The devotion begins with a scripture and ends with both a challenge and a prayer.
Each devotion also digs into Celtic history. Readers will find saints of old within the devotional, which offer lessons from their experiences and wisdom.
I especially enjoyed glimpses into historic sites. I want to reread certain days and find photos of those locations.
The author advises that the Celtic people saw the evening as the beginning of a new day. While you can read this at any time, Thomson suggest reading them at bedtime.
I really enjoyed this unique, insightful book. Recommended!
The story begins with Emma Row receiving a marriage proposal from Michael Diepolder, a lighthouse keeper.
At 37, Emma loves her job as a librarian yet has dreamed of marriage to her beau. She is thrilled to accept.
Michael, a widower, cautions Emma that his daughter Ada will soon arrive. She lives with her grandmother so that she can attend school. Ada spends her summers with her father on the small island. He fears she will not accept her new stepmother. He persuades Emma to marry him the day after she arrives so they can learn to be a family together.
His fears are grounded. The eleven-year-old isn’t happy to share her father’s attention.
With Michael spending every night tending the light and sleeping during the morning, Emma handles the brunt of Ada’s disobedience. Emma begins to wonder if she made a mistake in marrying Michael.
I was quickly drawn into the story by believable characters I cared about.
I had read Julia’s Joy, Book 2 in the series. It delighted me to see the family connections from scenes in that book included in this story. It deepened insights into characters from both stories.
This gentle, well-written story about the trials of learning to become a family is highly recommended for those who love to immerse themselves in another time with a great book!
I was given a copy of the book by the author. A positive review was not required.
US Marshal Meadow Ames is working hard on a case with team when she receives a text for help from Outsider, code name for Ian Carpenter who’d been in hiding from men trying to kill him. They’d nearly been successful two years before. She drops everything to help and takes her K-9 dog, Grace, to rush to Ian’s aid.
Ian Carpenter regrets asking for Meadow’s aid because he’s now placed her in danger. He wouldn’t have risked returning except that his niece has asked for his help. But before he can talk to his niece, she is kidnapped.
This author is a master at building suspense. I can barely turn pages fast enough. I couldn’t put the book down!
The characters were likeable and their emotional past trauma is believable. I was drawn into their plight from the first page. The story gripped me and didn’t let go.
Baker owner Charlie Bussey loves dogs and a portion of her baked goods cater to pets. She often donates cookies to the local animal shelter that is struggling to stay afloat.
Blake Bryant has returned to his hometown after several years of absence for two reasons—to purchase a shop to expand his boss’s coffee shops and to adopt the niece whom he’s just learned about. And maybe to see if Charlie, his former best friend who had rejected his heart, could return his love.
Charlie was devastated when Blake left nine years before. She’s filled the empty years by starting a bakery and becoming a child advocate for foster children. When she learns that Blake’s company wants the animal shelter’s building, she is determined to fight to save it.
The characters were likeable. The plight of the foster children enhanced the story for me, but the heroine’s continued anger toward the hero bothered me. Fundraisers and Christmas events kept the story rooted in the holiday season, which I enjoyed.
I love happy endings and this was a nice story set at Christmas.
Savannah Ensworth has been given every material thing her heart desired her whole life. The wealth she’ll inherit isn’t the only reason so many men want to marry her. She’s unwilling to give control of her life and her fortune to a husband. The freedom to choose her future is what she most desires but she’ll try to enjoy the Christmas holidays with her parents at their annual stay at Jekyll Island.
Her boredom dissipates when she hears Joseph Bennett’s sermon. He’s at the resort for the Christmas season. She’s attracted to him even as the honesty in his sermons unsettles her.
Yet society has placed too many barriers between them for their friendship to blossom into marriage.
I love reading books set at Christmas as the season approaches. Believable characters and a mystery that surrounds the heroine’s past made this a page turner for me. Twists and turns kept me guessing. The characters had hurdles that seemed insurmountable.
I’m enjoying the settings in this series. Be prepared to be transported back in time to the Gilded Age resorts.
Lulu Boyd is famous for her bakery’s donuts. It’s the one thing she knows she does well, and she enjoys that teenagers from the area visit several times a week. Lulu’s luck with men is another story. When the high school teacher, Preston Green, starts buying donuts once a week, she looks forward to talking with him.
Preston Green plans to teach at the small town’s high school for one year before switching jobs to teach at a college in another state. He’s not looking to begin a short-term relationship. His family is pressuring him to date.
Lulu’s high-school customers convince her to enter a contest to bid on a date. It’s for charity and Lulu reluctantly agrees. It’s one date, after all. Preston bids to have a date for a family holiday dinner. What could go wrong?
I love reading books set during the Christmas season every year. This one didn’t disappoint. It actually reads very much like a holiday movie.
I enjoyed the story. The characters had believable hurdles.
Recommended for readers who also enjoy holiday movies.
Zachary Brown has a good life on his dairy farm in Mount Pleasant, Ohio, but he longs for a wife and family. He finds a sick boy in his barn, a runaway slave escaping the life Zachary once lived, but new laws have increased the danger to anyone aiding them. Zachary doesn’t turn his back on the boy and then another one comes.
Daniel Whiteford heads to the Quaker community called Mount Pleasant in search of the grandson he’d given away to his indentured servant, Gwen, four years before. He didn’t anticipate that Gwen would have married and have another child nor that she and her husband considered the boy their son.
My attention was captured from the beginning. Likable, realistic characters pulled me into their emotional journey and tugged at my heart. Their faith in tough situations inspired me.
I was especially fascinated by how fugitives continued to find Zachary. I don’t want to give any spoilers here, so let’s say I’m inspired by his faith and determination in the midst of danger.
I enjoyed this poignant story that held many surprising twists. This is the third book in the series and I hope there will be another! I recommend reading them in order.
This book was a page-turner for me.
Recommended for readers of inspirational historical romances.
I was given a copy of the book by the author. A positive review was not required. The opinions expressed are my own.
Kate Stone was twenty in 1861, the year the Civil War started. She lived on a large cotton plantation, Brokenburn, in northeast Louisiana, about 30 miles northwest of Vicksburg, Mississippi.
Brokenburn was located in the floodplain of the Mississippi River in what is now Madison Parish. Enslaved people worked on their plantation.
In the beginning of her journal, Kate was involved in many social activities—formal dining, informal “spend the days,” evening parties, riding frolics, and neighbor visits. Early morning hunters with their packs of hounds baying, horns blowing, and horses stamping were familiar sounds.
Then the war grew closer. Her brothers and her uncle enlisted in support of the Confederacy. The war brought lots of heartache and tragedy. Kate looked back on her twenty-year-old self and realized that she had been pampered. That certainly changed.
Knowing this was a journal made the tragic deaths of loved ones difficult to read, yet I was grateful for Kate’s honesty.
I bought this book for research purposes. My Spies of the Civil War Series has three books set in Vicksburg during the war— Streams of Courage, Book 4, River of Peril, Book 5, and Tides of Healing. I read many other books for my research. This book provided many details of daily life in the 1860s. I enjoyed it very much.
Great book for history lovers interested in learning about the Civil War in Mississippi and Louisiana.
This nonfiction book reports on events that took place in Vicksburg, Mississippi, during the Civil War (1861-1865).
Walker arranged the book in mostly chronological order, which makes it an easy read. The accounts are well-written and easily grabbed my attention.
Filled with interesting details about important leaders and events, this book also includes quotes from newspapers articles that show thoughts and attitudes of the times. It is a treasure trove of information in that it takes readers back in time with its inclusion of descriptions of businesses and streets, and quotes from many of the folks who lived in Vicksburg. I highlighted many paragraphs as I read it.
In fact, I bought this book for research purposes. My Spies of the Civil War Series has three books set in Vicksburg during the war— Streams of Courage, Book 4, River of Peril, Book 5, and Tides of Healing. I read many other books for my research and this was one I enjoyed very much.
Great book for anyone interested in learning about the Civil War in Vicksburg, Civil War research, and history lovers.
It’s 1837 and women didn’t travel West alone because it wasn’t safe. Juniper and her three sisters are surprised when the wagon train guide that they’d traveled with to the Green River Valley (future Wyoming) releases them into a large encampment of men without food. Some of the men hadn’t seen a woman for a long time and the sisters are in danger. Their dying father’s request had sent them there to find Peigan Blackfoot woman but how were they to find her?
Riley Turner cringes to see the Collins sisters come West without an escort and worries for their safety. He steps in to join their search for Steps Right, not knowing the real danger was to his heart, for he falls in love with Juniper, who makes it clear they’d return to Virginia as soon as their mission was accomplished.
I love when an author weaves a story where I learn a bit of history as a natural part of the story! The characters were believable and lovable and I was soon enmeshed in their mission. The hero and heroine really tugged at my heart and the author did a great job with secondary characters we’ll see in later books.
Surprising turns, challenges, and dangers kept me turning page. This well-written story makes me want to read the next book in the series!
Definitely recommend! I will look for more books by this author.
Sandra Merville Hart 