Rise and Shine

From the beginning Sandra Bricker had my attention with her newest book Rise and Shine. This is a fairy tale full of life changing realities and just the right amount of dreaminess. Sandra is known for her laugh out loud writing, Rise and Shine takes you beyond that. There are still those signature giggle moments because we can always relate to Sandra's characters/ I found myself not wanting to finish reading this book because I did not want it to end. This is a story that you will find yourself questioning what would you do if you were in Shannon's shoes? Definitely a Faith/Fairy Tale that I will read again!

From the back of the book...

Shannon Malone thought she'd found her happy ending when she married Edmund Ridgeway, but a diving accident on their honeymoon left her in a coma. Waking up to the news that she's thirty years old would have been daunting enough . . . but she also learns that Edmund has lost his interim battle with cancer and the world has marched on without her. Her gorgeous doctor, Daniel Petros, seems to know everything about her and becomes Shannon's tour guide into a whole new world of madness where reality television has taken over the planet and everyone's life appears to revolve around a tiny screen on their cell phones!

As Shannon struggles to navigate through the changes-both in the world and in her-she also must discern real memories from imagined ones. Did she really ever wear capris pants and entertain in her living room, or was that Laura Petrie from her favorite classic TV show? And where is her beloved dog, Freeway? Oh, wait! That was Jonathan and Jennifer Hart's dog, not hers.

Shannon's three elderly aunts flit through her life in true Sleeping Beauty style with her well-being always a priority. And Edmund's sister Millicent descends like the Evil Queen she is, trying to extract Shannon from any claim on the Ridgeway family fortune. When a tornado moves through town and Shannon is knocked unconscious, will Daniel's kiss awaken her once and for all?(less)

Updates Coming Soon

Groceries and Grace

 

In fourteen short chapters Laura Willis reminds us how something as simple as a bag of groceries can change someone’s life. Quite often it is the person sharing the groceries that is changed. Laura Willis served for ten years in a rural Tennessee ministry providing help to the community. She leads us through her time with the Community Action Committee with stories of the people who touched her life. Laura Willis makes the connection of how people are hungry not just for peanut butter and beans but also for the word.  For anyone who has worked in a food ministry this is a humble reminder that compassion and grace are just as important as the food we share.

I encourage you to look into helping with a local food pantry. It could be as simple as collecting cans to meeting with clients. Many are not aware of just how much time and heart goes into a ministry like this. Laura Willis has done a brilliant job sharing the mission from both aspects.

 

 

From Goodreads...

If your pantry was empty, your children hungry, your electricity cut off for nonpayment, and you saw no prospect of support, what would you do? For a decade in a rural Tennessee community, you went to a shabby building behind a church and found Laura Willis. Running a program to help the needy, Laura discovered a world of people she never knew: the lonely and unemployed, chronically poor families, and middle-class folks surprised to be struggling in a great recession. And to each, she offered a bag of groceries, a compassionate ear, and a heart of love. Taking a tiny food pantry and watching it grow to feed hundreds, Laura learned about her own hunger for God and began to discern her own spiritual directions, learning how her calling card a bag of groceries could be a gift to others and to herself of abundance and grace.

It's Party Time!

I have never attended a Facebook party, but since it is a Sandra Bricker Launch Party I am sure it is going to be a blast!

Hope to see you there!

Raw Edges ~ Sandra Bricker

 

Raw Edges is different than other Sandra Bricker books I have read. For some of us this book hits close to home. This story tells the story of love, love lost, enduring love and learning to love again. We get to look into the lives of three people who have each had Ovarian Cancer affect them in different ways. Sandra brings this heartfelt story together using pizza, quilts and baseball. The perfect blend for a great book if you ask me.

From the back of the book….

“Grayson McDonough has no use for teal ribbons, 5k runs, or ovarian cancer support groups now that his beautiful wife Jenna is gone. But their nine-year-old daughter Sadie seems to need the connection. When Annabelle Curtis, the beautiful cancer survivor organizing the memory quilt project for the Ovacome support group, begins to bring out the silly and fun side of his precious daughter again, Gray must set aside his own grief to support the healing of Sadie’s young heart. But is there hope for Gray’s heart too along the way?

Dream of Time~Not your typical time travel

When people ask what genre of books do I prefer I usually have a difficult time giving them a straight answer. Sometimes it depends on the mood I am in, or it may relate to something that is currently going on around me. I love the past and if I find a book that can take me to another place I am usually all in.  When I came across Dream of Time by Nancy J. Price the cover was the first thing that caught my attention. What was behind that cover really grabbed me. This is a story of time travel, but not your typical time travel. The main character Robin finds herself traveling in between current day and 1900 San Francisco when she goes to sleep. To give this an even bigger twist when she wakes up in 1900 she is not Robin but another woman who must untangle the past using clues from the future.

There is mystery and romance along with cute references to the differences in time periods.  I found myself doing some quick internet research on some of the historical references made in the book. The author did a wonderful job relating the settings in the book.  If you are looking for an escape I suggest Dream of Time.

More about the book from Goodreads……

When Robin drifts off to sleep each night, she finds herself dreaming about the life of a woman in the Victorian age. She soon realizes it’s not a dream at all, but she is truly slipping into San Francisco’s past.

While living two lives — one as a mom in the modern day, the other as a proper young lady at the turn of the century — she discovers how she’s being sent back to a bygone era is only the first mystery. A much more important question is why she’s there.

With the help of a rookie police officer, Robin takes off on a spellbinding adventure, sifting through a century’s worth of clues to solve a series of puzzles — and to put love to the test. History, though, proves itself a worthy opponent, and she comes to experience firsthand how destiny can be kind and cruel in the same stroke

What a Deal!