Category: book review

November 12, 2015

An Endless Christmas by Cynthia Ruchti

Too many people, too much snow, and too little room should be a recipe for disaster in An Endless Christmas.

About An Endless Christmas

Christmas takes a very different turn when the guests of honor break up instead of announcing their engagement. Trapped with his family, they learn that love looks different from either imagined. Both in their eighties, Dodie and Wilson Binder celebrate every Christmas as if it were their last. This year, their grandson Micah is planning to ask his girlfriend, Katie, to marry him so they can celebrate with the whole family. But things go very wrong when she says, “no.” Now they are stuck. Too many people, too much snow, and too little room should be a recipe for disaster. But sometimes too much is just enough. Especially when it’s Christmas.

My Thoughts

Love and romance can become complicated especially when we let our past dictate our future. Sometimes we feel like we aren’t good enough to feel love or have someone appreciate us the way they do. This is Katie. She is scared to let herself feel and receive love freely. She very much loves Micah with all her heart but is scared of how he truly feels or if he will leave her. This is what guides her decision to turn down his proposal.

Instead of angering Micah or encountering a difficult situation, Katie is encompassed by his family as they try to relieve some of the awkwardness of the current situation. She is welcomed by his family as they show her the true meaning of love, family and Christmas.

A very special story, especially so close to Christmas! It was a heart warming story of love and family, trust and faith in each other. The novel was well written, engaging and witty, something you can re-read over and over again.

You can find more reviews on the Litfuse Blog Tour page. You can purchase a copy of the book here.

Rating: 4.5/5

About the Author

Drawing from 33 years of on-air radio ministry, Cynthia Ruchti tells stories of hope-that-glows-in-the-dark through her novels and novellas, nonfiction books and devotionals, and speaking for women’s and writers’ events. Her books have been recognized by Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice Awards, Selah Awards, the Gayle Wilson Award of Excellence, Christian Retailing’s BEST Awards, and Carol Award nominations, among other honors, including a Family Fiction Readers’ Choice Award. She and her plot-tweaking husband live in Pittsville, Wisconsin, not far from their three children and five grandchildren.

Disclosure: I received a digital copy of this book in order to facilitate this review. All opinions expressed are my own.

November 10, 2015

Stop and Smell Your Children by Leah Spina

Ready to laugh about motherhood and be encouraged? Tired of feeling overwhelmed and stressed out in the baby and toddler season? Need some fresh vision and perspective so you can enjoy—not just endure—your young children?

About Stop and Smell Your Children

Stop and Smell Your Children: Laugh and Enjoy the Little Years offers moms-to-be and moms of young children short, real-life parenting stories that encourage and inspire. Leah Spina, mother of three children ages five and under, and former journalist, unleashes humor and perspective for tired moms who are parenting the “little” years. From the excitement of the positive pregnancy test to morning sickness and the banes of pregnancy, to childbirth, babies, toddlers and new parent struggles, the stories will make you laugh and see beauty in the chaos. Each story also includes thought-provoking takeaways to help busy moms gain a fresh outlook.

Strangers remind us that our children will be small only for a short time and to enjoy each moment. But then we return to the wild reality of parenting young children! All-night crying sessions. Never-ending laundry. Every-three-hour feeding schedules. Diaper explosions and projectile spit-up. Teething. Potty training. Yes, we enjoy our children, but we’d also like to enjoy a shower that lasts more than two minutes, or a meal that isn’t lukewarm (if we’re lucky). The truth is, pregnancy and parenting young children can be hard at times. But it can also be one of the best chapters of our lives, if we can learn to laugh and change our mindset.

My Thoughts

Have you ever received a book just in time? Something that you needed to read and hear from someone who wasn’t a family member or friend? Stop and Smell Your Children is THAT book.

Leah uses wit, personal experience and humour to make you see the light at the end of the tunnel, find joy in each rough moment and to cherish each moment. Our children grow so fast (honestly I can still remember my eleven year as a toddler and I am shocked when I look at him now!) and these are the most demanding years of us as parents. It can be hard at times not to be angry or resentful.

Leah uses humour (because if we are honest with each other – we have all been there before!) to help you see that behind every rough moment in time, take a deep breath and appreciate that moment of chaos. You will fall in love with her fresh writing and personal moments she shares. Stop and Smell Your Children should be the example all parenting books use when writing for parents. As parents, we need real life advice, humour and non judgemental views. We are all doing the best we can do! Stop and Smell Your Children will leave you in tears, smiling and remembering each and every special moment of your child’s life.

You can purchase a copy of Stop and Smell Your Children on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Rating: 5/5

About the Author

Leah Spina is a former journalist of a national newsweekly magazine and also worked as a childbirth coordinator at a large adoption agency. She has her B.S in Business Administration from Thomas Edison State College. She has two adorable children – Samson and Esther – and resides in Dallas, Texas with her husband, David. When she’s not changing diapers, she enjoys singing Broadway, sun tanning on Italian beaches and riding horses.

Book Trailer

The Giveaway!

My Canadian and American readers can now enter to win one of ten copies of Stop and Smell Your Children. Enter via the form below. Good luck!

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Disclosure: I received a copy of this book in order to facilitate this review. All opinions expressed are my own.

November 5, 2015

Merry Mary by Ashley Farley

A longing for a child coupled with loneliness is at the heart of this Christmas miracle story, Merry Mary by Ashley Farley.

About Merry Mary

A young woman stumbles longing for a child stumbles upon a Christmas miracle.

Investigative journalist, Scottie Darden, is photographing the homeless for her Lost Souls series when she makes a discovery that could change her life forever. Under a makeshift tent in subzero termperatures, she finds a dead woman’s body and her infant child still alive. Without her cellphone to call for help, Scottie makes a split second decision to take the baby home. Her initial instincts are to provide the baby with food, shelter and warmth until her family can be located.

But as her fondness for the baby grows, she finds herself facing a life on the run or worse, time in prison.

My Thoughts

This novel was touching in so many ways. I felt connected to Scottie in so many ways, having struggled myself with infertility as well as loss from miscarriages. It has changed how I relate to others, pregnancy and even myself. It leaves you feeling lonely and angry. You lash at people you don’t want or mean to. You hope so badly for good news, to only be repeatedly let down. I can only begin to imagine the thoughts that went through Scottie’s mind as she took that child home. The protectiveness, the love and even the heartbreaking anguish.

She is mentally stable but some might think of her actions as opposite to this. She is just a woman who has suffered more than she should have and wanted to protect and love the child that by some miracle, she was able to rescue just in time. If she had not been there, this child would have had no chance of survival. It is as if the child is a gift of life and hope in Scottie’s time of despair.

This gift, Mary, teaches Scottie so much. She learns to trust, she believes in her own strength and courage and she learns to let go. So much happens to Scottie in this novel, some good and some bad, but all so heartbreaking real. Mary is more then just a child, she is a symbol of hope, strength and life. Merry Mary will leave you smiling and crying, and each page is worth every moment.

You can purchase a copy of the book on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, iBooks and Kobo.

Rating: 5/5

About the Author

Ashley Farley is a wife and mother of two college-aged children. She grew up in the salty marshes of South Carolina, but now lives in Richmond, Virginia, a city she loves for its history and traditions.

After her brother died in 1999 of an accidental overdose, she turned to writing as a way of releasing her pent-up emotions. She wrote SAVING BEN in honor of Neal, the boy she worshipped, the man she could not save. SAVING BEN is not a memoir, but a story about the special bond between siblings.

HER SISTER’S SHOES—June 24, 2015—is a women’s novel that proves the healing power of family.

Look for MERRY MARY this holiday season, a heartwarming story of the powerful connection between a caring soul and an innocent child in need.

You can connect with her online, Facebook and Facebook.

The Giveaway!

Ashley is giving away a $50 giftcard choice of Amazon, Barnes & Noble or Paypal (international). My readers can enter via the Rafflecopter form below.

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Disclosure: I recieved a digital copy of this book in order to facilitate this review. All opinions expressed are my own.

November 4, 2015

Jesusita by Ronald Ruiz

Jesusita is the story of immigrants—legal and illegal—trying to survive in California in the years after World War II.

About Jesusita

Jesusita, alone and impoverished, struggles to keep her four young children together. Though she finds support from Padre Montes at St. Teresa’s Catholic Church, her faith won’t solve her problems, especially those with her daughter, Paulina. Far from home, Filipino laborers are denied by law any contact with white women. Angie, the young daughter of an illiterate and unmarried mother, knows only one way to make money. And Felix, abandoned by his mother and separated from his only brother, is placed in a foster home on an isolated ranch. The interrelated lives of these people provide a complex, sometimes violent, and often tragic image of American poverty within the nation’s postwar boom.

My Thoughts

Jesusita, tells the story of one woman who has struggled to earn a living in a country that is not accepting of her culture and a society that would do anything to keep their existence hidden.

Jesusita is the main character in this novel and the other characters seem to move around her and as we get to the later half of the book we understand the importance of finding out about the lives of Angie and Felix. It is from her the story flows and that we learn about the others tied in to her story and her struggles. She suffers to keep a roof over her children’s heads and food in their stomachs. This is a pain that I can not even begin to imagine experiencing as a Mother. The emotional and physical strain takes a toll on her and we can witness this through the relationships between herself and her children.

It is God that helps her through her darkest moments but also that helps her hide her frustrations and angers instead of dealing with them. She hides behind the perfect image she portrays to her religious family, while her home life falls apart.

Jesusita was a fascinating novel, that at times was hard to follow but near the end of the novel the story comes together full circle. It is complex, intricate but fascinating at the same time. A very good read!

You can purchase a copy of the book on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Rating: 4/5

About the Author

After reading Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment at the age of 17, I knew I wanted to be a writer. But I knew nothing about the craft. My first novel, Happy Birthday Jesús, was published 36 years later. Surprisingly, it received good reviews

For many years, I was a criminal defense attorney and at the end of my career a prosecutor, but I always managed to find time to write. What I saw and experienced during those years often serves as a basis for my writing. For me, learning how to write has been a long, continuous and, at times, torturous process.

Now retired, I try to write every day and I feel fortunate that I have found something in writing that sustains me. I’m glad I persevered during all those years of rejection. More than anything, writing about what I see and experience in life has given me a sense of worth.

The Giveaway!

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Disclosure: I received a digital copy of this book in order to facilitate this review. All opinions expressed are my own.

November 3, 2015

Murder on Safari by Peter Riva

In Murder on Safari, it is up to a reality TV producer and an expert safari guide to stop a terrorist attack.

About Murder on Safari

Every adventure starts at the fringes of civilization. For expert safari guide Mbuno and wildlife television producer Pero Baltazar, filming in the wild of East Africa should have been a return to the adventure they always loved. This time they’d be filming soaring vultures in northern Kenya and giant sea crocodiles in Tanzania with Mary, the daughter of the world’s top television evangelist, the very reverend Jimmy Threte.

But when a terrorist cell places them in the crosshairs, there is suddenly no escape and they must put their filming aside and combine all their talents to thwart an all-out al-Shabaab terrorist attack on Jimmy Threte’s Christian gathering of hundreds of thousands in Nairobi, Kenya.

My Thoughts

Murder on Safari is an intense, action full novel that demands your full attention. Peter incorporates the language of the African countries they travel through (with some explanation to the terms so you just have to pay a little bit more attention to the first time the words are used but it doesn’t take away from the story). I loved how action packed the entire novel was from start to finish as they traveled East Africa and explored the wilds while trying to escape terrorists. There was never a really dull moment.

Despite the action packed adventure in the story, there was just as interesting story line playing out behind the scenes in our main characters of Pero and Mary. Pero has lost someone close to him and it is this loss which helps him on this mission. Mary is the glue that holds the story together, a very important part of the novel and how the story unwinds.

Murder on Safari was a fantastic read from start to finish, that readers will not want to put down.

You can purchase a copy of the book on Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Chapters.

Rating: 5/5

About the Author

Peter Riva spent many months over thirty years in Africa, many of them with the legendary guides for East African white hunters and adventurers. He created a TV series (seventy-eight 1-hour episodes) in 1995 called WildThings for Paramount TV. Passing on the fables, true tales and insider knowledge of these last reserves of true wildlife is a passion.

The Giveaway!

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Disclosure: I received a digital copy of this book in order to facilitate this review. All opinions expressed are my own.