Beyond the Ashes – Karen Barnett

Posted on by July 8, 2015
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book review of "Beyond the Ashes" by Karen BarnettDeb’s Dozen: Widowed Ruby’s off to San Francisco—will she find her heart’s desires?

Ruby Marshall became a widow when one of those new-fangled automobiles startled the horse her husband, Charlie, was riding and threw him to his death. The boundaries of her life in Sacramento are too tight, so she goes off to San Francisco to help her brother, Robert King, with his cancer research. The year is 1906 and the city is in the throes of rebuilding after the disastrous earthquake and fire that devastated the area.

She arrives at the ferry dock where her brother is to meet her only to discover that Robert’s fiancée, Abby Fischer, is with him as is his partner, Dr. Gerald Larkspur. Abby is a total surprise to Ruby—Robert’s told his family nothing of his plans. Totally in shock, Ruby almost faints once and almost again when she sees the transportation home—Gerald’s red automobile. And to top that off, they’re living at Gerald’s home, not Robert’s apartment as she’d expected.

What a start to her new life in San Francisco. But Ruby is built of strong stock and she surmounts the obstacles. Abby is delightful and Gerald seems a nice gentleman although he reminds her of her Charlie. As a nurse, Ruby quickly fits in at the hospital helping Gerald and Robert and working with Abby in the homeless camp.

Beyond the Ashes is the second novel in Karen Barnett’s Golden Gate Chronicles. You may want to read the first, Out of the Ruins (see my review), to read the events of the earthquake and fire and how Abby and Robert met and fell in love. Barnett has obviously done her research: the setting, the problems of the time, the medical research in the early 1900s—all are accurate and compelling.

Barnett also has the gift of creating believable, complex characters who soon seem like you’ve known them forever—they’ve become friends because you’ve found yourself transported back in time to that era. And Otto the dachshund, Ruby’s dog, delighted me. Our first mini-dachshund’s name when we got him was Otto—quickly changed to Cocoa! She writes the dog perfectly.

You’ll love The Golden Gate Chronicles—and enjoy getting to know Ruby and Gerald and Patrick and Abby and Robert. Five Stars!

To purchase Beyond the Ashes, click the link: Beyond the Ashes: The Golden Gate Chronicles – Book 2

Abingdon Press and the Litfuse Publicity Group gave me a copy of Beyond the Ashes in exchange for my candid review.

Interview: Cynthia Ruchti-As Waters Gone By

Posted on by July 12, 2015
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Deb’s Dozen: Amazing what hope and healing occurs when God’s grace touches hurting hearts.

My review of As Waters Gone By started with that Deb’s Dozen. Recently I interviewed Cynthia Ruchti and asked her why she had chosen the topic she so eloquently wrote about in the novel. She told me she had three reasons: first, she had watched someone she cared about head to prison determined that their marriage would stick through this trial. They are separated by four states, so the wife took a second job in order to pay for traveling to see her husband. This they will endure for seven years. Second, she had been reading in the book of Job and Job 11:16 NIV spoke to her, You will surely forget your trouble, recalling it only as waters gone by.. And third, she had seen a picture of debris being pulled out to sea and realized there is always a fresh wave.

Asked what she learned about the topic or about herself as she wrote As Waters Gone By, she said she experienced a revolution in life–a fresh way of thinking. She was intrigued by the concept of a second chance–seeing people as people and not their appearance or their problems. This concept also appears in her new book, Tattered and Mended.She learned to give new grace to people who go through the travails of life and come out stronger.

Cynthia’s family settled in southwest Wisconsin after having moved twelve times before she was twelve. She attended Moody Bible Institute for a year and the Technical College in Madison, Wisconsin to become a chemistry lab assistant. After she married her grade school sweetheart, she and her husband moved to central Wisconsin. She has been married for forty-three years and has three grown children ranging from twenty-eight to forty-one–all living within fifteen miles of her–and has five adorable grandkids.

She started writing while at home with her kids and took correspondence courses in creative writing. After having several articles published, she tackled one of her last assignments–to write a script for a fifteen-minute radio broadcast. In a way only God could orchestrate, within a few weeks of completing that assignment, she was asked to write and produce a fifteen-minute radio broadcast called The Heartbeat of the Home. It took nine months to create that first broadcast and nine months for that new station to go on the air. The show started on one station, the popularity grew, the Billy Graham station picked it up, and at one time the show was carried on forty-eight stations. The broadcast eventually aired Monday through Friday and retired in 2012 after thirty-three years on the air, about the time Cynthia was juggling book contracts.

Cynthia has written over fifteen books since her award-winning debut novel, They Almost Always Come Home, in 2009, and has won multiple awards for her writing including two Selah and three Christian Retailing BEST awards along with others from the Christian Authors Network and the Advanced Writers and Speakers Association ForeWord Reviews, and other honors. She says whether writing novels, novellas, nonfiction, or speaking for women’s events, she tells stories hemmed in hope.

Asked for something her readers don’t know and might find interesting about her, she grinned and said she was a baton twirler in high school and can write backwards as well as forwards!

To learn more about Cynthia, you can check out her Amazon page, Amazon’s Cynthia Ruchti Page or her website, Cynthia Ruchti

Interview – Curtis Riskey, President, CBA

Posted on by July 12, 2015
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Deb’s Dozen: Encourage one another. Help us better spread the gospel of Jesus Christ.

While at ICRS, I had the opportunity to interview Curtis Riskey. Curtis has been a member of the Christian Booksellers Association (CBA) for eight years and the President of CBA since 2009.Curtis Riskey

When he took over, CBA was in desperate straits. He says there were more challenges than one person could handle and stay sane—(he laughed). CBA has gone through a refining fire over the past few years and he now looks at the industry through eyes of opportunity. “We can’t go back to where we were, but the future is exciting.”

Riskey sees opportunities for independent stores and other retailers. He sees more traditional stores carrying Christian product, and changes coming to retailing will be dramatic. “Consumers are challenging us to provide more and better product and to provide it in different ways than we did previously – probably more so than when CBA began in 1950.

Curtis says we must do two things: we must understand the reader today and produce and deliver product targeted to the way they get and read information. We must be able to touch the person who would never set foot in a brick and mortar bookstore, plus those who want to connect with their favorite bookstore both in-store and online.

These trends drive both retail and publishing. He feels we will see more mergers, more consolidation, and more attention to the bottom line in retailing and publishing. But he also feels strongly that if retailers and publishers work together in unity, both can succeed. He also sees authors and booksellers working more cooperatively on book sales in this new environment. CBA Logo

He quoted Charles Spurgeon, “Anything that drives you to God is a blessing.” Our work should make Jesus Christ known and glorified.

Curtis Riskey is married to Barbara. They grew up in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, and now live in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The Riskeys have three children: Emma is a nursing student; Andrea is a photographer and writer; and Quinn at the present time is in Swaziland on a missions’ trip.

Curtis stated that as president of CBA, he is going to do everything he can to ensure the gospel and knowledge of Jesus Christ is spread around the world. He is going to work to bring unity to the divisions in the industry. Asked what he would like my readers to take away from the interview, he said, “Encourage one another. Help point out to us and each other what we could do better to spread the message of Jesus.”

Thank you, Curtis, for spending time with me and the readers of Positive Grace.