Thursday, March 29, 2018

BOOK REVIEW FOR - CELEBRATING A CHRIST-CENTERED EASTER - BY Emily Belle Freeman

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pic and description taken from shadowmountain.com

DESCRIPTION:

This is a children’s picture book edition of the best-selling adult book of the same title. Using illustrations and age-appropriate text, this children’s edition features passages of scripture along with original text to tell the Easter story and provides ideas for family traditions that young children can understand to make the holiday more Christ-centered. Each spread uses at least one person from the Easter story-including Simon, Joseph and Nicodemus, Mary Magdalene, the disciples on the road to Emmaus, and Thomas-to illustrate a theme.
Combining biblical text with a beautiful story line and wonderfully charming, full-color illustrations, this book will help make Christ the focus of your celebrations this year.



MY THOUGHTS / REVIEW:

This is such a sweet story for children.  I love Easter.  I love to teach my kids the real meaning of Easter.  Not that having eggs hunts and Easter baskets aren't fun, I just want them to recognize the reason for the season.

This book has such beautiful illustrations about the Easter.  Each scripture reference comes with an activity that you can do with your family to make Easter more meaningful.  I wish my kids were still little, but I am still going to make them do some of them with me anyway.

If you have children this is a great book to pick up and read with them, and then do the activities as a family.

Easter is beautiful.  The Savior is beautiful.  This is such a sweet story.

MY RATING:


WHERE TO BUY:

    


ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

avatar-author
pic and bio taken from shadowmountain.com



EMILY BELLE FREEMAN is a coach’s wife, a mother to four children and a few others who have found refuge in her home, author of several bestselling books, and sought-after inspirational speaker. Her days are spent watching over teenagers, her flock of pampered chickens, and a rabbit that she adores. She finds great joy in studying the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. Her deep love of the scriptures comes from a desire to find their application in everyday life. For a few minutes every day Emily forgets about the laundry, leaves the dishes in the sink, and writes. She coauthors a blog that is a stopping place for hearts seeking all that is good.




Tuesday, March 27, 2018

BOOK TOUR / REVIEW FOR - THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BRIDGE - BY - CAMRON WRIGHT



Welcome to my stop on this amazing tour.

DESCRIPTION:


Katie Connelly has lived in San Francisco all her life. Her late father made his career on the Golden Gate Bridge, and the many stories of how he saved jumpers still haunt her. And now her job assignment is to write about the history of the bridge-a history that includes a secret journal about a promise ring and a love story that may be the answer to her unresolved sorrow.
Meanwhile, Dave Riley, a marketing executive in New York, has sorrows of his own. Grasping at straws after tragedy strikes his family, he decides to follow a daydream that has turned into an obsession: to drive across the Golden Gate Bridge on a motorcycle on the Fourth of July. Does the bridge somehow mysteriously hold the answers both Katie and Dave are looking for? Or will they find something completely different when they get to the other side?

MY REVIEW / THOUGHTS:

When the opportunity came up to review one of Camron Wright's books I jumped at it.  His book "The Rent Collector" is one of my favorites, so I knew I was getting a good book.

This story was so complex, and beautiful.  I have to admit I had read some reviews that made me wonder if I would love it as much as I did his other books, lets just say, everyone has their own opinion, and I loved this book.  It was so moving.

We follow two different stories in this book, that end up being intertwined, but not in a way you think it would be.

Katie is a single woman who has been tasked with writing a story about The Golden Gate Bridge.  This is something near and dear to her heart, since her father worked on the bridge for years, saving people from jumping to their deaths.  

I learned so much about the making of this bridge from Katie's research, and I have always had a fascination with the Golden Gate Bridge, but I still have never been.  I want to go now more than ever.  I feel like I would be able to feel the people who worked so tirelessly to make it such a great site.  There were so many lives lost while building the bridge, but also some wonderful friendships and stories that came from it as well.  Katie does such a great job researching and bringing to life these amazing people who helped build the bridge.  It's so great.

Dave on the other hand has a story that is so tragic, that it was hard for me to read.  I don't want to give anything away, but his man had a hard go at life for a while.  He had a dream to drive across the Golden Gate Bridge on the 4th of July, with the sun at his back and the wind blowing through his hair.  His Grandfather had helped build the bridge and had told him that it had helped him find answers.  Dave was hoping the same thing would happen for him.  But, how could he leave his life and his work and just go take off on a Harley across the country.

The story that brings this to life is so wonderfully tragic.  We all face loss, disappointment, and anger.  What we do with that is what makes us who we are as humans now.  Dave seem to be stuck in the anger, until he met Redd.  Redd introduced Dave to his first Harley Davidson (which is a bike I swoon over every time I see one.....I don't want to ride it I just want it to sit in my garage and look pretty).  

When Dave finally decides he is going to go for his dream.  He walks out on his work, and his life, buys a Harley and heads towards San Francisco.  

This book is such a great story of love, loss, anger, friendship, devotion, and new beginnings.  I couldn't put this one down.  It was so captivating to hear two different peoples look on life and to see how their little lives come together just for a moment.  That moment seems to be what they are both looking for.

Wright is an excellent writer.  He brings the world to life.  He brings tragedy to the forefront and makes your heart ache.  He also tells such a compelling story that now all I want to do is learn more about the bridge.  

Pick this one up.  I know I always say that, but that is because I love to read and love to share the books I love with others.  You won't be disappointed.  It is such a beautiful, and meaningful story.  We all need to find our place in this world and sometime it takes some longer than others.  Sometimes we think we have found it, and learn that there can be more to add to the beauty that is already around us.  

I cannot say enough good things about this book!  Read it.  You won't regret it.

Source:  I was given this book as part of a book tour.  I was not compensate  in any way for this review.  These are my own PERSONAL thoughts on the book.

MY RATING:
this deserves the +1

WHERE TO BUY:

    



ABOUT THE AMAZING AUTHOR:
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pic and bio taken from shadowmountain.com

Camron Wright holds a master’s degree in writing and public relations. He says he began writing to get out of attending MBA school, and it proved the better decision. His first book, Letters for Emily, was a Readers Choice award winner, as well as a selection of the Doubleday Book Club and the Literary Guild. His next novel, The Rent Collector, won Book of the Year, Fiction, from ForeWord Reviews; Best Novel of the Year from the Whitney Awards; and was a nominee for the prestigious International DUBLIN Literary Award. The Orphan Keeper is his most recent publication. Camron lives with his wife, Alicyn, in Utah. They are the parents of four children.

A SPECIAL THANKS TO
Sarah Cobabe @

for the opportunity to participate in this wonderful tour!





Wednesday, March 7, 2018

BLOG TOUR / REVIEW FOR - ASHES ON THE MOOR - BY - SARAH M. EDEN






WELCOME TO MY STOP FOR THIS TOUR!


 
pic and description taken from shadowmountain.com

DESCRIPTION:

When Evangeline is sent to live in a small mill town in Northern England as a schoolteacher in 1871, she finds herself struggling to fit in with an unfamiliar culture. Raised with the high-class Victorian values and ideals of a sophisticated upbringing, she is unprepared for the poverty she finds in the gritty factory town of Smeatley, where the locals speak with a hard-to-understand Yorkshire accent and struggle to thrive with few resources or opportunities.

Though she has no training as a teacher, she must prove herself successful before her grandfather will release her substantial inheritance to her and allow her to be reunited with her younger sister, the last remaining member of her family after a fever claimed the lives of her parents and brothers.

MY REVIEW / THOUGHTS:

Well, we all know how I feel about Proper Romance Books, but this is Proper Romance plus Sarah Eden.  Yes, Please!!!!  I love this author.  I like all of the authors, but I don’t know if I just enjoy her so much because I have actually met and talked with her a few times.  She is such a delightful person.  Her writing always brings a smile to my face.

Evangeline, is forced to be an independent woman after being brought up in high society when an accident takes all of her family away except one sister.  Lucy.  Instead of being able to mourn their family their Aunt Barton came and ripped them from their home and took them to Smeatley. 

Evangeline, promised Lucy they would always be together, but her Aunt Barton had other plans.  Not only did she rip Lucy away from her, she forced her into a teaching position, and into a home all alone.  Then she was told she wasn’t allowed to reveal their family relations or she would be fired.

This sounds like such a great family.  Aunt Barton told Evangeline that she would be checking on her progress and if she didn’t show that she could take care of her self then she would never be able to take care of Lucy either. 

Forced into a life she didn’t want Evangeline takes the high road and decides she going to do the best she can with the circumstances she has been put in.

She meets a neighbor man by the name of Dermont, who ends up helping her more than any one has in her whole life.  Evangeline doesn’t seem to mind that he is Irish like most of the town did when he arrived.  Dermont is a hard working man taking care of his son Ronan and building houses and fences.  He is a master at masonry.

This is such a sweet story of love, hope, endurance, and hard work.  The setting is so beautiful.  I love the town of Smeatley.  I was right there with the town people and Evangeline as she navigates through her new life.  It didn’t hurt anything that she had a yummy man living right down the street from her (Dermont) that helped her so much and made her feel welcome.

Evangeline is an amazing character.  She is kind, loving, compassionate, and fiery!  I love the fire she has.  She is a lady but is learning that she doesn’t have to take all the grieve her aunt and uncle are giving her anymore.  She finds joy in life, in the town and in the children, she is teaching.  She genuinely loves them, and it shows through this whole book.

I felt for the people in this small town, and all the hardships they faced, and how they all pulled together no matter what.  It is just such a wonderful, uplifting story.  It gave me chills, made me angry, and made me cry.  All good things a book can do for me 😊.  I loved every minute of this book.  I hope you take a chance to pick it up and read it.  It’s just a beautiful story.

Source:  I was given this book as part of a blog tour in return for an honest review.  I was not compensated in any way for this review.  These are my own PERSONAL thoughts on the book.

MY RATING:





WHERE TO BUY:

    





ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Author avatar

Pic and bio taken from shadowmountain.com


SARAH M. EDEN read her first Jane Austen novel in elementary school and has been an Austen addict ever since. Fascinated by the English Regency era, Eden became a regular in that section of the reference department at her local library, where she painstakingly researched this extraordinary chapter in history. Eden is an award-winning author of short stories and was a Whitney Award finalist for her novels Seeking Persephone and Courting Miss Lancaster.

A SPECIAL THANKS TO: