Review: As Waters Gone By

As Waters Gone By

About the Book:

Emmalyn Ross never thought a person could feel this alone. Sustaining a marriage with a man who’s not by her side is no easy task, especially since her husband currently resides behind impenetrable prison walls. His actions stole her heart’s desire and gave their relationship a court-mandated five-year time-out. What didn’t fall apart that night fell apart in the intervening years.

Now, on a self-imposed exile to Madeline Island—one of the Apostle Islands of Lake Superior—Emmalyn starts rehabbing an old hunting cottage they’d purchased when life made sense. Restoring it may put a roof over her head, but a home needs more than a roof and walls, just as a marriage needs more than vows and a license. With only a handful of months before her husband is released, Emmalyn must figure out if and how they can ever be a couple again. And his silence isn’t helping.

My Comments:

What is it like to have a spouse in prison?  For many, the answer is "I don't have a spouse in prison;  I  have an ex-spouse in prison".  Emmalyn's husband is in prison for a crime he committed, but the action was not typical of his behavior.  Emmalyn, unlike many spouses of convicts, remains faithful and hopes to pick up the pieces of her marriage when he gets home.  Unfortunately, home as they knew it isn't theirs anymore due to financial problems, Emmalyn decides to move into a cottage her husband had used for hunting, a cottage far away from her critical and overbearing mother.  

When Emmalyn arrives on Madeline Island, she meets Boozie, the owner of the local bed and breakfast.  While Emmalyn has never really practiced religion, Boozie is a devout Christian and through Emmalyn's interactions with Boozie and other island inhabitants she comes to know Christ and to reach beyond herself to help those in need.  She also comes to see that God has answered her prayers, just not in the way she wanted them answered.  Emmalyn also learns that while in prison her husband has undergone a religious conversion too.

Obviously the book is Christian fiction, and if conversion stories aren't your thing, well, this book is one.  However, it is not just a story of finding Jesus and everything being perfect in life.  It is the story of a woman who was wallowing in self-pity, who in a lot of ways was in a prison of her own making, who by reaching out to others and by allowing others to reach her, broke through the bars in her life to the freedom God wanted for her.

Cynthia Ruchti is a talented writer who paints beautiful pictures both of landscapes and of the souls of people through her use of words.  This book is a winner and I give it an A.  

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

Captain No Beard Strikes Again

I recently received the latest two books in this charming series about a group of kids who pretend to be  pirates and the life lessons they learn. Fribbet the Frog and the Tadpoles: Captain No Beard  features Fribbet telling the other crew members about the new tadpoles at his house and how they develop.  He also admits that he isn't sure he likes them because they take up all of Mom and Dad's time.  Captain No Beard admits that his baby sister can be a bit of a bother, but he loves her and is glad he has her.

In A Flag for the Flying Dragon: A Captain No Beard Story the kids are again playing pirate ship.  This time, there is a new younger child playing with them and as often happens when the little kids want to play with the big kids, conflict ensues because the little ones can't do what the big ones can and seem to be in the way.  Captain No Beard comes to the rescue again with a job the little one can do, showing once  again what a good leader he is.

I'd like to thank Carole P. Roman for providing complimentary review copies of these books.  They will be donated to my daughter's school library.  Grade:  B.  

A Love Like Ours: My Review

Fall in love with Becky Wade's new book, A Love Like Ours, a story of healing, romance, and cowboys. A glimmer of the hope Jake thought he’d lost returns when Lyndie lands back in Texas, but fears and regrets still plague him. Will Jake ever be able to love Lyndie like she deserves, or is his heart too shattered to mend?

To celebrate the release of her new book, Becky is giving away a $100 cash card and a book-inspired prize pack!

 

One grand prize winner will receive:

• A $100 cash card
• A copy of A Love Like Ours
• A copy of the Secretariat DVD
• A scarf
• A dog-tag/cross keychain
• A pair of earrings
• A Scarf
• A Texas-shaped cutting board
• A Jake Porter mug

 

Enter today by clicking the icon below. But hurry, the giveaway ends on May 26th. Winner will be announced May 27th on Becky's site.

Review

Some Chrisian romances are nothing but clean romances between people who happend to go to church. Others are stories of the characters' spiritual lives that happen to have some romance thrown in. Finally, there are stories that preach a strong conversion sermon while telling a good romantic story, which  is what this book does.  Jake and Lyndie were childhood best friends until her family moved far from their Texas home.  Both moved on with life; he became a Marine and was injured on duty and now suffers with PTSD.  She is an artist and illustrator who really wants to be a jockey.  Now he owns a horse ranch and her family has returned to Texas.  She is about thirty and while a part of her wants a husband, she is comfortable not being married.  He does not want to get close to anyone.  
I liked watching these two become re-acquainted and I loved the way Becky Wade made Lyndie's handicapped sister a source of healing.  All too often in our society those deemed imperfect are cast aside, yet I've known families that were truly blessed by children who were severely handicapped.  
The book is part of a series and there are times those who have not read the first book, Undeniably Yours, will wonder why some of the characters even make an appearance in this book, but A Love Like Ours stands well on its own.
I'd like to thank Litfuse for sending me a complimentary review copy.  Grade: B.

Review: The Liberation of the Camps

The Liberation of the Camps: The End of the Holocaust and Its Aftermath

About the Book:

Seventy years have passed since the tortured inmates of Hitler's concentration and extermination camps were liberated. When the horror of the atrocities came fully to light, it was easy for others to imagine the joyful relief of freed prisoners. Yet for those who had survived the unimaginable, the experience of liberation was a slow, grueling journey back to life. In this unprecedented inquiry into the days, months and years following the arrival of Allied forces at the Nazi camps, a foremost historian of the Holocaust draws on archival sources and especially on eyewitness testimonies to reveal the complex challenges liberated victims faced, and the daunting tasks their liberators undertook to help them reclaim their shattered lives. Historian Dan Stone focuses on the survivors - their feelings of guilt, exhaustion, fear, shame for having survived, and devastating grief for lost family members; their immense medical problems; and their later demands to be released from Displaced Persons camps and resettled in countries of their own choosing. Stone also tracks the efforts of British, American and Russian liberators as they contended with survivors' immediate needs, then grappled with longer-term issues that shaped the postwar world and ushered in the first chill of the Cold War years ahead.

My Comments:

I've read a lot about the Holocaust over the years, but its end, the closing down of the camps, is a subject about which I have not read a lot.  While this book had some interesting information, I found it repetitive and tedious at times.  Perhaps that's because I was looking for more personal anecdotes and instead found a textbook-like treatment of the problems of displaced persons in Europe after WWII and the political situation at the time between the Western Allies and the Soviet Union.  For most survivors, Stone postulates, the liberation of the camp wasn't an event so much as a process.  Many had been marched across Europe ahead of the approaching Allies, we sick in bed and abandoned by the Nazi who fled as the Allies got close.  They needed food and medical care.  Then, instead of being able to go home to community and family, most survivors had no family left and their former communities did not want them back.  

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