A Love Like Ours can heal all wounds.

Posted on by July 8, 2015
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Deb’s Dozen: Childhood friends time and war separated. Will time and God heal them?

Lyndie and Jake were best buddies. They did everything together from skipping rocks (well, Jake did. Lyndie couldn’t get the hang of it) to rescuing animals. Then Lyndie’s family moved to California and Jake’s stayed in Texas. Their childhood friendship was torn apart.

Time passed. Lyndie became an artist and publisher of children’s books. She also followed her lifelong love of horses and became an exercise rider and jockey. Jake went to Irag and lived through having his Humvee and three of his men blown up by an IED. He came home haunted by the ghosts of that past to training thoroughbreds for his brother at Whispering Creek Ranch.

Then Lyndie’s family moved back. They were very different people now—she and Jake. Would Lyndie be able to break through Jake’s shell? Would Jake allow himself to live again? What did Silver Leaf mean to them both?

What a wonderful novel of friendship and thoroughbreds and redemption! I loved Jake and Lyndie’s story in A Love Like Ours and was intrigued by the depth of information about PTSD—hard to visualize what the guys who’ve served in combat have seen and continue to see after they’ve come home. This is a story about faith, and friendship, and trust, and love. You will be as touched by the characters as I. Becky Wade has created a believable word peopled with characters you’ll wish lived next door. I really didn’t want the story to end. Five stars – well done, Becky!

Becky Wade has lived in both California and Texas. She writes wonderful Christian contemporary romance and has won both the Carol Award and the Inspirational Reader’s Choice Award. Get to know more about Becky at www.beckywade.com.

Thanks to both Bethany House and the Litfuse Publicity Group for a copy of A Love Like Ours in exchange for my candid review.

Fury – the Blur Trilogy – Steven James

Posted on by July 8, 2015
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Deb’s Dozen: Blurs? Daniel’s going crazy? Four teens, dead wolves, strange visions. Who’s Madeline?

Steven James has begun a great YA series, although adults will find the books equally intriguing. The first book, Blur, introduced us to Daniel Byers whose ability to see things that aren’t there—”blurs”—aids he and his friends Nicole, Kyle, and Mia in solving a murder. Fury is the second book in the Blur Trilogy.

Daniel has not had any of the blurs since the killer died in September. He is hoping things are back to normal and is anticipating the last basketball game before Christmas. While in English, a classmate asks an interesting question: “Can the protagonist also be the antagonist? I mean, is there some way for the main character to be both the hero and the villain?”

The teacher answers that it’s possible, but usually the hero might be crazy or delusional or both—and mentions both an Edgar Allen Poe character and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

Not really paying attention, Daniel doodles in his notebook until the bell rings. He looks down to see written there, in handwriting not his own, the cryptic words, “Lost Cove is the key.” Then he gets a strange text from an unknown girl, Madeline.

On the bus to the game, Daniel zones out and sees a horrific vision. Did it happen? Is it a portent? Daniel struggles to get his focus back to play the game. Although he succeeds, and scores the game winning points, he realizes that his grip on reality is again beginning to blur…

Telling Nicole and Kyle and Mia about the recent strange occurrences, Daniel realizes that something has happened or is going to happen that is tied to the vision and the handwriting. Putting their heads together, the teens map out a strategy to try to discover the answers to the blurs…

Steven always writes gripping, suspenseful, thrill-a-minute fiction. I really should know better than to read one of his books at night—I have a very vivid imagination and he paints incredible word pictures. If you have teens in the house, know any teens, or just want a good read yourself, buy Blur and Fury and be ready for exciting adventures into the mysteries of the mind.

Steven was kind enough to give me a copy of Fury in exchange for my candid review.

Interview with Tamera Alexander – To Win Her Favor.

Posted on by July 8, 2015
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Deb’s Dozen: To Win Her Favor: well-researched location, believable characters, and a compelling story.

Tamera Alexander has long been one of my favorite writers. Whenever I begin to read one of her books, I can count on a well-researched location, believable characters, and a compelling story. In addition to all that, Tamera is a genuinely nice person willing to share her life and story with her fans.

Q: To Win Her Favor is the second in your Belle Meade Plantation series. Can you tell us where the story picks up in the series? Is it directly connected to the first book?

Each of the Belle Meade Plantation novels are standalone novels, so each tells a complete story. However, you might just catch a glimpse of Ridley and Olivia from To Whisper Her Name in To Win Her Favor (releasing May 12, 2015). But Cullen and Maggie’s story definitely takes center stage in To Win Her Favor, the second of three novels in the Belle Meade Plantation series.

Coming in July is a Belle Meade Plantation novella—To Mend a Dream. To Mend a Dream continues the story of a secondary character we meet in To Win Her Favor, Savannah Darby. Savannah is Maggie’s closest friend and while we learn about Savannah’s struggles in To Win Her Favor, the culmination of her story is told in To Mend a Dream, a novella in a Southern novella collection entitled, Among the Fair Magnolias (written with authors Shelley Shepard Gray, Dorothy Love, and Elizabeth Musser).

Q. You are a resident of Nashville, which is a city rich with culture and history. Is this why you chose to set your series there?

I’ve always had a love of history. Southern history, specifically. Being from Atlanta, I grew up around antebellum homes, so when I was in Nashville on a business trip in 2004 with my daughter, we toured the Belmont Mansion, and I knew then I wanted to someday write about Belmont’s fascinating history (A Lasting Impression and A Beauty So Rare). Likewise, when I learned about Belle Meade’s thoroughbred legacy, the ideas started coming (for To Whisper Her Name and To Win Her Favor). I’m honored to write about these two Nashville estates and their real history. It never gets old for me.

Q. How many times did you visit the actual Belle Meade Plantation while writing this book?

Oh gracious, I’ve lost count how many times I’ve been out there (Belle Meade is only twenty-five minutes from my house). Just two weeks ago, I met a book club of about thirty women at Belle Meade. They were from Alabama, having a girl’s weekend out! After they toured the mansion, we walked down to the old Harding cabin, one of my favorite places at Belle Meade, and where Belle Meade all began. No visit to Belle Meade is complete for me without stopping by that cabin. It has such a presence about it.

I’m grateful to Belle Meade’s director, Alton Kelley (a descendant of the Harding family who owned Belle Meade in the 1800s) and to Jenny Lamb (Belle Meade Educational Director) for opening up the family files, letters, and artifacts to me. I couldn’t write these books with such historical detail about the house, the family members, and the servants without Belle Meade’s assistance.

Q. How much of the novel is based on actual events and how much is from your imagination?

The backdrop of the novel—Nashville’s history, the Belle Meade mansion, outbuildings of the estate, the family members, and most of the servants at Belle Meade—are from history. I often take documented historical events—such as parties, horse races, or catastrophic occurrences—and weave them into the fabric of my stories. Then I intertwine a fictional story that follows the journey of a male and female protagonist within that story world. In To Win Her Favor, that’s Cullen McGrath and Maggie Linden.

The basis for Cullen’s character is founded in the history of Irishmen who came to Nashville in the 1850-70s, and who faced very real prejudice from Nashville residents. Likewise, Maggie’s character was inspired by accounts of women who were formerly landed gentry (from wealthy families who were major land owners) but who lost everything following the war and the changes that conflict brought. The rest of the details are filled in by asking myself the question writers constantly ask themselves, “What if…”

Q. How was this book different from other projects you have worked on?

To Win Her Favor is definitely one of the more passionate stories I’ve written, and I don’t mean that solely in a romantic sense. From the start, this story was simply more evocative because it delves into the intimacies of a marriage of convenience, and also explores prejudice within a marriage—in addition to examining the prejudices between former slave owners and former slaves. Passions run high between the characters in To Win Her Favor. Everyone was learning how to be with each other in that time period, learning where the new boundaries were, where everyone fit.

As I read and researched for To Win Her Favor, I often found my own emotions stirred by real events that occurred in Nashville during Reconstruction. At times, the accounts were repugnant and heartbreaking. Yet at others, they were remarkably soul stirring with fresh whispers of hope.

View vignettes filmed on location at Belle Meade Plantation, the setting of To Whisper Her Name and To Win Her Favor, on the Belle Meade Plantation novels page on Tamera’s website.

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