents of her neighborhood. What she discovers in these unexpected relationships could change everything.


Welcome to the Neighborhood
The first in the Windy City Neighbors series, Grounded is an uplifting, contemporary story about ordinary people wrestling with the spiritual and practical issues of real life. The series employs the innovative storytelling technique of parallel novels, each with its own drama and story arc, but whose characters lives become intertwined and affect one another. Grounded welcomes you to Beecham Street--a typical, isolated American neighborhood that might just be a place of hope.



If you would like to read the first chapter of Grounded, go Here.


Saturday 6 July 2013

Stealing the Preacher ~ Review





About the Book

A cowboy who wants to be a preacher. An outlaw’s daughter who wants to change his mind.
On his way to interview for a position at a church in the Piney Woods of Texas, Crockett Archer can’t believe it when he’s forced off the train by an outlaw and presented to the man’s daughter as the preacher she requested for her birthday. He’s determined to escape–which would be much easier if he could stop thinking about Joanna Robbins and her unexpected request.
For months, Joanna had prayed for a minister. A man to breathe life back into the abandoned church at the heart of her community. A man to assist her in fulfilling a promise to her dying mother. But just when it seems her prayers have been answered, it turns out the parson is there against his will and has dreams of his own calling him elsewhere. Is there any way she can convince Crockett he ended up right where he was supposed to be?
With her signature blend of humor, history, and lively western romance, two-time RITA Award finalist and bestselling author Karen Witemeyer delivers a Texas love story sure to steal your heart.
My thoughts:
Stealing the Preacher was such a treat! Filled with  plenty of "Laugh out Loud" moments and let's not leave out those pages that have you saying..."Oh Em Gee" !! I could so relate to Joanna and her wanting her Daddy to love Jesus just as she did. It was such a precious part of this story!  Stealing the Preacher has just about all you can ask for in a book and is such a perfect summer read! Thank you Karen Witemeyer for sharing this story with those lucky enough to read it!



Thank you LitFuse for allowing me this complimentary book in exchange for my Honest Review! 





Fearless!!!! Don't be scared- just read it!


If you like Thrillers! Sit down, hold on, and get ready for a goodin!! Fearless will not just keep you up all night and turning pages til the very end, but you will be on the edge of your chair, bed, or whatever is holding you up! It is a MUST READ if you love suspense!  Find out more below...



It is time for a FIRST Wild Card Tour book review! If you wish to join the FIRST blog alliance, just click the button. We are a group of reviewers who tour Christian books.  A Wild Card post includes a brief bio of the author and a full chapter from each book toured.  The reason it is called a FIRST Wild Card Tour is that you never know if the book will be fiction, non~fiction, for young, or for old...or for somewhere in between!  Enjoy your free peek into the book!


You never know when I might play a wild card on you!





Today's Wild Card author is:



Mike Dellosso



and the book:



Fearless


Realms (May 7, 2013)




***Special thanks to Althea Thompson for sending me a review copy.***



ABOUT THE AUTHOR:



 Mike Dellosso is the author of numerous novels of suspense, including Darkness Follows, Darlington Woods, and Scream. He is an adjunct professor of writing at Lancaster Bible College and frequent contributor to Christian websites and newsletters. Mike is a member of the American Christian Fiction Writers association, the Christian Fiction Blog Alliance, the Relief Writer’s Network, and FaithWriters, and he plans to join International Thriller Writers. He earned his BA degree from Messiah College and his MBS from Master’s International School of Divinity. He lives in Hanover, PA, with his wife and daughters.

Visit the author's website.



SHORT BOOK DESCRIPTION:

A child mysteriously appears in the lives of Jim and Amy Spencer. Will her presence be a blessing…or a curse?

When a nine-year-old girl named Louisa mysteriously appears in the middle of a house fire with no memory of how she got there or where she came from, Jim and Amy Spencer agree to take her in. Wrestling with the recent loss of their own child, Amy is hurt and angry while Jim is just trying to make it through each day and hold their marriage together.

For Jim, Louisa is the daughter he always wanted, but Amy isn’t as comfortable with her. The girl has a special gift, and soon that gift will unknowingly push them all into contact with a serial killer who has been terrorizing the small town of Virginia Mills. Only by uniting can Jim and Amy save themselves and Louisa before it’s too late.






Product Details:
List Price: $11.28
Publisher Realms (May 7, 2013)
Language English
ISBN-10 1621362418
ISBN-13 978-1621362418



AND NOW...THE FIRST CHAPTER:




Jake Tucker coughed in a half sleep, a raspy, dry hack that burned in his lungs. He was dreaming of drowning, of being pulled into murky, dark waters by some unseen hand. Above, through ripples of water, he could see the sun, a blurry orb, disjointed like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle and fading quickly. His lungs tightened, felt as if they would burst. Water pressed around him. He flailed his arms and kicked his feet, but it did no good. He sank farther and farther away from the surface, away from that tiny wriggling light. He coughed again, and in his dream he could take the pressure in his chest no longer and sucked in a mouthful of water, welcoming the cold liquid and the death it would bring. It rushed down his windpipe and into his lungs. He tried to inhale again, tried to draw oxygen from the water, but he was paralyzed. Suffocating.

Jake Tucker hacked, a forceful bark that brought up a wad of phlegm, and awoke. Thick, acrid smoke filled his living room. He’d fallen asleep on the sofa while watching the evening news and . . . and what? He’d been waiting for something. Something to cook. But what? Panic seized him.

He rolled to the floor where he found a layer of cool, fresh air. Pulling it in through his nose, he coughed again, expelled soot and smoke from his lungs. The kitchen was engulfed in flames. Wicked things as tall as a man and angry, they clawed and licked at the doorway to the living room, blackened the jamb and molding. The linoleum peeled and melted, curled around the edges.

But what had he been cooking? What had caused the fire? Jake thought of heading for the front door, but there was something he needed to get, something he was forgetting. He drew in another breath and hacked again.

Yes, Jovie, his cat. He’d put her in the cellar but couldn’t remember why. The cellar door was in the kitchen, though, the kitchen that was now an inferno. But he couldn’t just leave her down there. She was family to him. Pushing to his knees then his feet, Jake pulled his T-shirt over his nose and mouth and stumbled through the smoke. He struck his knee on something hard. The coffee table. He was moving in the wrong direction.

The fire roared like a living beast hungry for the flesh of man, but it sounded like it was all around him. It was spreading fast, growing, gaining strength, sucking the oxygen from the air. Oxygen he so desperately needed. He wheezed, coughed. His eyes burned and watered. But still he felt his way through the gloom. Sweat droplets dotted his forehead and cheeks now, soaked his shirt. The temperature in the house rose exponentially, slowly baking him.

Over the raging flames he heard a low meow. Jovie. She was just on the other side of the door. If he could only make his way to her. He tried to follow the sound of her yowling but the smoke and fire were so disorienting he repeatedly came back to the same wall, the one with the family photos on it. His parents and grandparents. His siblings. Marta, his wife, his long-mourned wife. And Raymond, his son. Dear Raymond.

Jake leaned against the wall. His mind was slowing, trudging through mud. His chest felt like it was in a vise. Pressure grew around his lungs and heart, squeezing his ribs until they hurt. The pain, a deeply intense ache, radiated down his left arm and up into the left side of his neck and face.

“Raymond!” But Raymond couldn’t hear him. He was three thousand miles away in California. “Raymond, I’m sorry. Please.”

He coughed again and this time brought up some blood. The pressure in his chest worsened, like someone was standing on him. His left shoulder blade felt like it was being ripped from his back.

Still Jovie meowed, over and over, rhythmic, like seconds ticking off time on a clock. The charcoal smoke swelled around Jake; the heat built. He dropped to his knees and tried to crawl to the sound of Jovie’s cries. His eyes burned and watered so badly he couldn’t see a thing.

Raymond was on his mind, though. His son, Raymond. He’d never see him again. Never . . .

The eggs. Yes, that was it. He’d put eggs on the stove to boil then went to lie on the sofa and watch the eleven o’clock news. The pot must have burned dry and started the fire.

In one last moment of semi-clarity Jake Tucker almost laughed at the irony of it all. Done in by a pot of eggs.

He fell to his side and rolled onto his back. A ceiling of smoke hung above him like a phantom. Maybe it was a ghost; maybe it was the angel of death come to take him over to the other side where he could see Marta, hold her again, tell her face-to-face all the words he’d spoken to her photo over the past five years.

Somewhere in the distance but not too far Jovie still wailed. But her holler faded quickly as if she was on a boat drifting away into the fog, farther and farther away, so far that he could no longer hear her. Jovie.

The weight on his chest had increased, and his left arm had numbed. He couldn’t feel the left side of his face either.

Then the swirling smoke began to change colors, red and white and blue. It flashed and stuttered, red-red-white-blue, red-redwhite- blue. His mind fixated on it, on the colors, the rhythm. They must be the colors of heaven. The gates were opening and welcoming him home, bidding him come near and see his Marta.

Jake coughed again; his chest spasmed. Smoke was such an awful thing to inhale. He had to remember to turn the stove off next time. He still couldn’t remember why he’d put Jovie in the cellar. He couldn’t hear her anymore.

Something in the house cracked. Sounded like wood busting, splintering. A hideous sound. But he didn’t open his eyes. He was being pulled under, just like in his dream, but instead of fighting it he had succumbed to it. There was no way out now. This was how it was going to end. And how it would all begin.

Suddenly he felt a presence there with him and opened his eyes. A face materialized out of the smoke, hovered over him. Small, soft, white . . . the face of an angel. Blue eyes that seemed to glow from their own light. Hair the color of flax and pulled back off her face. A girl. A young girl, just a child. She smiled at him and placed her hand on his chest. Her smile was sweet and innocent, the smile of a child who’s never known the worst of this world. Oddly, in the midst of such chaos, such hellfire, she showed no signs of fear.

When she spoke, her voice was meek, the voice of all that is pure and right. “Mr. Tucker, you can’t go yet. Raymond needs you.”

Raymond. His son. His dear son. How did she know about Raymond?

“He loves you.” She smoothed his hair with her hand. “He needs his father.”

She had freckles across her nose, a spattering of them shaped like a butterfly.

“Tell Raymond you love him. Tell him how much you love him. Tell him you forgive him.”

Her hand lifted from his head, and she faded from view. She was an angel, had to have been. His time had arrived, and he was about to be ushered into eternity by this precious little angel.

In the distance, so far away, he heard a faint knocking, then more wood breaking. The house was falling apart around him, but he didn’t care anymore.

“Live, Mr. Tucker. Live. God has given you life.”

He heard his name. A man calling him. Muffled. Another angel. They were coming to get him, coming to give him eternal life. A strong hand wrapped around his ankle and pulled. Something went over his face, something cool. He was floating now, breathing in the clean, fresh air of the heavens. His chest no longer ached, and the numbness was gone in his arm and face. He felt new again. Whole. Young.