Waiting for Morning

Karen Kingsbury is one of the best authors I have come across and her books are quite literally life changing because they convey a situation no one wants to truly deal with and puts the reader in the drivers seat to take the wheel. In her latest novel, Waiting for Morning, it is every wife and mother's dreaded nightmare no one wants to have to face. Hannah Ryan is waiting for her husband and daughters to arrive home from their weekend camping trip. It is one that the three have taken as a way of bringing summer to a close and embracing another school year ahead for the teens. Only this time it would be different as two police officers arrive to tell her that there has been a car accident and that she needs to come with them.

Brian Wesley has been trying to find a way out of the bottom of the bottle he runs to whenever his life gets out of hand. This is just another of those times. When he gets fired from his job as a mechanic due to trying to stay sober but falling behind in his workload. His boss even tells him that he worked better when he was drunk. Now Brian has to head home and tell his wife Carla that once again he's out of work. It wouldn't be too bad but with the birth of their newborn son, Carla had hoped that Brian might straighten himself out once and for all. She has given him an ultimatum this time, if he starts drinking again, she will leave him for good. He just can't go home without figuring a way out of the mess he has found himself in.

In a series of divine circumstances, their two worlds will intersect and forever alter their lives. He just never dreamed that he was too drunk to get behind the wheel of his truck and head home. He had done it more times than he could remember and he had hoped it would be just like all the others. His truck went through a traffic light and he plowed into the Explorer that was carrying Hannah's family. The initial impact would send their vehicle mid air and land wrapped around a phone pole. Brian of course would walk away from this but those in the vehicle would not be so lucky and for Hannah, her faith will be tested like never before when she learns the outcome of this accident. Will she be able to trust God no matter what happens? She just hopes that this is a really bad mistake and her family is just late coming home with a reasonable explanation.

I received Waiting for Morning by Karen Kingsbury compliments of WaterBrook Multnomah Publishers for my honest review. I did not receive any monetary compensation aside from a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. This is such an emotional and heart rendering but honest novel. I think we all hope one day that we will never have to face the challenges Hannah has to in this novel, but because it pulls on our emotional heartstrings we can't help but be invested in this story to see how it all plays out. I believe this is a must read to anyone who wonders where God is in the midst of any situation where the outcomes is less than what we have prayed for and conveys a sense of hope that readers can relate to. It doesn't all come wrapped up in a pretty bow with a happily ever after ending and that is what makes her books so genuine and in demand. For me this one easily garners a 5 out of 5 stars in my opinion. This is the first book in the Forever Faithful Series!

For more information about Waiting for Morning, Karen Kingsbury or where you can pick up a copy of this novel today, please click on the links below:

Waiting for Morning by Karen Kingbury

You can find Karen Kingsbury on Facebook to stay up to date on all her latest novels.

To read more reviews on Waiting for Morning, please visit WaterBrook Multnomah's website. 

Miracle at the Higher Grounds Cafe

It would come as no surprise to people who know me to know that I've always wanted to open a coffee shop/book store. Just for the main reason that I absolutely think the two go perfectly together. I absolutely LOVED having the opportunity to review Max Lucado's latest novel, Miracle at the Higher Grounds Cafe, a Heavenly Novel. It's a bit like a more contemporary It's A Wonderful Life story tucked between the pages, and it's one without a doubt you will fall absolutely in love with.

Chelsea Chambers is on the brink of making quite a few decisions that will impact not only her future, but the future of her two children as well. Finding out her NFL super star husband Sawyer was unfaithful pretty much impacts her on a personal level. Her kids only want to be reunited again, despite the fact their dad made a mistake and wants a second chance. But Chelsea isn't about to fall for his lines like she did when she married him the first time, despite what her kids want.

Her financial world is rocked when she learns that the coffee shop, Higher Grounds, she inherited from her grandmother, owes back taxes she can't even afford. Even with payments, the amount of business the coffee shop brings in is a far cry from what she will need. The last thing she truly wants to do is sell it. Trying to get money from her soon-to-be-ex-husband Sawyer is not possible since his get rich quick schemes and the affluent life style the NFL provided him has left him with nothing and he cleaned out what remaining savings they both had. Chelsea has nothing to fall back on but a prayer that God will help.

That's when Manny shows up to help, an angel who has been sent on an answer to prayer to help fix the problems in Chelsea's life. Yet the only way to truly shake things up is to bring the coffee shop into the 20th century and that includes internet. But the only website, customers are able to log into while at the cafe is provided by an unnamed company who offers a router and service to try for three months without any obligation. It seems that God has gotten his own blog in which He alone will answer any one question that you might have. Is it real or simply a gimmick to help get Higher Grounds out of debt? You definitely want to pick this one up and see how it all turns out.

I received Miracle at the Higher Grounds Cafe by Max Lucado compliments of Litfuse Publicity and Thomas Nelson Publishers for my honest review. I did not receive any monetary compensation for a favorable review and the opinions contained here are strictly my own. This is one of my favorite novels from Max Lucado and hope he plans on extending this into a series. I love the many inspirational ideas that stem from what happens when the entire community is involved including the local pastor. People will soon realize that God is a lot more concerned about the little things going on in their lives than the answer to a bigger prayer they might have in mind. This would make a wonderful Hallmark Channel movie and hope that this is not the last of these novels from Max Lucado. I'd rate this one an unbelievable 5 out of 5 stars and a Reader's Discussion Questions are included at the conclusion of this novel.

For more information about Miracle at the Higher Grounds Cafe, Max Lucado, or where you can pick up a copy of this novel today, please click on the links below:

Miracle at the Higher Grounds Cafe by Max Lucado

You can find Max Lucado on Facebook to stay up to date on all his latest books.

To read more reviews on Miracle at the Higher Grounds Cafe, please visit Litfuse Publicity's Book Tour Page. 


In Max Lucado's new fiction release, Miracle at the Higher Grounds Cafe, he asks, If you could ask God anything, what would you ask—and how would he answer? When a catastrophe strikes and her ex comes calling, Chelsea begins to wonder if the whole universe is conspiring against her quest to make it on her own. After a shocking discovery opens her eyes to the unseen world around her, Chelsea finds the courage to ask, and heaven answers in a most unexpected way.

Join Max in celebrating the release of his new fiction book by entering his iPad giveaway!

One grand prize winner will receive:

• An iPad Mini
• A copy of Miracle at the Higher Grounds Cafe

Enter today by clicking the icon below. But hurry, the giveaway ends on March 23rd. Winner will be announced March 24th on the Litfuse blog.



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Home to Heather Creek

For Charlotte Stevenson, when it comes to family it's all about the love they have for one another. One to out last anything that they will face in the future and one that will heal them with enough time. Charlotte has now taken on the guardianship of her grandchildren, Sam, Emily and Christopher after the car accident claimed the life of their mother, Denise. Now uprooting the kids from their apartment in San Diego, Charlotte believes that the home where their mother lived might be able to heal the pain in their grieving hearts. But carrying for three children who grew up without knowing their grandparents will provide a challenge and a hurdle that they must all over come.

For Sam, the oldest at sixteen and an avid skateboarder, living on a farm isn't what he had dreamed his future would look like. Just where does one ride his board when all he can see is miles and miles of dirt? How will he ever fit in here? For Emily, the fact that her grandparents have limited internet holds out some hope for a connection back to her friends she left behind. What she doesn't expect however is marginal cell phone coverage. How will she ever find the same kind of loyal friends she left behind in San Diego? For Christopher, the youngest, he seems the most lost. Unable to find a way to make a connection anywhere, he resolves to follow his older brother and sister as a shadow wherever they go. They believe that once their mother's insurance money is settled, they can find a home for themselves someplace else and perhaps locate the father that has been absent in their lives. All they know is they don't want to live with their grandparents on a smelly farm in the middle of nowhere.

Charlotte will have to work hard both with her own feelings and that of her husband Bill to raise her grandchildren in the same faith that has allowed them to endure the distance Denise created when she ran away when she was pregnant with Sam so many years ago. Perhaps God was offering her a second chance to get to know the family she never had when Denise was alive. If only she could find a way to reach them and connect with them. What Charlotte will learn is that it often takes more than just family to find a way to heal through the brokenness that keeps up in bondage to our past.

I received Before the Dawn by Kathleen Bauer compliments of Guidepost Publishing and Litfuse Publicity for my honest review. I received no monetary compensation for a favorable review. Kathleen Bauer is the pen name for a team of writers who have come together to create the series of Home to Heather Creek. Before the Dawn was written by Carolyne Aarsen, herself a city girl who was transplanted in the country to raise her own children and foster children. This is an unforgettable story that teaches us that through faith, anything is possible and often times we need to look outside of our family to gain insight that will enable us to move forward. This is the first novel in the Home to Heather Creek Series and I can't wait to immerse myself in the next book, Sweet September by Tricia Goyer. I rate this one a 4.5 out of 5 stars!

Now that school has picked up again for Sam, Emily and Christopher, some things are changing more than just grade levels and teachers for the Slater children. It's been a rough time not only coming to terms with the death of their mother, but relocating from busy San Diego, to a country farm in Nebraska along Heather Creek to live with their grandparents Charlotte and Bob.
For Sam, he doesn't see the sense in trying to memorize geometry facts along with history names and dates. What's worse is that it's beginning to take its toll on his grades and if his teacher can't convince him, perhaps his grandparents are willing to listen.

Emily is still trying to fit in without the lack of technology she had grown accustom to, it is now non exist on the small farm. What's worse is that her friends from San Diego have apparently moved on without her and there isn't a decent place to shop for clothes in town. Her only hope is the one friend she has managed to make with Ashley, a girl who has befriended her at school but also introduced her to youth group at church as well. Sure beats hanging out on the farm. Christopher, the youngest has managed to keep all his deep secrets hidden along with the occasional treasures he finds during his outings with the family dog, Toby. He wonders if finding a way to invent a time machine might just be the answer they all need to go back to before his mom died. Perhaps they would all be a whole lot happier.

Charlotte knew that it would take time for the grandchildren to fit in but last thing she expected to hear while Ashley spent the night was a conversation between Emily and herself.

" I don't know why anyone would want to stay in Nebraska forever. There is no ocean, no mountains, not to mention all the potholes and no place to shop. As soon as I'm old enough, I'm out of here, just like Sam. Nothing here worth keeping me around."

What would it take for all these issues to be resolved and for her family to find peace amongst one another? Will it take the loss of Bob's health to drive them to put others before their own needs? Will more sacrifices need to be made in order for the family to come together or will another tragedy drive them all apart once and for all?

In the novel Sweet September written under the pen name of Kathleen Bauer, by a team of writers who have come together to create the series Home to Heather Creek. Tricia Goyer takes the helm as she takes us back to the lives of the Slater children whom we read about in Before the Dawn. In this novel however, the children have had some time to adapt to life on the farm, and even though Charlotte had hoped things would work out, it appears that there is more going on than meets the eye. Even her vegetable crop is mysteriously vanishing which means that there will be even less of a harvest to meet the needs of her growing family. Will the family find a way to work together to see that despite tough times, love really does conquer all? You'll have to pick this one up to find out, but well worth the time.

I received Sweet September by Kathleen Bauer (Tricia Goyer) compliments of Guidepost Publishing and Litfuse Publicity for my honest review and I did not receive any monetary compensation for a favorable one. I absolutely LOVE this series. There is so much to admire and appreciate about the family that is struggling to overcome the odds brought about by the death of the children's mother and their daughter, but also in resolving the differences between the generations that were brought up so differently. In the end, it is truly satisfying to see how it all works out. I rate this one a 4.5 out of 5 stars and look forward to many, many more in this series. It's almost like the Little House on the Prairie Books for adults that grew up loving that series. Now for a more contemporary version with a unique and unforgettable twist.



Guideposts Books is thrilled to announce their brand new series, Home to Heather Creek, by Kathleen Bauer. The first two books, Before the Dawn and Sweet September, launch this month and Guideposts Books is celebrating with a Paperwhite Kindle Giveaway!

One winner will receive:

• A Paperwhite Kindle
• Before the Dawn and Sweet September by Kathleen Bauer

Enter today by clicking one of the icons below. But hurry, the giveaway ends on October 5th. All winners will be announced October 7th HERE.

Don't miss a moment of the fun; enter today and be sure to visit the Litfuse blog on the 7th to see if you won! (Or better yet, subscribe to their blog [enter your email in the blog sidebar] and have the winner announcement delivered to your inbox!)

Promises To Keep

To Tillie, ownership was in fact a matter of sweat, years, and love a person poured into a house. If the latter was true and could hold up in court, this house would be Tillie's Long after she was dead.

Janis Anthony, along with her 17-year old son Wally, 11 year old daughter, Rosalind who goes by Roz with a Z instead of an S, and Valerie who was 2, moved into a home that her grandfather paid cash for when she needed a place to live.

Janis and her family left her abusive husband, Alan, and decided for safety of herself and her kids to move far away and never look back. That's all that Roz can remember is watching her Daddy crying on the stoop of their house as they drove off. Her momma never did look back.

Tillie has vowed that she will die in the house that her and her now deceased husband Ross built back in 1917, but since a recent slip and fall on ice that left her with a hip injury, her three sons moved her into St. Claire's Home for the Aged and sold her home. Yet when Tillie keeps escaping from the home and laying claim to the house Janis and the kids live in, God is about to bring about a new kind of family that will meet all of their needs.

I received the latest novel, Promises To Keep by Ann Tatlock compliments of Christian Fiction Blog Alliance for my honest review and found myself captivated by the warmth and sincerity of two different circumstances united under one roof. I love Tillie Monroe and all the wisdom that her age has brought to the troubled Anthony family and watching it play out on the written pages of this heartwarming book.

Here's even more great information about the book, the author and a first chapter glimpse that is guaranteed to have you wanting to read this amazing story.

This week, the Christian Fiction Blog Alliance is introducing Promises to Keep Bethany House (February 1, 2011) by Ann Tatlock


ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Ann Tatlock is the author of the Christy Award-winning novel All the Way Home. She has also won the Midwest Independent Publishers Association "Book of the Year" in fiction for both All the Way Home and I'll Watch the Moon. Her novel Things We Once Held Dear received a starred review from Library Journal and Publishers Weekly calls her "one of Christian fiction's better wordsmiths, and her lovely prose reminds readers why it is a joy to savor her stories." Ann lives with her husband and daughter in Asheville, North Carolina.



ABOUT THE BOOK

Eleven-year-old Roz (Rosalind) Anthony and her family have just moved to Mills River, Illinois, to escape an abusive situation. Only days after settling into their new home, they are surprised to find the previous owner, Tillie Monroe, on their front porch reading the newspaper.

Though her sons have sold the house and sent her to a facility for the aged, she is determined to die in the place she lived her life, and somehow manages to find her way "home" day after day. Feeling sympathy for the elderly woman, Roz's mother allows Tillie to move back in.

Mara Nightingale becomes Roz's first friend in Mills River. In spite of their many differences, the girls discover they have something in common that binds them together--both are hiding secrets. So they make a promise--"cross my heart and hope to die"--never to tell anyone else. When danger stalks the Anthonys, Tillie exhibits unimaginable courage and selfless love in her determination to protect the family she has adopted as her own.

If you would like to read the first chapter of Promises to Keep, go HERE.

An Unlikely Blessing - Kindle Giveaway and Review

It must be hard to pick your life up and start all over again in a new town, new faces and new opportunities but it can also be exciting as well.

When Alex Armstrong decides to make a new change after living in the city his whole life and start life over again as a pastor of Hilltop Community Church, he believes he is taking a step that God has called him to pursue.

At 42, and almost married, he is ready for new challenges. Armed with his nephew Jared, he packs everything up and heads for the hills. What he finds there is a beautiful countryside full of farms that have been handed down to families for generations. People have been praying for a minister for their church and since Alex was the only one to apply for the position of pastor, they feel led that he is the one.

But is Alex ready to deal with new challenges? Hilltop Township has been hit hard by the recession and people are literally on the verge of losing everything, but will Alex be able to help them?

In the latest book, An Unlikely Blessing by Judy Baer, the reader is transported to a slower pace of life, where people still welcome newcomers to town with plenty of food and conversation. You are never a complete stranger here. In the enchanting story woven through the pages of this book, we are delighted in the new experiences just waiting around each corner for both Alex and the reader. I loved this book and can easily give it a 5 out of 5 star rating!

I received this book compliments of Litfuse Publicity for my honest review and would highly recommend this book to anyone looking for a virtual new start in a wonderful town. For more information about this book, the author and where to purchase a copy of this charming story, please click on the link below:

An Unlikely Blessing by Judy Baer

Prolific author of over 75 novels, Judy Baer, is launching her new Guideposts series, Forever Hilltop, with a KINDLE giveaway! The first book in the series, An Unlikely Blessing is available now wherever fine books are sold.


Read the reviews here.

In celebration of the release of An Unlikely Blessing, Judy is giving away a KINDLE prize package worth over $175.

One lucky winner will receive:

• Brand New KINDLE with Wi-Fi


• A $25 gift certificate to Amazon.com

To enter just click on one the icons below and then tell your friends! Winner will be announced on February 21st on Judy's blog, http://www.judykbaer.com/wordpress

For more information please visit the Litfuse website, www.litfusegroup.com and click {HERE}!