Love Lifted Me: My Review

Love Lifted Me (A Songbird Novel)

Jade and Max share a deep love, though revelations from his past have recently shaken their marriage. And Jade is completely smitten with Max's little son, Asa, whom she is now raising as her own. Their blended family brings her a joy she's never known. But there is one more secret to be uncovered. One that will impact them all. Max is doing his best to "man-up" and prove himself worthy of Jade's devotion. As well as that of his young son. It seems like life in Whisper Hollow, Tennessee, will pick up where it left off until Max is faced with an unusual opportunity-leave his family's law firm to coach high-school football in Texas.

Realizing a fresh start will bring healing to their marriage, Jade takes the leap of faith and moves with him and baby Asa, bidding good-bye to her beloved Blue Umbrella shop.

The new beginning in quaint Colby, Texas, is soon sullied when Max discovers the high-school program isn't all it seemed. While Max struggles to rebuild a once glorious football team, Jade wrestles with news that could break Max's heart and change their lives forever.

My Comments:

Ever had one of those times in your life where if something could go wrong, it did?  That's what happened to Max and Jade in the first book in this series.  (my review).  Now, Max is reaching for a new life trying to follow the will of God.  When offered a position as a football coach near the small town where he was in rehab, he prays about it and feels God calling him to uproot his family and move across the country.  When he gets there he finds that things weren't what he thought they'd be but still feels called by God to stay.  We follow him through his first year as a coach and as he and Jade learn to trust each other again.  

While I enjoyed this book, it is one of those Christian novels that does not let you forget it is a Christian novel.  Max considers himself a changed man; in rehab he gave all his pain to Jesus and came out reborn.  He prays, he feels called by God to be where he is and everything works out beautifully in the end, at least partly because Max and Jade trusted God to care for them.  It is definitely too religious a book for anyone who doesn't like religious fiction.  I figured out very early in the book where it was going; none of the plot twists were really surprising, nor was the happy ending.

I'd like to thank the publisher for making a review copy available via NetGalley.  Grade B-

Top Ten Tuesday

I'm  going to continue the Top Ten I started last week,  looking back at posts that have garnered the most attention as compared to those published by me at about the same time.

1. Celebrate Epiphany
2. Book Review:  Someday Soon
3. Christmas Activities for Catholic (and other Christian) Kids
4. Your Best Life Begins Each Morning: My Review
5. Advent Links for Children
6. Review:  The Moon Shines Down
7. Lenten Reading Please Join In
8. Lenten Activities for Kids My all time most popular post.
9. My Review:  Lamb's Supper
10. Bless Me Father for I Have Sinned

See other folk's lists at Top Ten Tuesday

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

It's Monday, What Are You Reading is hosted by Sheila over at Book Journey.  She asks what we are reading now, what we are reviewing and what we plan to read next.

This week I published reviews of the following:

My Review

My Review

My Review

My Review

Books I read this week include:

Nightingale Way: An Eternity Springs Novel

Books I'm working on are

Love Lifted Me (A Songbird Novel)

The Fight for Home: How (Parts of) New Orleans Came Back

Book Review: A Simple Thing

A Simple Thing: A Novel

About the Book:

How far would you go to protect your children? Would you do it at the expense of your marriage? How far would you go to protect yourself?


     For Susannah Delaney, the answers lie thousands of miles away, off the northwest corner of Washington state. When Susannah discovers her young son is being bullied and her adolescent daughter is spinning out of control, she moves them to remote Sounder Island in the San Juans to live off the grid for a year. Susannah hopes to save her children from the risks they've encountered at home, and to come to terms with her own haunted past. But the move threatens her marriage to the man she's loved since childhood, and her very sense of self.


     For Betty Pavalak, who first moved to Sounder to save her own troubled marriage, the island has been a haven for more than fifty years. But Betty also knows the guilt of living with choices she made long ago and actions that cannot be undone.The unlikely friendship between Susannah and Betty ignites a journey of self-discovery for both women that brings them both home to what they love most. A SIMPLE THING moves beyond friendship, children, and marriages to look deeply into what it means to love and forgive--yourself.

My Comments:
If you read my blog regularly, you'll note that I read a lot of Christian fiction.  That's partly by choice and partly by happenstance--yes I like it but I've also managed to get myself on the mailing lists of more than a few publicists who handle Christian fiction so I'm offered a lot of review copies.  While different books and different authors have different amounts of religion in their books and handle it in ways ranging from sermons dressed as stories to relatively subtle product placement of God, certain themes are prevalent and with few exceptions, characters are good or bad, and the good believe in God and/or Jesus.  A Simple Thing is not Christian fiction though its main theme--forgiveness--is frequently used in Christian fiction.  Its characters are not so black and white and most admit to having no faith.

Kathleen McCleary's writing is wonderful.  Her descriptive writing is top-notch.  Her characters are multi-faceted and very human.  Chapters alternate between Susannah's story and Betty's and are dated to let us know when the action occurred.  As readers we see what brought these women to where they are today. While it is very much the story of these two women, A Simple Thing explores how the men in their lives have very much made them the people they are.

As I said earlier, this isn't Christian fiction so there is no salvation scene at the end however there is a scene of forgiveness and acceptance and part of that scene surprised me given the professed lack of religion of the characters, and yet it comported completely with my moral beliefs on life issues.  It is part of the reason I'm giving this book an A, but by no means the only one.

I'd like to thank the publisher for making a review copy available via Edelweiss Galleys.  I was not obligated to write a positive review, but I'm please to do so with this book.