The Christmas Cat by Melody Carlson

After years abroad, Garrison Brown returns home to Vancouver to build a new life. When his beloved grandmother passes away a few weeks before Christmas, Garrison goes to her house to sort out her belongings, including six cats who need new homes. While Garrison hopes to dispense with the task quickly, his grandmother's instructions don't allow for speed. She has left Garrison with some challenging requirements for the future homes of her furry friends--plus a sizeable monetary gift for the new owners. Garrison's job is to match the cats with the right owners without disclosing the surprise gift. Along the way, he may just meet someone who can make him stay.
Humorous and heartwarming, this latest Christmas story from bestselling author Melody Carlson is the perfect gift for pet lovers and anyone in whose heart Christmas holds a special place.

About this author

Melody Carlson is the award-winning author of over two hundred books, several of them Christmas novellas from Revell, including her much-loved and bestselling book, The Christmas Bus.

She also writes many teen books, including the Diary of a Teenage Girl series, the TrueColors series, and the Carter House Girls series.

Melody was nominated for a Romantic Times Career Achievement Award in the inspirational market for her books, including the Notes from a Spinning Planet series and Finding Alice, which is in production as a Lifetime Television movie. She and her husband serve on the Young Life adult committee in central Oregon.




My Thoughts:

I am not a cat person, I am clearly a dog person. However the cat pictured on the cover captivated me and I was thrilled to be able to read it for review.

Garrison's grandmother has passed away and he goes home to settle her estate. This is not the "usual" probate, after his grandfather died, and after he went abroad, his grandmother began collecting cats. That may not be a problem for most, but Garrison is allergic, and his grandmother has instructed that he find homes for these cats, and his grandmother has left him a set of guidelines for finding homes for said cats.

I loved this book from beginning to end. Melody not only creates great characters, the cats are characters too. I knew nothing about a Maine Coon Cat, which is the cat on the cover, because of this book I learned about this beautiful cat.

Christmas is 41 days away, and I know for some reading Christmas books before December seems way early. This would make a great Christmas gift for the reader in your family.

I highly recommend it!!

 

Dreaming on Daisies by Miralee Ferrell

This week, the Christian Fiction Blog Alliance is introducing Dreaming on Daisies David C. Cook (October 1, 2014) by Miralee Ferrell

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Miralee and her husband, Allen, live on 11 acres in Washington State. She loves to minister to women (as a certified Lay Counselor with the AACC) or through her writing, riding her horse, working in her flower beds and playing with her dogs—her 7 lb, long-haired Chihuahua, Lacey, spends a lot of time on her lap while Miralee is writing. Miralee speak at various women’s functions and has taught at writers’ conferences. She’s been writing since 2005, and her first book released in 2007. Since then, she’s had 10 more books release, both in women’s contemporary fiction and historical romance, and she’s had the honor of being a best-selling and award-winning author.



ABOUT THE BOOK

When her father's debts, brought on by heavy drinking, threaten Leah Carlson's family ranch, she fights to save it. When handsome banker Steven Harding must decline her loan request, he determines to do what he can to help. Just as he arrives to serve as a much-needed ranch hand, Leah's family secrets—and the pain of her past—come to a head. They could destroy everything she's fought for. And they could keep her from ever opening her heart again.

This is western historical romance that offers hope and healing to the deepest wounds in a woman's past.

If you'd like to read the first chapter of Dreaming on Daisies, go HERE.

Where Treetops Glisten by Cara Putman, Tricia Goyer, and Sarah Sundin

About the book: 

The crunch of newly fallen snow, the weight of wartime

Siblings forging new paths and finding love in three stories, filled with the wonder of Christmas

Turn back the clock to a different time, listen to Bing Crosby sing of sleigh bells in the snow, as the realities of America's involvement in the Second World War change the lives of the Turner family in Lafayette, Indiana.

In Cara Putman's White Christmas, Abigail Turner is holding down the Home Front as a college student and a part-time employee at a one-of-a-kind candy shop. Loss of a beau to the war has Abigail skittish about romantic entanglements---until a hard-working young man with a serious problem needs her help.

Abigail's brother Pete is a fighter pilot hero returned from the European Theater in Sarah Sundin's I'll Be Home for Christmas, trying to recapture the hope and peace his time at war has eroded. But when he encounters a precocious little girl in need of Pete's friendship, can he convince her widowed mother that he's no longer the bully she once knew?

In Tricia Goyer's Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, Meredith Turner, "Merry" to those who know her best, is using her skills as a combat nurse on the frontline in the Netherlands. Halfway around the world from home, Merry never expects to face her deepest betrayal head on, but that's precisely what God has in mind to redeem her broken heart.

The Turner family believes in God's providence during such a tumultuous time. Can they absorb the miracle of Christ's birth and His plan for a future?

Purchase a copy: http://ow.ly/BwVP9

TRICIA GOYER is a prolific author of nearly forty books, including Chasing Mona Lisa, and a speaker and blogger. 

Website, Facebook, Twitter

CARA PUTMAN is the author of twenty books including Shadowed by Grace. She is the winner of the 2008 Carol Award for historical fiction. 

Website, Facebook, Twitter

SARAH SUNDIN is the critically-acclaimed author of the Wings of the Nightingale series, the Wings of Glory series, and the forthcoming Waves of Freedom novels.

Website, Facebook, Twitter

 

This is one of those books that you never want to end. I could see this book being turned into a movie like such classics as White Christmas, The Miracle on 34th Street, and The Christmas Story.
These ladies are well versed in WWII history and that comes through the pages, you actually feel as though you are there with the characters experiencing what they are. Which is the kind of story I want to read. Look no further for a Christmas novel that will put you smack dab in the midst of the Christmas spirit!
Highly recommended! 

 

 

Lizzy and Jane by Katherine Reay

Lizzy and Jane never saw eye to eye. But when illness brings them together, they discover they may be more like Austen’s famous sisters after all.

Lizzy was only a teenager when her mother died of cancer. Shortly after, Lizzy fled from her home, her family, and her cherished nickname. After working tirelessly to hone her gift of creating magic in the kitchen, Elizabeth has climbed the culinary ladder to become the head chef of her own New York restaurant, Feast. But as her magic begins to elude her, Paul, Feast’s financial backer, brings in someone to share her responsibilities and her kitchen. So Elizabeth flees again.

In a desperate attempt to reconnect with her gift, Elizabeth returns home. But her plans are derailed when she learns that her estranged sister, Jane, is battling cancer. Elizabeth surprises everyone—including herself—when she decides to stay in Seattle and work to prepare healthy, sustaining meals for Jane as she undergoes chemotherapy. She also meets Nick and his winsome son, Matt, who, like Elizabeth, are trying to heal from the wounds of the past.

As she tends to Jane's needs, Elizabeth's powers begin to return to her, along with the family she left behind so long ago. Then Paul tries to entice her back to New York, and she is faced with a hard decision: stay and become Lizzy to her sister’s Jane, or return to New York and the life she worked so hard to create?

About this author

Katherine Reay has lived all across the country and Europe and has just moved with her family to Chicago. She is a writer, wife, mom, runner, and, most randomly, a tae kwon do black belt. Her debut novel "Dear Mr. Knightley" (ThomasNelson/HarperCollins) was be released last November. It is a contemporary story with a dash of Jane Austen and other nineteenth century writers thrown in for the fun of it. Her next novel, Lizzy & Jane, releases October 2014.

http://www.katherinereay.com

My Thoughts:

Katherine Reay's sophomore book Lizzy and Jane is 110% better than anticipated! Lizzy is goes home to Washington to help care for her older sister Jane. They haven't gotten along in years, mainly because when their mother died Jane was away at college and refused to come home, leaving Lizzy a teen at the time to help their father cared for their mother, who was dying of cancer.
Lizzy comes home to not only help her sister, but to find herself again. She's been running Feast, a top restaurant in New York, but she's lost her focus. In caring for her sister, Jane, she finds herself and a new way to cook to help patients suffering with cancer.
This book made me laugh, cry, and cheer for not only Lizzy and Jane but the other characters that both of them come in contact with.
This is one of my favorite books of 2014 and I highly recommend it!!

Surprised by Love by Julie Lessman

From Ugly Duckling

to Swimming with the Swans …

but is she over her head

when it comes to love?

As a shy and pudgy child, Megan McClare has always been ridiculed by her classmates, but when she returns from her senior year in Paris, the wallflower has suddenly blossomed into a beauty. Hopeful of becoming a lawyer or doctor to help the disadvantaged women of the Barbary Coast, Megan accepts an internship at the District Attorney’s office only to discover she’ll be working with the boy who mocked her in school. She turns to her best friend Bram for support and advice, and Bram—fighting an unwelcome attraction to a friend he’s always perceived as a little sister—encourages Meg to forgive Devin and pursue a friendship. The friendship with Devin evolves into a serious romance, but when a sailboat accident tosses Bram and Meg into the seas of attraction, both her heart and her emotions capsize, threatening to change the course of love …

Julie Lessman is an award-winning author whose tagline of “Passion With a Purpose” underscores her intense passion for both God and romance. Winner of the 2009 ACFW Debut Author of the Year and Holt Medallion Awards of Merit for Best First Book and Long Inspirational, Julie is also the recipient of 14 Romance Writers of America awards and was voted by readers as “Borders Best of 2009 So Far: Your Favorite Fiction.”
Chosen as the #1 Romance Fiction Author of the Year in the Family Fiction magazine 2012 and 2011 Readers Choice Awards, Julie was also awarded #1 Historical Fiction Author of the Year in that same poll and #3 Author of the Year, #4 Novel of the Year and #3 Series of the year. She resides in Missouri with her husband, daughter, son, daughter-in-law and granddaughter and is the author of “The Daughters of Boston” series—A Passion Most Pure, A Passion Redeemed, and A Passion Denied. Book 1 in her “Winds of Change” series A Hope Undaunted ranked #5 on Booklist’s Top 10 Inspirational Fiction for 2010.
http://www.julielessman.com/

 My Thoughts:

Alas, I must say good-bye to another beloved family. This is the final book in the Heart of San Francisco series. I get attached and the series ends.
Meg has returned from being in Paris for a year, no one recognizes her, especially Devin Caldwell who made her life horrible as a kid, he bullied her to pieces, she isn't the "Ugly-Duckling" he remembers, and he's tongue-tied. Cait can't decide whether to love Logan, or Andrew Turner, she has both men tied in knots.
As I've come to love with Julie's books, she stays true to her tagline of Passion With A Purpose. She writes with passion and the purpose is to promote romantic relationships with God at the center.
I have enjoyed this series and am sad to see it end. Julie is one of those authors where you wait with baited breath for the next book, and I am waiting ever so impatiently.

Saved by the Fireman by Allie Pleiter

This week, the Christian Fiction Blog Alliance is introducing Saved by the Fireman Love Inspired (October 21, 2014) by Allie Pleiter

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Enthusiastic but slightly untidy mother of two, Allie Pleiter writes both fiction and nonfiction. An avid knitter, harp player and non-reformed chocoholic, she spends her days writing books, doing laundry, running carpools and finding new ways to avoid housework. Allie grew up in Connecticut, holds a BS in speech from Northwestern University and currently lives in suburban Chicago, Illinois. The "dare from a friend" to begin writing eight years ago has blossomed into a career that includes numerous public speaking engagements, two books on parenting; Becoming a Chief Home Officer and Facing Every Mom's Fears and now novels for Steeple Hill Books. She is the mother of two children and, most recently, a Havanese dog named Bella.


ABOUT THE BOOK

Building their future

Charlotte Taylor isn't good at playing it safe. Reeling from the sudden loss of her job and her beloved grandmother, Charlotte knows buying a dilapidated cottage in Gordon Falls isn't exactly practical. Especially since she just hired the one man who may love the property more than she does to help renovate it. Volunteer firefighter and part-time contractor Jesse Sykes can't stay mad at Charlotte for very long. Though she snatched up the home he'd planned on purchasing, Charlotte's dreams are big enough for both of them…if only she'd let him in. Charlotte promised she'd never fall for a first responder, but is it already too late?

Gordon Falls: Hearts ablaze in a small town

If you would like to read the first chapter of Saved by the Fireman, go HERE

The French Executioner by C.C. Humphreys

It is 1536 and the expert swordsman Jean Rombaud has been brought over from France by Henry VIII to behead his wife, Anne Boleyn. But on the eve of her execution Rombaud swears a vow to the ill-fated queen - to bury her six-fingered hand, symbol of her rumoured witchery, at a sacred crossroads. Yet in a Europe ravaged by religious war, the hand of this infamous Protestant icon is so powerful a relic that many will kill for it... From a battle between slave galleys to a Black Mass in a dungeon, through the hallucinations of St Anthony's Fire to the fortress of an apocalyptic Messiah, Jean seeks to honour his vow. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 C.C. Humphreys was born in Toronto, Canada, and grew up in Los Angeles and London. A third generation actor and writer on both sides of his family, he returned to Canada in the nineties and there his writing career began. He won the inaugural playwriting competition of the New Play Centre, Vancouver with his first play, 'A Cage Without Bars' which was produced in Vancouver and London. He was a schoolboy fencing champion, became a fight choreographer and thus turned his love of swashbuckling towards historical fiction. He is married and lives in Finchley, North London.

http://www.cchumphreys.com 

 

 

 

 

My Thoughts:

 

I am a huge Tudor fan and I was thrilled to be asked to read and review this book. It started out really interesting, not your typical Anne Boleyn book. This book is about the swordsman who killed Anne not really about her, and the desire for her hand because it is believed to have six fingers on it.

For me, this book has to be one of the worst books I've read, and I have read a lot of books. The ridiculous sexual references were not needed in my opinion, an entire chapter devoted to "Orgies" with reference to Sodom and Gomorrah sealed the deal for me!

All in all this was a waste of my time.  I do not recommend it!!