Book Review -- Pearl River Mansion By Richard Schwartz

ABOUT THE BOOK

Detective Jack Kendall and his assistant, Stacy Young, receive a disturbing call that opens the door to a missing persons case that has tugged at the heartstrings of Mississippi and the entire nation. Now Jack and Stacy hold the key to the most shocking, complex, and emotional case of their careers, and they are all in! As the only heir of Joan Chandler, Tyler Chandler stands to inherit everything a man could want, including Pearl River Mansion a 450-acre, post-Civil War estate that sits at the end of one of the many fingers of the Pearl River. Tyler's mother makes a game out of controlling people by trading on her wealth, but Tyler refuses her money which always comes with strings and struggles to make it on his own, trading instead on his intelligence and exceptional good looks. But he's not as good at the game as she is and finds himself trapped in a marriage that infuriates his mother. It is a destructive battle of wills, and just when Tyler believes he's winning, fate intercedes... And for the second time in her life, Joan finds a purpose for the alligators that have kept her well away from the water's edge and the stakes keep rising.

MY THOUGHTS

This book is written so well, it will haunt you in your dreams. I love reading books that will leave the hair on the back of your neck standing. This book is 2nd in the series, but I have not read the first book and I did not have a problem following along. This book we meet Tyler and Sarah. They are a married couple that have twins, Rachel and Cody. They live in a trailer, and life really isn't that great for them. Sarah seems to always make sure Tyler's happiness is above her own. She is not always great to her children. This part of the story really bothered me. As a mom, I can't imagine it. It broke my heart, especially for Rachel, who is clearly NOT the favorite. Tyler has clearly been a disappointment to his manipulative mother. He grew up at Pearl River Mansion, which is a Post Civil War estate. Tyler stands to inherit more then a man can ever imagine. 

Rachel's life takes a turn when Sarah passes away, and her father tells her that she is not wanted. When she goes to live with one of her grand parents - she goes missing. Who took Rachel? Can they find her? Detective Jack Kendall and his assistant, Stacy Young, are placed on the case - and they were probably my favorite characters. 

This book played with my emotions, in a good way. Just when I thought that things were figured out, BOOM plot change. The author has done a great job in throwing you off the trail. It is a book filled with twists, turns, murder, abuse and family drama. Be prepared to go on a roller coaster. 

I received a copy of this book through the Publisher, Mascot Books. All thoughts are my own, 

Purchase: HERE

Book Review!!! Grounded Hearts by Jeanne M. Dickson

ABOUT THE BOOK

Grounded Hearts (Waterfall Press, July 2017)

A brave midwife. A wounded pilot. A risky secret.

In the midst of World War II, Ireland has declared herself neutral. Troops found on Irish soil must be reported and interned, no matter which side they are fighting for. When midwife Nan O’Neil finds a wounded young Canadian pilot at her door, she knows she’s taking a huge risk by letting him in. Not only is she a widow living alone, but if caught harboring a combatant, she’ll face imprisonment.
​
Still, something compels Nan to take in “flyboy” Dutch Whitney, an RAF pilot whose bomber has just crashed over County Clare. While she tends to his wounds and gives him a secret place of refuge, the two begin to form a mutual affection—and an unbreakable bond.

But Nan has another secret, one that has racked her with guilt since her husband’s death and made her question ever loving again. As Nan and Dutch plan his escape, can he help restore her faith?

Learn more and purchase a copy.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jeanne M. Dickson was born into an Irish American family, the only girl surrounded by four brothers. She credits her mother, her aunts, and her grandmother with her love of storytelling. Perfecting her craft, she attends many writer’s conferences and over the years, she has won and finaled in numerous RWA romance writing awards including the Daphne du Maurier Award, the Maggie Award, The Molly, The Tara, and she was the overall contest winner of Launching A Star. Today she lives in Coastal San Diego with her fabulous husband, her two wonderful girls, and a dozen disobedient rose bushes.

My Thoughts: 

This was the first book that I have read by this author and I really enjoyed it. I really liked reading this WWII era novel from an Ireland stand-point. The characters are well written, the story line fresh and complete. WWII is such a fascinating time in history - and I really enjoyed this story. This book is well researched and when you read you feel like you are there. I hope to read more form this author. 

I received Grounded Hearts by Jeanne M. Dickson compliments of Litfuse Publicity and Waterfall Press. -- All opinions are my own. 

One grand prize winner will receive:

• A copy of Grounded Hearts
• A Claddagh bracelet
• A Claddagh jewelry box

ENTER: HERE

Book Review: Surround Me (Revolutionary Faith #2) by Marguerite Martin Gray

Book Review: Surround Me (Revolutionary Faith #2) by Marguerite Martin Gray



It's no secret that my favorite time period is Revolutionary America (1770 ish) - 1900. When I was offered the opportunity to read and review the above book, I jumped at it. It was a book that I had my eye on for a long time. 

Book Summary: 

As the dark curtain of the rumors of revolution threatens to descend, Louis Lestarjette pursues his relationship with Elizabeth even as the emotional and physical struggles set the course for a life of changes. Will his commitment to God stay firm, or will the tide of change cause fear and flight?

The chance of reconciliation with England moves further out to sea, leaving Elizabeth Elliott on the shores of surrender to a greater challenge. Although others of unwavering courage give her strength, she must choose to allow God's love to surround her. How can she enter into a marriage during a time of uncertainty? Will selfish, safer options take her away from Louis and his love?

Set in 1773 Charles Town, Surround Me, the sequel to Hold Me Close, takes the reader into the lives of colonists confronting imminent change and unpredictable circumstances binding them together to become a formidable force

About the Author: 




Marguerite Martin Gray enjoys the study of history, especially when combined with fiction. An avid traveler and reader, she teaches French and has degrees in French, Spanish, and Journalism from Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas. Recently, she received a MA in English from Hardin-Simmons University in Abilene. She has two grown children

Read more at her website: HERE

My Review: 

 This is Book #2 in the Revolutionary faith Series. I had not read Book 1. I had no problem following along and getting to know the characters. Louis Lestarjette, Frenchman turned Patriot is completely in love with his secret fiance Elizabeth Elliot. One of the major hurdles you will see them go through is the fact that Elizabeth's father is a Loyalist. He is less then thrilled that his daughter is in love with a Frenchman and a Patriot. 

I loved getting lost in Charles Town, SC and the struggle that was going on during this time period. I loved reading the story of Louis and Elizabeth and seeing some of the struggles they went through. The author's characters and descriptions are so real it's like you are there with them watching the story unfold. 

Louis is a fairly new Christian and watching him get comfortable with his new faith and adjust his life accordingly. 

If you are a fan of Historical Fiction - you will love this book 

I received a courtesy copy of this book from the author --- all opinions are my own. 

Book Review!!! Shine Like the Dawn by Carrie Turansky On tour with Celebrate Lit

Shine Like Dawn by Carrie Turansky Currently on tour with Celebrate Lit.

About the Book:

Book: Shine Like the Dawn  

Author: Carrie Turansky  

Genre: Historical

In a quiet corner of northern Edwardian England, Margaret Lounsbury diligently works in her grandmother’s millinery shop, making hats and caring for her young sister. Several years earlier, a terrible tragedy reshaped their family, shattering an idyllic life and their future prospects. But Maggie is resilient and will do what she must to protect her sister Violet. Still, the loss of her parents weighs heavily on her heart and she begins to wonder if what happened that day on the lake…might not have been an accident.

When wealthy inventor and industrialist William Harcourt dies, his son Nathaniel, who is Maggie’s estranged childhood friend, returns from his time in the Royal Navy and inherits his father’s vast estate, Morningside Manor. He also assumes partial control of his father’s engineering company and the duty of repaying an old debt to the Lounsbury family. But years of separation between Nate and Maggie have taken a toll and Maggie struggles to trust her old friend.

Can Maggie let go of the resentment that keeps her from forgiving Nate—and reconciling with God? Will their search for the truth about her parents’ death draw them closer or will it leave them both with broken hearts?

MY REVIEW

This was the first book that I have read by this author and I was drawn into the story within the first few pages. I was so heartbroken for Maggie and Violet. I wanted to cry. I can't even imagine losing my parents and being a primary caretaker for a young child when you are still young yourself! 

All of the characters are very well written and you can feel their emotion within the pages. Maggie and Nate seem like very real people. I felt that the story moved at a comfortable pace. 

This book is very well researched - and I learned a lot from reading it. 

I received a courtesy copy through Celebrate Lit - all options are my own. 

About the Author

CARRIE TURANSKY is an award-winning author of more than a dozen novels and novellas. She has been the winner of the ACFW Carol Award, the Crystal Globe Award, and the International Digital Award, and a finalist for the Inspirational Readers Choice Award and the Maggie Award of Excellence. A prolific writer of contemporary and historical romance, women’s fiction, short stories, articles, and devotionals, Carrie lives in central New Jersey with her husband Scott. They have five adult children and four grandchildren.

Guest Post from Carrie Turansky

Hats, Glorious Hats!

 

By Carrie Turansky

 

One fun part of my research for Shine Like the Dawn was learning about hat making in the early 1900s. My heroine, Maggie Lounsbury is a milliner who designs women’s hats. She learned this skill from her grandmother who owns a small shop in the village of Heatherton. Maggie has an artistic eye and she enjoys making stylish hats, but she doesn’t like the overdone designs some of their customers request, so that creates some humorous conflict in the story.

Hats in the Edwardian era were large and often covered with feathers, flowers, lace, netting, berries and bows. The “bird nests,” as Coco Chanel called them, were held on with large hat pins stuck through piles of hair on the crown. These hats were called Gainsborough or Picture hats because of the way they framed a lady’s face. They often featured huge dried flower arrangements and sometimes included real leaves and twigs! No doubt the Garden hat was a fitting name. 1907 The Merry Window hat became very popular after the leading lady in the play by that same name wore a hat that was even taller and wider than usual. Some people complained these hats were too big and obtrusive in public places like the theater or picture shows. But English women loved them and wore them to all kinds of events.






The popularity of using large feathers and stuffed birds on hats caused concern for the welfare of birds. Many protective laws took effect and milliners had to use more ribbon and tulle and only large ostrich feathers to decorate hats. Those ostrich feathers came from birds that were raised on farms and their feathers were collected as they fell out naturally. The movement toward smaller hats began around 1913 when hats still had high crowns but smaller brims. Straw boaters, small top hats, and mini versions of picture hats were very common.

Motion pictures had the greatest influence on Edwardian hat fashion. After the release of The Three Musketeers many ladies wanted to wear tricorne and bicorne shaped hats. They were still very large but now had shapes other than just round. Hat brims were folded up on the side, at an angle, or all around to create drama. Veils disappeared in the early 1900s only to come back again as a long scarf that wrapped over the hat and under the chin for the new sport called motoring.


I’ve had fun dressing Edwardian style for book launch tea parties and other book events. It made me feel very special to wear these lovely hats. What do you think of Edwardian Hats? Would you like to wear one?

Thanks to friends at the Vintage Dancer website for some of this information. 

Stop by Carrie’s Facebook author page and view her live videos February 21 – 25, 3:00 pm Eastern. She’ll be talking about the story behind Shine Like the Dawn and giving away a fun prize each day to one person who leaves a comment. Even if you can’t catch the live video you can still enter for 24 hours after it’s posted. She is also hosting a book launch celebration and giveaway on her blog February 25 – March 6.

Like to my Facebook Author page: https://www.facebook.com/authorcarrieturansky/

Link to my Book Launch Blog Post: http://carrieturansky.com/index.php/blo

Blog Stops

February 21: New Horizon Reviews

February 21: Bookworm Mama

February 21: Book Bites, Bee Stings, & Butterfly Kisses

February 22: Tell Tale Book Reviews

February 22: Book by Book

February 22: History, Mystery and Faith

February 23: Bibliophile Reviews

February 23: Smiling Book Reviews

February 23: A Readers Brain

February 23: Faithfully Bookish

February 23: Lane Hill House

February 24: Back Porch Reads

February 24: The Scribbler

February 24: I Hope You Dance

February 25: Stuff & Nonsense

February 25: The Power of Words

February 25: A Greater Yes

February 26: cherylbbookblog

February 26: Moments Dipped in Ink

February 26: Splashes of Joy

February 27: Genesis 5020

February 27: inklings and notions

February 27: D’S QUILTS & BOOKS

February 28: Karen Sue Hadley

February 28: A Simple Life, really?!

February 28: Neverending Stories

March 1: Daysong Reflections

March 1: Connie’s History Classroom 

March 1: Debbie’s Dusty Deliberations

March 2: These Splendid Sentences

March 2: Singing Librarian Books

March 2: Blossoms and Blessings

March 3: Pause for Tales

March 3: blogging With Carol

March 3: Mary Hake

March 4: Radiant Light

March 4: For The Love of Books

March 5: Christian Bookaholic

March 5: Rachel Scott McDaniel

March 6: History, Hope, Laughter & Happily-ever-after

March 6: Baker Kella

To celebrate her tour, Carrie is giving away all 4 books: Shine Like the Dawn, The Governess of Highland Hall, The Daughter of Highland Hall, and A Refuge at Highland Hall.! Click below to enter. Be sure to comment on this post before you enter to claim 9 extra entries! 

Copy and Paste the Link into your browser! Good Luck!

https://promosimple.com/ps/b0fb

Purchase a copy of the book: https://www.amazon.com/Shine-Like-Dawn-Carrie-Turansky-ebook/dp/B01GBAKF7A/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&qid=1486580759&sr=8-1&keywords=shine+like+the+dawn&linkCode=sl1&tag=celelit-20&linkId=b05296e0a26c965b7bfa304082795c5a

BOOK REVIEW! The Newcomer - by Suzanne Woods Fisher. On tour Celebrate Lit

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Click here to purchase your copy.

About the Book

 

Book: The Newcomer

Author: Suzanne Woods Fisher  

Genre: Historical; Amish  

Release Date: January 31

In 1737, Anna Konig and her fellow church members stagger off a small wooden ship after ten weeks at sea, eager to start a new life in the vibrant but raw Pennsylvania frontier. On the docks of Port Philadelphia waits bishop Jacob Bauer, founder of the settlement and father to ship carpenter Bairn. It’s a time of new beginnings for the reunited Bauer family, and for Anna and Bairn’s shipboard romance to blossom.

But this perfect moment cannot last. As Bairn grasps the reality of what it means to be Amish in the New World–isolated, rigid with expectations, under the thumb of his domineering father–his enthusiasm evaporates. When a sea captain offers the chance to cross the ocean one more time, Bairn grabs it. Just one more crossing, he promises Anna. But will she wait for him?

When Henrik Newman joins the church just as it makes its way to the frontier, Anna is torn. He seems to be everything Bairn is not–bold, devoted, and delighted to vie for her heart. And the most dramatic difference? He is here; Bairn is not.

Far from the frontier, an unexpected turn of events weaves together the lives of Bairn, Anna, and Henrik. When a secret is revealed, which true love will emerge?

About the Author

 

Suzanne Woods Fisher is an award-winning, bestselling author of more than a dozen novels, including Anna’s Crossing, The Bishop’s Family series, and The Inn at Eagle Hill series, as well as nonfiction books about the Amish, including Amish Peace and The Heart of the Amish. She lives in California. Learn more at www.suzannewoodsfisher.com and follow Suzanne on Twitter @suzannewfisher.

Guest Post from Suzanne Woods Fisher

Pennsylvania of 1737, the setting for The Newcomer, is like a foreign country. Parts of it might seem familiar—the same hills and creeks and blue sky, but we’d hardly recognize the settlers. People like Anna, or Bairn, or the mysterious Newcomer. We wouldn’t be able to understand their language, their customs and traditions. Their world was that different from our modern one.

The first group of Amish immigrants (first written about in Anna’s Crossing and followed up in The Newcomer) settled northwest of Philadelphia, then a vast wilderness, and relied on each other for safety, security, building projects, and church. In nearby Germantown, settlers were tradesmen, so they clustered houses together in small knots. The Amish farmers took out land warrants for sizeable properties and lived considerable distances from each other.

In The Newcomer, Anna cooked food in a cauldron over a large hearth. One-pot meals can trace their beginnings to open-hearth cooking when ingredients for a meal went into a large kettle suspended over the fire. Traditional dishes—ham and beans, pork and sauerkraut—used sturdy, available, and simple ingredients that improved with long, slow cooking. The dishes could be easily expanded when the need arose to set a few more places at the table. And it did, often. Large families and unannounced company inspired Amish cooks to find ways to “stretch the stew.”

Noodles (including dumplings and rivvels) could be tossed into a simmering broth to make a meal stretch. Most farms had a flock of chickens, so eggs were easily at hand. Today, homemade noodles are still a favorite dish.

Another “stew stretcher” was cornmeal mush, originally eaten as a bread substitute. Early German settlers who made their home in eastern Pennsylvania roasted the yellow field corn in a bake oven before it was shelled and ground at the mill. The roasting process gave a nutty rich flavor to the cornmeal. Mush is still part of the diet the Old Order Amish—cooked and fried, baked, added into scrapple, smothered in ketchup. Dress it up and you’ve got polenta.

Now here’s one thing we do have in common with 1737 Pennsylvania immigrants…a love of good food and a shortage of time! Here’s one of my favorite one-pot recipes—probably not the kind of stew Anna might have made for ship carpenter Bairn or the mysterious Newcomer (ah, which man one stole her heart?)…but definitely delicious. Enjoy!

Lentil Chili

Here’s one of my favorite “stew stretchers.” You can expand it even more by serving over rice.

Ingredients:
1 onion, diced
1 clove garlic, minced
10 c. water
1 lb. dry lentils
1 tsp. cumin
1 tsp. chili powder
1 tsp. salt (season to your taste)
½ tsp. pepper 2 c. salsa (your favorite variety)
29 oz. canned tomatoes, crushed

MY REVIEW


I really enjoyed reading about the Amish coming to America. I had read "Anna's Crossing" and loved it! This book did not disappoint. I loved how the author combined the history and the story. The words flowed off the page nicely. I love that the story is woven together with faith, love, adventures and so much more. The author is known for her brilliant Amish Fiction stories - and this one falls into its rightful place. Suzanne Woods Fisher was one of the first authors that I read when I started reading Christian Fiction

LOVED this book

I received a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.


Blog Stops

February 7: cherylbbookblog

February 7: Moments Dipped in Ink

February 7: inklings and notions

February 8: Just Commonly

February 8: D’S QUILTS & BOOKS

February 8: Ashley’s Bookshelf

February 9: A Reader’s Brain

February 9: Genesis 5020

February 9: A Simple Life, really?!

February 10: Lane Hill House

February 10: Blogging With Carol

February 10: Eat, Read, Teach, Blog

February 11: Quiet Quilter

February 11: Daysong Reflections

February 11: Southern Gal Loves to Read

February 12: Christian Bookaholic

February 12: Jeanette’s Thoughts

February 12: Debbie’s Dusty Deliberations

February 13: Karen Sue Hadley

February 13: Just the Write Escape

February 14: Rhonda’s Doings

February 14: Bigreadersite

February 14: Book Bites, Bee Stings, & Butterfly Kisses

February 15: Blossoms and Blessings

February 15: Connie’s History Classroom

February 16: Bibliophile Reviews

February 16: Book by Book

February 17: Pause for Tales

February 17: A Holland Reads

February 18: A Greater Yes

February 18: The Power of Words

February 19: Lighthouse Academy

February 19: A Baker’s Perspective

February 20: By The Book

February 20: Giveaway Lady

Giveaway

To celebrate her tour, Suzanne is giving away a Kindle! Click below to enter. Be sure to comment on this post before you enter to claim 9 extra entries!https://promosimple.com/ps/b0d1