When Happily Ever After Shatters by Sue Birdseye

 



 

 

About the book:

 

When Sue Birdseye found out that her husband of 17 years had been cheating on her, she tried to do everything in her power to stay with him...but God had other plans. Even though she finds herself a single mother of five children, she has decided to get past the pain and try to help others going through the same struggles. This book tells her story, but it also has tons of practical advice to get you through the struggle. The back cover states, "With compassion and honesty, she addresses such difficult topics as adultery, forgiveness, anger and loneliness. She offers seasoned wisdom, thoughtful guidance, and hope to anyone who has been hurt by a broken marriage and is walking the path to healing."

 

 

My review:

 

I am fortunate in that I'm not reading this book because my marriage is broken or in the past. I'm still happily married, but know many friends and family that are going through this and wanted to be more understanding of what they are going through.

 

This book seemed incredibly practical to me. Sue tells her story, but not in a way to give you the gruesome details, but to show you how God still guided in her life. She does give such practical advice. I found much of it to be about trusting God even when you're life doesn't go as planned. Even though the reason for writing the book wasn't specifically for that reason alone, I found that I could still apply a lot of the practical and biblical advice to my own life.

 

I really enjoyed reading this book as it gave me more of an inside look of what is going on inside of the person who has been abandoned by their spouse.

 

I would definitely recommend this book to anybody who is struggling with divorce or who is friends with those that are struggling and just want to be more understanding to their friends.

 

 

I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review from Tyndale. I was not obligated to give it a positive review. 

What Your Husband Isn't Telling You: A Guided Tour of a Man's Body, Soul, and Spirit by David Murrow

 

 

When I saw the title of this book, I was intrigued. I wanted to read it and find out what does make my husband tick. While I may be delusional, I think my husband and I have a pretty good marriage. We usually communicate and we love to hang out with each other, for the most part. But I'm always looking for books that can help me understand this man I married, or books that can help me see ways I can personally improve our marriage. I am so glad I read this book.

 

I read this book in about 24 hours and I really haven't had a chance to test or talk to my husband about my new-found knowledge of the inner-workings of his mind, so for all I know this book was way out there and doesn't relate at all to how my husband thinks. But this book was very clear and insightful on how men, in general, think.

 

For the most part this book just describes what is going on in a man's mind, or body, or soul and doesn't really give anything applicable to us wives. Notice, I said, for the most part - the last portion of the book specifically deals with how we as wives can relate to our husbands.

 

I really enjoyed the insights and the reading style was extremely easy to read. The book goes into details, but not too deep of details on some parts - enough for you to know what is going on, but not too much to be super graphic.

 

This book is written from a Christian perspective which as a believer who is married to another believer, I really appreciated. I would highly recommend this book to any wife. I was going to qualify that statement, but I'm just going to stop there. If you are a wife, read this book! It really will help you understand where your husband is coming from.

 

 

In conclusion, I received this book for free from Bethany House in exchange for an honest review, I was under no obligation to give a positive review. All the opinions are my own. 

 

The Tempted Soul: An Amish Quilt Novel by Adina Senft

This is the third book in the Amish Quilt Novel series by Adina Senft and another very good book!

I believe that there are times in every believers life where God will test their faith. It may be that there is a job loss which causes financial stress for many years - whether that is because of not finding another job or because you found another job, but had to move someplace to get that job and you now have a mortgage and rent. You cry out to God knowing that He is all powerful and that He can change anything and yet, seemingly nothing happens. You keep believing that God will provide because He promises He will and you pray that the desires of your heart will be answered. For some, it is financial difficulty. For others, it may be the loss of a loved one. And still for others, it may be that they long for a child of their own to love. These things that are good things, things that you know God could change in a heartbeat, but that He allows you to go through for some reason unknown to you. This book is one such book. This book deals with Carrie Miller, who longs to have a child of her own through any means possible and how she cries to God to allow her to have a little one of her own. 

Carrie Miller has been married for many years and loves her husband deeply, yet the one thing she wants most seems to elude her. For in Amish culture, children are seen as a blessing and a woman isn't fulfilled if she doesn't have children of her own but for some reason God doesn't seem to be answering the cry of Carrie's heart. This book chronicles her life and her desire to serve God even with no children of her own. She befriends the young people in the community and when one of the girls gets pregnant out of wedlock, she prays that she might be a blessing to her. 

I really enjoyed reading this book as it spoke so much to me in my life. Having gone through and still going through many trials and wondering why God hasn't seen fit to answer them, this book was a good reminder that God loves us and He will take care of us and continue to draw ourselves to Him.
I would recommend reading this book if you enjoy reading books about the Amish, or just want a book that lets you forget about your own problems for a little bit and lets you see other people's problems. While this is the third book in the series, I think it would be easy enough to read it on its own. If you are interested in the other books, you can read my reviews of those as well. For the first book about Amelia, who has been misdiagnosed and seems to be losing everything, see my review here. For the second book about Emma, who longs to be married to the only person she has loved since she was 18 (she's now 30), see my review here.

In closing, I did want to mention that I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review through  FaithWords a division of Hachette Book Group. I was under no obligation to give it a positive review. All the thoughts in this review are my own.

No Safe Harbor by Elizabeth Ludwig

 

 

Years ago, I had the opportunity to visit Ellis Island and I loved it! I'd always liked learning about history and visiting historical sites, but for some reason even now many years later Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty hold special places in my heart. Perhaps it is because of the hope that so many immigrants sought after and seeing the Statue of Liberty and being processed through Ellis Island gave them their opportunity. For whatever reason that I loved Ellis Island, that was a big reason why I wanted to review this book.

 

This book is about a girl that didn't really have any reason to stay in Ireland, her parents were dead and for many years she thought her brother was dead as well. When Cara Hamilton receives a letter from her brother, Eoghan, to come to the States, she can't believe that he is alive and she might get to see him again! Everything is very secretive though as the last time she'd seen him he'd been caught up in a group called the Finians that were causing political upheaval in Ireland.

 

Cara leaves her home and goes to America to start a new life and to see her brother again. He warns her to not trust anybody and she tries to keep his secret though everything in her wants to tell people who she really is. While on the boat to America, she meets an elderly man who is kind to her and gives her the name of a boardinghouse where she can stay and find some work. She has just gotten through processing on Ellis Island when she meets a young man named Rourke. Rourke isn't exactly what he seems, but he is kind to her and continues to be a friend to her.

 

Knowing that she is supposed to not trust anyone, Cara wars within herself to tell Rourke why she came to America. With intrigue, mistaken identities and of course a little bit of a love story thrown in, this book was a delight to read.

 

The main characters sometimes frustrated me because I like people to just tell what they are thinking and not to skirt around issues, but that also was a big part of the book so I understood the reasoning behind the secrecy.

 

I did enjoy this book, I think that if you like mysteries and historical fiction this will probably be a book you'll enjoy. There are many other delightful (and some not so delightful) characters in this book that just really help to give the book substance.

 

 

I received this book for free from Bethany House in exchange for an honest review. I was under no obligation to give it a positive one. All the thoughts in this review are my own.

 

Relentless Pursuit by Ken Gire

 

 

For the most part, I really enjoyed reading this book. It gave me new insights on who God is and how He desires a personal relationship with each one of us - so much so that He "relentlessly pursues" us. Wow! What an awesome thought. The God of the Universe cares so much about each one of us. We, who are unworthy. We, who sin and want our own way. Yet, God pursues us!

 

 

This book was somewhat disjointed, though since I wasn't able to sit down and read it all at once I thought maybe it was just me and the fact that a lot was going on in my life. However, at least for me, this disjointedness didn't distract me from the overall book or its message.

 

The book is broken up into the following chapters:

1. The Pursuit

2. The Pursuer

3. The Nature of the Pursuit

4. The Part of Us That Is Lost

5. God's Passion for the Outsider

6. God's Provision for the Outsider

7. Jesus' Mission to the Outsider

8. God's Mandate to the Insider

9. The Part of Me that was Found

 

I enjoyed learning more about the life of the author who wrote the poem, "The Hound of Heaven". As well as reading more about C. S. Lewis that I didn't know before. I found it especially interesting that C. S. Lewis was at one time a self-proclaimed atheist and yet even he was pursued by God and came to be a Christian - one who wrote many books with Christian themes.

 

The author does write about his own life - a lot! But I think this book would be hard to write without showing how your life was and how you studied and came to realize that God is constantly pursuing us and that He puts the desire in us to pursuit Him back.

 



If there have been times in your life when you've felt like an outsider, this would be a good book for you to read! If you're not sure about Christianity and what God is all about. Please read this.

 

 

I received this book for free from Bethany House in exchange for an honest review. I was under no obligation to give it a positive review. The thoughts in this review are my own. 

 

 



 

The Christian Alphabet Book: Teaching Children about Jesus, Prayer, and the Bible by Tracy Sands

 

I found this an interesting idea for a book. I'm not really sure what I expected it to be like, but I don't think this was it. That isn't to say that for the most part it wasn't a decent book, it just didn't quite meet what I was anticipating.

 

Each letter of the alphabet has been given pictures that make up the letter (and the meaning behind each picture is described at the end of the book in case you wanted to know the reasoning). Each letter is also assigned a word or theme and then has a two page spread explaining that theme. For example..."A" is for Always. This page talks about how God always loves us and is always with us. The page has a question section to get the kids thinking and then a prayer at the bottom to help guide them in praying (I don't think these are meant to be prayers that are memorized, but are for a guide only). The right page always shows the letter with the various pictures represented and has a "Seek and You shall find" section that just adds a little bit more fun to the child to be looking at the pictures. In addition to all of that, there are verses for the children to memorize for each letter as well.

 

Each two page spread is packed with information and at first glance could be a little overwhelming. I felt that in some ways the author expected kids to already have a Bible background even though this book is supposed to be helping give them that Bible background.

 

I have a two and a half year old and I was hoping that I could read this with her for our nightly devotion time, but that will have to wait until she is much older. For now, she may enjoy looking at the pictures and finding the images but much of the other content is for an older child.

 

Another thing that kind of disappointed me was that explaining how to become a Christian wasn't really even touched on until you got to the letter "J". At first I thought this book was going to completely skip over the part about Jesus dying on the cross for our sins. If we don't know we are sinners and we don't think we've really done anything wrong then that takes away the whole reason why we need a Savior. Fortunately, later letters did explain this a little better.

 

Overall, I find this book an interesting concept. I'm not sure that I would go out and buy it myself, but I can see it being helpful to others. If you were not raised in a Christian home and are a new Christian yourself, then I can see how this book would be beneficial to have on hand to teach your kids as it does give a lot of the basics. If you are looking for a Bible story book, this isn't one at all.

 

I received this book in exchange for an honest review from The BookCrash program. I was under no obligation to give a positive review. All the opinions in this review are my own. 



 

To Love and Cherish by Tracie Peterson & Judith Miller

This is the second book about Bridal Veil Island; however, it can be a stand alone book. I know because while I read the first book, it was so long ago I really didn't remember any of it but never felt lost reading this book.

This book is about a couple that is in love, but can't seem to ever be on the same page. Their names are Melinda Colson (who wants nothing else but to marry her beloved) and Evan Tarlow (who wants to be able to support a wife and children and doesn't want to get married until he can do so).

From the very beginning Melinda wants to marry Evan and when he doesn't propose when she thinks he should, she gets very frustrated with him. Since she is the maid for a rich lady (though she was once well-to-do herself...read the book to find out more about that) and he is a groundskeeper for Bridal Veil Island, their lives aren't their own to decide for themselves. Melinda leaves Bridal Veil Island (which is a resort that very rich people went to during the winter months) and heads back to Ohio to work with her employer.

When a hurricane hits Bridal Veil and Melinda hears no word from Evan she panics, quits her job, and she and her brother head south to make sure that Evan is all right. Melinda learns very quickly that a lot of times when we rush ahead of God's plans things will often go awry, but when we wait on God's perfect timing and we don't try to push our own agenda through God often blesses.

While this book is written from a Christian perspective, I didn't feel like it was overly done. I got frustrated at times with the character of Melinda, but overall really enjoyed and felt like I could relate with her. I didn't really like the character of Evan and really didn't see why Melinda liked him that much, but it was still enjoyable to read about their struggles anyway. Overall, this book was fun to read. If you are looking for a book full of history and some deep thinking, find something else to read. But if you are looking to relax and pick up a book, then you'll probably enjoy this one.

I received this book in exchange for an honest review from Bethany House. I was under no obligation to give a positive review, these are just my thoughts on this book.

Faith and Other Flat Tires by Andrea Palpant Dilley

I could not wait to finish this book. Not because I found it interesting or thought-provoking or helpful or any of these types of reasons, I simply wanted to be finished with this book. I was very interested in reading this book at the time I received an email about it. We were going through our own faith journey at the time (though it is a continual journey - by no means have we finished it), but this particular time was difficult and I was finding it challenging to trust in God. So when I saw this book, I thought it would be insightful and an encouragement to read.

Launch ahead another year (yes, I admit I've had this book for a year now!) and I finally have time to read it because the thing I was going through at the time of requesting this book put me way behind (i.e. moving to another state, starting a new job, getting adjusted to life, etc.) So I finally was able to read this book and it was painful!!!

I think the main thing that you need to keep in mind if you are going to grab this book to read it is that it is mostly "A Memoir" - you can see this on the flat part of the tire in the image, but even though it has such a small part on the cover, it is the bulk of the book.

This book is a memoir about a girl who grew up in a missionary family and then moved back to the States and started having a crisis of faith. She had all sorts of questions about why God would allow bad things to happen to good people? How could He let innocent children suffer? But ultimately this book is just an account of her life - a very dull account of her life.

I'd always thought my life was rather boring until I read this book. Then I realized that while mine is not super exciting at least I wasn't going to write a book about it.

Needless to say, this book is one I'd recommend you pass up. You won't be missing a whole lot. If you are looking for perspective on your life and thinking your life is a little dull and boring, you may want to snatch this one up - only to show you that your life is great!

I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review. All the thoughts are my own.

Almost Amish by Kathryn Cushman

While the name of this book would make you think that this just another fiction book about the Amish, this is not the case. This book is about a modern family that goes off to the country to live like the Amish as part of a reality TV show. The main character, Julie, is a stay-at-home mom whose life is full of meetings and constant stress. In fact, she hates her life. When the opportunity comes along to help her sister-in-law further her career by going on a reality TV show about what it would be like for a modern family to start living like the Amish, she jumps at the change of pace.

Julie embraces the lifestyle and enjoys the simplicity of their lives even though everything is more difficult without modern conveniences, she feels everything actually has a purpose being done. Susan, Julie's sister-in-law, goes on the show hoping to further her career in having a TV show and a line of hospitality products including cookbooks. She needs everything on this show to be perfect and constantly stresses about everything being done just right. While Julie and the kids seem to be enjoying and thriving from the change of pace, Susan seems to be more uptight than ever.

I found these characters to be pretty relatable. Although for the majority of the book, I could care less about Susan as she didn't seem like a very nice person. There really aren't that many twists and turns in the book, but it is a nice book to take a break from everything for awhile.

I would recommend this book if you are just wanting to read an enjoyable story with relatable characters. If you are looking for an Amish fiction book, you may want to pass on this one - though it does give more of a realistic view of what it might be like to be Amish.

I received this book for free from Bethany House publishers in exchange for an honest review. I was under no obligation to give it a positive review. All the thoughts are my own.

Intentional Parenting by Sissy Goff, David Thomas, and Melissa Trevathan

I've not read that many parenting books even though my child is a little over two. The few I have read, I found so ridiculous and really didn't implement many, if any, of the ideas that I read about in the other books. I've been on a search for a good, godly parenting book - not just one to tell me about the statistics of where my child might end up but one that would give practical advice on how to raise my child (or any other children I might have) in a way that would be pleasing to God. I am so glad that I was able to review this book because I believe I have finally found a good, godly parenting book.

This book is broken up into 12 Chapters with each author writing 4 of the chapters. The chapters in this book include:

1. Being an Intentional Parent
2. Being a Patient Parent
3. Being a Grown-Up Parent
4. Being a Balanced Parent
5. Being a Consistent Parent
6. Being a Playful Parent
7. Being a Connected Parent
8. Being an Encouraging Parent
9. Being a Spiritual Parent
10. Being a Merciful Parent
11. Being a Hopeful Parent
12. Being a Free Parent

Every chapter is full of practical advice. There are thought-provoking questions throughout each chapter that really makes you think and reflect on what you have just read. It is hard to pinpoint one particular chapter being more helpful than another as I found each chapter to have some nugget to take away. I did notice that it mostly seemed geared to parenting older children, though I think this is a helpful book even if you are starting out raising kids (as I am).

I cannot say enough good about this book. Some of the thoughts I'll be taking away from this book are:

• My child needs me to be the grown-up (taken from Chapter 3)
• My child needs me to be consistent - no matter what method of discipline...pick one and stick with it. Kids need structure. (taken from Chapter 5)
• My child needs to see that I need God. I was greatly encouraged by chapter 9 in that I don't have to be a "perfect" parent. My child needs to know that I don't have all of the answers, but that because I'm dependent on God that is who gives me my strength.
• And because I'm depending and trusting on God to help me through every step of my life (especially in wisdom to parent my child) that gives me a freedom to not sweat the small stuff.

I highly recommend this book and will be keeping this one to read for years to come!!! So helpful and practical!

I received this book for free through the Booksneeze.com program. I was under no obligation to give it a positive review.

The Deposit Slip by Todd M. Johnson

This book opens with Erin Larson settling her father's belongings after his untimely death. While going through a safety deposit box that she didn't know he had, she discovers a deposit slip that states that over 10,000,000 dollars were deposited into an account. Interested in finding out where this money came from and where it was, she starts checking into its whereabouts only to be blocked at every step. She ends up suing the bank that should have the money and life starts to get interesting.

Jared Neaton is a lawyer whose law firm is not doing well financially. Hoping this claim is legitimate he decides to take the case against the wishes of others. When he starts to investigate the claim, things start to get even worse. The pressure is on and he isn't sure why things are heating, but feels that he must have a case if the other side is being so defensive and wanting him and everybody else off the case.

I enjoyed reading this book for the most part. Most of the book, I kept wanting to read and see what would happen next. It seemed to me though that once the book started to wrap up, it wrapped up pretty quickly. When I got to the last page, I turned it to the next page thinking that there was going to be more, but that was all there was to the book. It just seemed pretty abrupt.
Overall, I found myself wanting to know more about what was going on. I wanted the characters to find out what was going on because I wanted to know what was going on. This book is labeled as a legal thriller and while there were some interesting parts it seemed more like a legal mystery rather than a thriller.

I would recommend this book to anyone that likes legal books as I think they would enjoy it if they like that genre.

I received this book for free from Bethany House Publishers in exchange for an honest review. I was under no obligation to give a positive review. All thoughts and opinions are my own. 

The Hidden Life: An Amish Quilt Novel by Adina Senft

I've read a fair amount of Amish books in my lifetime and this ranks up there with some of the better ones I've read. From the moment I opened the book and started reading, I couldn't put it down - well I had to, but I didn't want to. Emma Stoltzfus just felt so real to me and was a character that I could relate to and I found myself wondering what else was going to happen to her.

This story is the 2nd book in the Amish Quilt Novels though it isn't stated as the 2nd book. I did read the first book, but I don't think that someone who hadn't read that one would find it hard to read this one without the background.

The story of Emma Stoltzfus is one of an "old maid" - well at least I'm guessing in the world of the Amish. She is only 30, but she has never been courted and stays home watching her elderly mother. In her spare time, she loves to write and sends off many recipes and various pieces to the Amish periodicals. The book opens with her sending off a book to a national contest for fiction. She isn't sure how things will turn out, but ends up doing quite well and ranks 7th out of thousands of manuscripts.

Shortly after that, she gets an offer from a literary agent to sell her book. She heads to New York City out of curiosity and to avoid some drama at home and then comes back to her Amish life. For 12 years, she hasn't had any prospects for marriage and in just the space of a few weeks, she has 3 different Amish men interested in her but her heart belongs to only one of them.

I really enjoyed this story and couldn't wait for the ending, but I found the ending to be very abrupt. I'm hoping that more of her story is told in the next book because otherwise I'll be very disappointed. Other than the abrupt ending, this book was so enjoyable. While it isn't full of mystery there was enough of wondering "what will happen next?" to keep me reading until the last page.

I would highly recommend this to anyone that likes to read Amish fiction.

I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review through Faith Words a division of Hachette Book Group. I was under no obligation to give this a positive review. All thoughts in this blog are my own. 

Submerged by Dani Pettrey

This book was excellent. I love suspenseful books and this book did not disappoint. I generally don't like reading Christian Suspense books because they just usually aren't that suspenseful to me and seem to be easy to figure out, but this book kept me reading and captivated. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. 

Summary:

Bailey Craig heads back to a small Alaskan town to say her final goodbyes to an aunt that was killed in a plane crash. She never expected to go back to the town that had made her life miserable during a rough time in her life, but she cares more about her aunt and realizes she needs to pay her respects. While she is trying to go through her aunt's belongings to settle her estate, she gets involved in solving her aunt's murder. 

While solving the murder using her knowledge of Russian history, she gets to know Cole McKenna again and falls in love with him all over again. She longs for a relationship with him, but isn't sure if he can forgive her past. 

While I did enjoy reading this book, I did find that at times the main character got really caught up on the fact that nobody could forgive her for what she had done and that even though she realized that God had forgiven her that people wouldn't be able to. It just seemed at times to detract from the story. I still loved this book and couldn't wait to read her next book in this series (hopefully you'll be seeing my review of that book in the next few weeks). 

I received this free book from Bethany House in exchange for an honest review. The opinions on this blog are my own and I was under no obligation to give a positive review. 

Love in Disguise by Carol Cox

What an enjoyable book to read. I would have loved to have read this book in a sitting or two, but that didn't happen because life has been pretty hectic for me lately. In spite of my crazy life lately, I grabbed this book and read a bit of it every chance I could. When I wasn't reading this book, I'd find myself thinking of the plot line and the characters and wondering what was going to happen next - signs of an excellent book in my opinion. 

Summary:

Ellie Moore is working as an assistant to a famous actress and is sure that her next place is going to be touring Europe. When she unexpectantly loses her job and is struggling to make ends meet, she hears a couple of Pinkerton Agents discussing needing a female to work a job in Arizona. Wanting to get away from the cold streets of Chicago and also to have money to buy food, she tries to get the job. 

Without going into too many details, she ends up living in Arizona as a Pinkerton Agent and faces many challenges including leading a double life in more ways than one. This book has a lot of different twists and turns and you are kept wondering how everything is going to be resolved in the end. 

Fortunately the book does not disappoint as it did have a satisfying ending (at least to me). 

I received this book for free through Bethany House in exchange for an honest review. I was under no obligation to give a positive review. 

Tidewater Inn by Colleen Coble

 

 

 

I enjoyed reading this book for the most part. I had never read a Colleen Coble book before, so I wasn't really sure what to expect, though I think I recall hearing this author's name before in a positive light, which is why I chose this book to review in the first place. I found a lot of the book rather predictable for a "suspense" novel, though I guess in its defense it is classified as "Fiction/Christian/Romance" so that was tagged correctly.

 

 

This book is about Libby who longs for a family of her own and finds out that she has just inherited a house from a father that she thought had died when she was five. No sooner does she find out she has a family, her business partner gets kidnapped and she is the one that the authorities think did it. She ends up trying to find her kidnapped business partner with the aid of one other person in the town, so she can clear her name.

 

While I read this quickly and was looking forward to finding out the mystery, it wasn't much of a mystery. I'm not saying this book wasn't enjoyable. If you are looking for a book that takes your mind off of things then this book will do the trick.

 

 

I received this book in exchange for an honest review through the BookSneeze program, I was under no obligation to give it a positive review. All thoughts and opinions are my own. 



 

For Such a Time as This by Ginny Aiken

 

Because this book was so enjoyable to read, I found it hard to put down. The characters were believable and struggled with many things that I've struggled with so that helped me to be able to identify with the characters right off the bat. This book takes place in the 1870's in Oregon and so has the "old West" kind of feel with the small town that has a General Store, bank and church and not a lot else.

The book starts with nineteen year old Olivia Moore praying that she can somehow help her family out since they've fallen on hard times due to droughts and grasshopper plagues. She certainly isn't expecting God to answer her prayer by allowing a pig to cross her path and some young boys falling shortly behind, but that is how God opens the up the way for her to become a nanny for one of the young boys and his older sister.

She starts working for the President of the local bank as his children's companion and due to circumstances end up entering into marriage as strictly a business proposal and she is to have no say in the bank. Meanwhile, her family is sent a letter signed by the President of the local bank stating that they have been foreclosed on and will be losing their homestead if they don't pay soon. Torn between loyalty to her family and her husband, she isn't sure what to do and starts wondering if God led her to that family for "Such a Time as This".

As I said earlier, I really did enjoy reading this book. The plot really wasn't complicated and so it made a nice easy read - something to take your mind off of things and to curl up to at the end of a stressful work day. I'd highly recommend this book if you enjoy "Old West" kind of books. There is just something about reading about other peoples' troubles that helps take your mind off of your own.

I received this complimentary book from Faith Words in exchange for an honest review. All of the thoughts in this post are my own. I was under no obligation to give it a positive review.

Unstuck: Your Life. God's Design. Real Change. by Arnie Cole & Michael Ross

As Christians, we often get in a rut with our spiritual lives. Hard times may come and we don't know why things are going wrong and we wonder if God even cares. We question why this is happening to us and sometimes we even wonder if it is worth following God. After all, if He truly loved us like He said He does would He allow this to happen to me?

I don't know the excuses for every believer, but I know my excuses. I know that I've wondered many times how do I live a life that is honoring to God. How do I have a passion for Christ - continually? There always seem to be questions and often it seems hard to get any answers.

When I saw that this book touched on the very topic of many of my questions, I jumped at the chance to read it. The answer is simple: read your Bible. As you read your Bible, God is able to communicate to you in a very real way.

For most Christians, I doubt this book is going to have a "new" solution for you. But their whole point is we don't know God and we don't know what He would have for us because we aren't reading His Words to us. It isn't a hard answer, though it can be a very difficult thing to do.

This book addresses many of the excuses that we give for not reading the Bible and goes into how profitable it is to read your Bible at least 4 days a week to see continual growth. Even though I'm telling you more about a book than I normally would, I don't feel that this is going to "ruin" the book and its contents for you.

The authors are very down-to-earth and share many stories of other believers who have been stuck in a rut and how the Bible has transformed them. They even include their own stories.

I really enjoyed reading this book even though it really wasn't eye-opening it was a good reminder of where we find the source of our life. This book would make an awesome study for an individual or for a Bible study group. The end of each chapter gives a Scripture passage to remember and a thought to consider. It asks questions to make you think about what is going on in your own spiritual walk with God.

I would highly recommend this book to anybody that is struggling in their spiritual walk because it had such practical applications.

I received this book for free through Bethany House and was under no obligation to give it a positive review. All the thoughts in this blog are my own. 

If You Have a Craving, I Have a Cure by Sheri Rose Shepherd

It seems every time I get super excited about a book being sent to me to review, I am always disappointed by it. Once again, this was the case.

This book was very easy to read as long as you are reading it as a book only, I read it in about an hour and a half. I can see how this book would also be easy to flip to each chapter as the individual "cravings" arise.

The "faith" aspect of this book seemed very shallow to me. However, there were a few good ideas that got me thinking.

The "food" aspect of this book seemed like recipes I'd never even try. Part of this may be that I'm allergic to many of the ingredients in the various recipes, but honestly I'm not into eating gluten-free and eating only "whole" foods. I'm sure this is a poor reflection on me and not necessarily on this book, but for someone who likes to actually enjoy the food they eat, I'll pass on these recipes.

Overall, this book was a big disappointment to me. I was really hoping that the recipes would be using what I consider normal everyday foods as the basis of their recipes so that it would be easier to incorporate and change my eating style, but when some of the ingredients are things I've never heard of, I'll pass.

If you like shallow spiritual books, or if you are just looking for a lot of "gluten-free" or "whole" food recipes this may be the book for  you. As for me, I'm going to have to pass on this one.

 

I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review from Tyndale Publishers, I was under no obligation to give a positive review. All the thoughts and opinions in this post are my own.