The name drawn in the Murder Simply Brewed giveaway was:
Congratulations, Amy!
Thank you all for visiting, commenting, and sharing this giveaway. I appreciate every comment and hope you will join me again. I love sharing great books and have many more giveaways planned!
It Had to be You by Susan May Warren
Blog tour information and schedule:
http://litfusegroup.com/author/swarren
Synopsis:
Eden Christiansen never imagined her role as her younger brother Owen’s cheerleader would keep her on the sidelines of her own life. Sure, it feels good to be needed, but looking after the reckless NHL rookie leaves little time for Eden to focus on her own career. She dreamed of making a name for herself as a reporter, but is stuck writing obits—and starting to fear she doesn’t have the chops to land a major story. If only someone would step up to mentor Owen . . . but she knows better than to expect help from team veteran and bad-boy enforcer Jace Jacobsen.
Jace has built his career on the infamous reputation of his aggressive behavior—on and off the ice. Now at a crossroads about his future in hockey, that reputation has him trapped. And the guilt-trip he’s getting from Eden Christiansen isn’t making things any easier. But when Owen’s carelessness leads to a career-threatening injury and Eden stumbles upon a story that could be her big break, she and Jace are thrown together . . . and begin to wonder if they belong on the same team after all.
Learn more and purchase a copy at Susan’s website.
Thoughts:
Susan May Warren is a master storyteller and has penned another fantastic story in It Had to be You!
One of my favorite things about a book series is the opportunity to really get to know the characters and become invested in their stories. I fell in love with the Christiansen family in the first book, Take a Chance on Me, and adore them even more after reading It Had to be You.
John and Ingrid Christiansen are the parents of this Deep Haven, MN family. Their beautiful love story is told in the prequel novella, I Really Do Miss Your Smile, which is included in the back of this book. I loved reading “the love story that started it all”!
Each Christiansen Family novel tells the story of one of John and Ingrid’s children. It Had to be You is Eden’s story and it opens, as each series novel does, with a letter to Eden from her mother. One quote from this emotional letter is, “You see your value only in what you bring to your siblings, your friends, your world, instead of believing in the remarkable woman you are, in the person God created.”
It Had to be You is the story of Eden’s journey to discovering the person God created her to be. Set amidst the exciting sport of hockey, this story is full of emotion, spiritual wisdom, and tender romance. I loved the endearing characters and the personal growth they experienced. Several storylines were woven through this novel, adding to its complexity and making it even richer. There were times my heart ached while I was reading and other times when it rejoiced.
I love the way Susan May Warren brings her characters to life and can’t wait to spend more time with the Christiansen family!
I received a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for an honest review, which I have given.
Biography:
Susan May Warren is the bestselling, RITA Award-winning author of more than forty novels whose compelling plots and unforgettable characters have won acclaim with readers and reviewers alike. She served with her husband and four children as a missionary in Russia for eight years before she and her family returned home to the States. She now writes full-time as her husband runs a lodge on Lake Superior in northern Minnesota, where many of her books are set. She and her family enjoy hiking, canoeing, and being involved in their local church. Several of her critically acclaimed novels have been ECPA and CBA bestsellers, were chosen as Top Picks by Romantic Times, and have won the RWA’s Inspirational Reader’s Choice contest and the American Christian Fiction Writers Book of the Year award. Five of her books have been Christy Award finalists. In addition to her writing, Susan loves to teach and speak at women’s events about God’s amazing grace in our lives. She also runs a writing community for authors. Visit MyBookTherapy.com to learn more.
Learn more about Susan at: http://www.susanmaywarren.com
Giveaway:
Susan May Warren is celebrating the release of her newest Christiansen Family novel, It Had To Be You, with a $100 Visa cash card giveaway and offering readers a free book club kit.
One winner will receive:
Enter today by clicking one of the icons below. But hurry, the giveaway ends on March 29th. Winner will be announced April 1st on Susan’s blog. Also, visit her website to learn more about the It Had To Be You backstory and Susan’s free book club kit.
Susan May Warren is celebrating the release of her newest Christiansen Family novel, It Had To Be You, with a $100 Visa cash card giveaway and offering readers a free book club kit.
One winner will receive:
Enter today by clicking one of the icons below. But hurry, the giveaway ends on March 29th. Winner will be announced April 1st on Susan’s blog. Also, visit her website to learn more about the It Had To Be You backstory and Susan’s free book club kit.
7 Best-Selling Amish Authors, 27 books, 9 Winners, 1 Great Book Giveaway!
TODAY, January 29, 7 authors are joining together for a great Amish book giveaway!
All you have to do is stop by the following author’s websites and leave a comment TODAY. Each author will randomly pick one or two winners. Each winner will receive a trio of books from 3 of the participating authors.
Jennifer Beckstrand: http://www.jenniferbeckstrand.com/
Vannetta Chapman: http://vannettachapman.com/
Amanda Flower: http://www.amandaflower.com/
Amy Clipston: http://www.amyclipston.com/
Mary Ellis: http://www.maryellis.net/
Shelley Shepard Gray: http://www.shelleyshepardgray.com/
Kelly Irvin: http://www.kellyirvin.com/
The Quilted Heart by Mona Hodgson
The Quilted Heart releases tomorrow, January 21. You can order your copy from Amazon, other online retailers, or your favorite bookstore.
Synopsis:
Like a beautiful patchwork quilt, the three novellas in The Quilted Heart tell stories of lives stitched together with love and God’s unending grace.
Once a week, Elsa Brantenberg hosts the Saint Charles Quilting Circle at her farmhouse on the outskirts of the riverside town of St. Charles, Missouri. The ladies who gather there have all experienced heartache related to the intense hardships of the Civil War, and together, they are facing their painful circumstances with friendship and prayer. Can the tattered pieces of their hearts be stitched together by God’s grace?
Dandelions on the Wind
When Maren Jensen took a job on Elsa Brantenberg’s St. Charles, Missouri farm, she never expected to call the place her home. As she grows to love Mrs. Brantenberg and her granddaughter, Gabi, Maren is transformed from a lonely mail-order bride-without-a-groom to a beloved member of the Brantenberg household. But when Gabi’s father, Rutherford “Wooly” Wainwright, returns to the farm unexpectedly, everything changes for Maren, and she feels compelled to find another job. Are her choices in obedience to God, or is she running from His plan?
Bending Toward the Sun
Dedicated to her education and to helping her father in his general store, Emilie Heinrich is convinced she doesn’t have time for love. But when a childhood friend returns to St. Charles, Missouri, after serving in the Civil War, his smile and charm captures Emilie’s eye and her heart. Will she be forced to choose between honoring her father and a future with a husband and family of her own?
Ripples Along the Shore
Change is brewing in St. Charles. A group of brave souls are preparing to head west on the Boone’s Lick Wagon Train, led by the mysterious and handsome Garrett Cowlishaw, who served as a Confederate soldier in the war that killed Caroline’s husband. Despite her dislike for him, Caroline is tempted to join the wagon train and start fresh somewhere new, but when Mr. Cowlishaw forbids her—a single woman—to travel with them, will one man’s prejudice destroy Caroline’s hope for a new future? Or will the ripples of God’s love bring the answer she needs?
Thoughts:
Mona Hodgson’s wonderful characterization brings the characters of The Quilted Heart to life. Each character is special and their life stories are beautifully quilted together in this novella collection. “Like a quilt is made up of remnants…scraps, so is your life and mine.”
The Quilted Heart novellas are bursting with details and descriptions, adding richness and depth to their engaging storylines. I clearly envisioned Saint Charles, Missouri, its residents and its businesses. I delighted in learning of the goods bought and sold, foods prepared, and quilts made with loving hands.
The spiritual elements are one of the most endearing facets of The Quilted Heart. The wisdom and scriptures that are shared are a blessing to all who read this book. “God, the Divine Quilter, has the perfect patchwork pattern for our lives. Each will be different as sunshine and snowfall.”
The Quilted Heart is a book that I love having on my shelf and is one I will read and enjoy again and again! It is also a book that I want to share, so I have ordered one copy to give away. Please see the giveaway details below and enter to win!
Biography:
Mona Hodgson is the author of nearly 40 books, historical novels for adults and children’s books, including her popular Sinclair Sisters of Cripple Creek Series, The Quilted Heart novellas, and Prairie Song, Book 1 in her Hearts Seeking Home Series. Her children’s books include bestseller, Bedtime in the Southwest, six desert and princess Zonderkidz I Can Read books, Real Girls of the Bible: A 31-Day Devotional, and her six I Wonder books.
Mona’s writing credits also include several hundred articles, poems and short stories, which have appeared in 50 different publications. Mona is a speaker for women’s groups, Christian women’s retreats, book clubs and reading groups, schools, and conferences for writers and librarians.
I am excited to be giving away one copy of The Quilted Heart by Mona Hodgson.
Leave a comment, along with your email address, to be entered.
To earn additional entries, you may do the following:
Be sure and leave a comment letting me know what you have done to earn additional entries.
This giveaway is open to U.S. residents only and ends Saturday, January 25 at midnight CST. The winner will be drawn and contacted January 26. Good luck!!
I was blessed to receive a complimentary copy of this book from the author in exchange for an honest review, which I have given.
The Painted Table by Suzanne Field
Blog tour information and schedule: http://litfusegroup.com/author/sfield
Synopsis:
A beautiful heirloom ingrained with family memory has become a totem of a life Saffee would rather forget—a childhood disrupted by her mother’s mental illness. Saffee does not want the table. By the time she inherits the object of her mother’s obsession, the surface is thick with haphazard layers of paint, and heavy with unsettling memories.
After a childhood spent watching her mother slide steadily into insanity, painting and re-painting the ancient table, Saffee has come to fear that seeds of psychosis may lie dormant within her. But as an adult with a family of her own, Saffee must confront her mother’s torment if she wants to defend herself against it.
Traversing four generations over the course of a century, The Painted Table is an epic portrait of inherited memory, proclivity, and guilt. It is a sprawling narrative affirmation that a family artifact—like a family member—can bear the marks of one’s entire past . . . as well as intimations of one’s redemption.
Purchase your copy: http://ow.ly/rIosh
Thoughts:
The Painted Table is a haunting tale of life, mental illness, and redemption. Suzanne Field vividly portrays the feelings of the characters and the devastating, lingering effects of mental illness.
At the center of this story is a family heirloom that has been passed through the generations. A table that once was crafted and given with love becomes a symbol of insanity and obsession. As an adult, with a family of her own, Saffee begins to realize that things can be different…that she can be different. Fear, like the stains of paint, can be stripped away and true nature and beauty can be revealed.
The Painted Table is a candid portrayal of mental illness and its message is one of redeeming love.
I received a complimentary copy of this book from Litfuse Publicity in exchange for an honest review, which I have given.
About the Author:
Suzanne Field, a graduate of the University of Minnesota, has taught English as a Second Language in China, Ukraine, and Hawaii. She has also been a magazine editor and home-school teacher. She and her husband have five children and divide their time between Kansas and Hawaii where she is a tutor and mentor.
Learn more about Suzanne at: https://www.facebook.com/SuzanneFieldThePaintedTable
Suzanne Field is celebrating her novel, The Painted Table, with a beautiful hand-painted table giveaway!
One winner will receive:
Enter today by clicking one of the icons below. But hurry, the giveaway ends on January 18th. Winner will be announced January 20th on Thomas Nelson’s Facebook Page.
For those of you who didn’t win, I hope you will have a chance to read this wonderful book and series! Thank you again to everyone who commented. Thank you, Miralee, for sharing your interview, sneak peek, and generous giveaway. It has been a pleasure!! We look forward to the release of Wishing on Buttercups in February.
I’d love to! You meet the heroine in Blowing on Dandelions, Leah Carlson, and the hero, Steven, in book two, Wishing on Buttercups. They have their own story in book three, Dreaming on Daisies.
Here’s a short summary to whet your appetite….and it releases October of 2014.
Feisty Leah Carlson has always loved her family’s ranch. But now she needs a miracle to save it … and to turn her pa around.
Mid-March, 1881
Baker City, Oregon
Fiery redhead Leah Carlson didn’t expect at the tender age of fourteen to become caretaker and ranch foreman almost overnight. Empty promises, that’s all she ever got from her pa. Promises he’d change. Promises he’d do better. Promises he’d broken ever since Ma died nine years ago. And lately it had only gotten worse. At least the ranch was safe as long as she worked hard to pay the bills, unless Pa tried to use it as collateral for his drinking debts. But something needed to change. She had to find at least one hired hand—the sooner the better.
Steven Harding never thought he’d be left in the dust emotionally when his mother reunited with his long-lost sister. To make things worse, the banking job in Baker City isn’t what he dreamed it would be, and he yearns for the simpler farm life he experienced as a young man. Then he meets the lovely, green-eyed Leah Carlson, who mistakes him for one of her father’s drinking cronies and gives him a dressing-down. Not long after, she steps into the bank to request a loan. Intrigued, Steven determines to help her, even when the bank refuses, but how? All he seems to do is irritate her.
Still, he can’t shake the idea that he might not only be one of the surprising answers she needs to save her ranch … but to win her heart.
Thank you so much for sharing that sneak peek, Miralee! I look forward to continuing this wonderful series!!
Giveaway Details:
Leave a comment, along with your email address, to be entered.
To earn additional entries, you may do the following:
Be sure and leave a comment letting me know what you have done to earn additional entries.
This giveaway is open to U.S. residents only and ends Tuesday, October 29 at midnight CST. The winner will be drawn and contacted October 30. Good luck!!
Thank you to all who commented on Anne Mateer’s first Portrait of a Reader feature. I know there were several who commented but did not enter the giveaway. Thank you again for helping us celebrate!
Buzzing About Books 