Transformational Fiction – Fiction Aficionado

Finding Evergreen (Jennifer Rodewald) – Review

~ About the Book ~ He thought he’d found the thrill of his life; she, the romance she’d hadn’t dared to hope for. Falling in love had been easy. Being married? Totally different story. Married within a year of meeting, Ethan and Brandi add a foster daughter to their newly established family. Their story is enchanting—inspiring. Except when the fairytale fails. The stresses of unmet expectations and wounds from their pasts knife into their marriage, severing what they believed would be forever. Hope for a broken marriage. Healing for their wounded spirits. It would take both to find evergreen. Are

21 March 2018

A Fragile Hope (Cynthia Ruchti) – Review

~ About the Book ~ Josiah Chamberlain’s life’s work revolves around repairing other people’s marriages. When his own is threatened by his wife’s unexplained distance, and then threatened further when she’s unexpectedly plunged into an unending fog, Josiah finds his expertise, quick wit and clever quips are no match for a relationship that is clearly broken. Feeling betrayed, confused, and ill-equipped for a crisis this crippling, he reexamines everything he knows about the fragility of hope and the strength of his faith and love. Love seems to have failed him. Will what’s left of his faith fail him, too? Or

29 January 2018

Best of 2017 – The Emoji Files, Part IV: Got Me in the Feels

Welcome to Part IV of The Emoji Files. So far this week I’ve given you my best of 2017 in the following categories: 😍 The Swoony Awards 😆 The LOL Awards 😮 The WOW Awards Today, I’m giving you a list of books that got me in the feels. Some books are great for escaping into and helping us to forget our daily worries and cares for a little while, and some books confront life’s big worries and cares head on. Perhaps not our specific worries and cares, but the kinds of worries and cares that could be ours one day, or the kinds

6 January 2018

Many Sparrows (Lori Benton) – Review

This post is part of the Litfuse Publicity blog tour for Many Sparrows. ~ About the Book ~ Either she and her children would emerge from that wilderness together, or none of them would… In 1774, the Ohio-Kentucky frontier pulses with rising tension and brutal conflicts as Colonists push westward and encroach upon Native American territories. The young Inglesby family is making the perilous journey west when an accident sends Philip back to Redstone Fort for help, forcing him to leave his pregnant wife Clare and their four-year old son Jacob on a remote mountain trail. When Philip does not return and

23 September 2017

First Line Friday – 28 July 2017 – My Hope Next Door (Tammy L. Gray)

Since today’s First Line Friday post is very much a last-minute affair for me, I’m going to take advantage of the very recently announced RITA Awards and share with you the first line from Tammy L. Gray’s book My Hope Next Door, which won the award for Best Romance with Religious or Spiritual Elements. Congratulations Tammy! I now feel perfectly justified in having written this gushing review about nine months ago!

28 July 2017

What Hope Remembers (Johnnie Alexander) – Review

~ About the Book ~ When Amy Somers loses her job as a lobbyist, she moves to Misty Willow, well aware that she’s crossing bridges she’d burned years before. With all the mistakes she’s made and the uncaring things she’s done–even to her own family–she can hardly believe that happiness will find her, especially when Gabe Kendall, her first crush and her first kiss, rides back into her life atop a buckskin mare. A former Marine, Gabe is at loose ends after serving a prison sentence for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. He sees beyond Amy’s

31 May 2017

Author Interview with Varina Denman

It’s my pleasure to welcome Varina Denman to the blog today to chat about her new book, Looking Glass Lies. If you’d like to read my review of this book, you’ll find that here. As you may have gathered, I like to ask authors to nominate a snack and a drink for us all to share during our chat. As a little side note, I tell interviewees that all dietary restrictions are null and void for the duration. Well, here’s Varina’s response to that:

13 May 2017

Reclaimed (Jennifer Rodewald) – Review

~ About the Book ~ God takes broken things and makes them beautiful again. He reclaims our desolate places. Suzanna Wilton has had a heavy share of heartache in her twenty-seven years. Left wounded by a marriage cut short, she leaves city life to take up residency in a tiny Nebraska town. Her introduction to her neighbor Paul Rustin is a disaster. Assuming he’s as underhanded as the other local cowboys she’s already met, Suzanna greets him with sharp hostility.

17 April 2017

The power of fiction, the beauty of words, and the God who made us to wield them for His glory.