Bittersweet
By Cathy Marie Hake

Coldwater Revival By Nancy Jo Jenkins Review by Cheri Clay

Three weeks before Emma Grace Falin is set to marry Gavin O’Donnell she must return to her hometown of Coldwater, Texas to face the past that has tormented her since she was a child and the farm where it all began. Read the full review

The Scarlet Trefoil By L.A. Kelly Review by Laura V. Hilton

Tahn Dorn is preparing to marry his sweetheart, Nettie, the next day. Now they were going their separate ways so Nettie could have a party with her friends and Tahn would be having a groom’s party. Tahn is feeling insecure and sends many guards along with Nettie so she’ll arrive home safely. Nettie promises to leave the party by ten p.m. Read the full review

Dark Hour By: Ginger Garrett Review by Karen Higson

I have just finished reading Dark Hour, the first in the Serpent Moon Trilogy. This was a powerful novel based on the story from 2 Chronicles 21-23 (and yes it made me go back and reread these passages of scripture).  Read the full review

Fourth Dawn (A.D Chronicles #4) by Bodie and Brock Thoene  Review by David J. White

Fourth Dawn, book four of the A.D. Chronicles, presents a picture of Israel before the coming of Christ.  The story follows reasonably faithfully the gospel of Luke by starting with the events leading up to the birth of John the Baptist.  Fourth Dawn manages to be intriguing even though its reader likely already knows much of the story.  During these already known events, the reader gets to experience the great madness that engulfs Jerusalem in the waning years of Herod’s rule.  The Thoenes take readers one step further than the gospels do by presenting less of a historical account and more of a personal one.  Already known and expected tragedies that befall characters still manage to strike the reader with force.  Read the full review

Storm by Bill Bright & Jack Cavanaugh Review by Roseanna White

When we think of the founding of our country, we see images of noble patriarchs and billowing flags, the dreaded red coats and stories of the Liberty Bell.  Most often we forget about the revivals that are referred to as the Great Awakening, as well as the sometimes bloody rivalries of the political parties that couldn’t agree what kind of country it was they had founded. Read the full review

CHOSEN By Ginger Garrett Review by Laura V. Hilton

Esther was wrenched from her simple life to become the unwilling wife of a king. She lost her parents, the cousin who raised her, and gave up her first love . . . and for what? The unrestrained extravagance of a royal life. Palace living. A man many years her senior that she didn’t love. A man who chooses his wife by sleeping with virgins. Read the full review

HURRICANE By Janice A. Thompson Review byLaura V. Hilton

Brent Murphy is on his way home to Galveston Island, Texas, discouraged. He’s done everything he can think of to succeed as a newspaperman in New York City, but it isn’t working. Now he feels like a failure. And to compound the depression, he’s forced to return to his father—a hard man who always seemed disappointed with Brent’s choices in life. Read the full review

Leather and Lace By DiAnn Mills Reviewed by: Vickie McDonough

Casey O'Hare longs for a new start in life. For years she has stayed with the Davis Jenkins’ outlaw gang, because her brother Tim was there. Tired of serving as cook, holding horses during robberies, and fighting off Davis Jenkins, Casey makes a frantic get-away during a storm. Her plans soon go awry when she wakes up to discover she's been captured by a man wanting to use her as bait to apprehend Jenkins. Though she desires to escape Morgan Andrews, Casey can't deny her attraction to the mysterious man. When the Jenkins gang shows up, Morgan and Casey are in a fight for their lives. Read the full review

LOVING SOREN By Caroline Coleman O’Neill Review by Laura V. Hilton

Regina Olsen has been in love with Fritz Schlegel for as long as she can remember. They met when Regina was a student and Fritz a teacher, and as soon as Regina graduates he starts courting her. Regina knows that someday, she and Fritz will marry. Read the full review

MYSTERIOUS WAYS By Terry W. Burns Review by Laura V. Hilton

Amos Taylor thinks he’s found the perfect disguise, a way to hide in plain sight. He steals a parson’s clothing hanging on the line and proceeds to rob a stagecoach. Leaving the travelers stranded, Amos steals the stagecoach and rides off a short distance before burying his loot and his clothes and changing into the parson’s outfit. He rides back and “rescues” the travelers, going into town with them, and then riding back with the sheriff to hunt for the bandits.  Read the full review

PIRATE’S PRIZE By Lena Nelson Dooley Review by Laura V. Hilton

Angelina de la Feunte Delgado is the pampered only child of a wealthy merchant. On her way home from a visit to Spain her ship is attacked by pirates. She and her aunt are captured, as well as all the merchandise on the ship. The pirate plans to marry Angelina. All the sailors are killed, save one, to be used as an interpreter since Angelina does not speak French, and the pirate doesn’t speak Spanish.  Read the full review

Secret Tides by Gary E. Parker  Review by Roseanna White

Most of us have seen the different sides of the South leading up to the Civil War, through movies and books and television.  We’ve learned about the evils of slavery, we’ve seen the side of the rich plantation owners.  In Parker’s Secret Tides, we are taken into the heart of South Carolina pre-War, but this time we get to see both sides through a different class, the poor whites that are looked down on by the wealthy but are still a step above the slaves. Read the full review

Lineage of Grace Series by Francine Rivers Review by Roseanna White

In these five novellas, Rivers takes the stories of as many women in the lineage of Christ and tells their stories with new details. She warns the reader in the front of each book that we must be careful; the ways of their world differ greatly from ours, and the insights she gives, though researched, are still her opinions. The most important thing I found from these books, however, was not dependent on whether or not everything was accurate, but rather that by applying unchanging humanity to historical figures cloaked in time and cliches, stories that had always been only stories are suddenly events that happened to real people, real women whose lives were more than a chapter in the Bible to them. Through each work, Rivers amplifies the struggle that each woman had to face and makes it relevant for our lives today. Ultimately, they all have to decide who they’re going to serve, and it is because they chose God that we know their names at all. Read the full review

THE WINTER PEARL By Molly Noble Bull Review by Roseanna White

Nineteen-year-old Honor McCall’s beloved aunt has just died, and her drunkard Uncle Lucas has now demanded that Honor marry him in the morning. Honor is horrified at the thought and knows she must escape. When Uncle Lucas passes out from his alcohol, Honor takes off, hoping to make it to the nearest big town and find work. Finding sanctuary overnight in a local church, Honor steals money from the offertory and uses that to pay for her carriage fare.  Read the full review

Pieces of Silver by Maureen Lang Review by Roseanna White

German wasn’t a good thing to be in 1917 Washington, D.C.  Liesel Bonner lost her job because of her name, because her parents were Germans–because her country had just declared war against the land her father had chosen to leave.  Liesel was born and bred American, wants only to serve the United States in any way she can, but no one will give her a chance.  At last she has a job offer, but it comes with a condition–she has to pretend to be her friend Katie, her non-German sister-in-law, in order for her application to be processed.  It grates against her conscience, but she really needs the job, and her boss assures her it’ll only be temporary.  Liesel agrees, but she can’t bring herself to tell anyone, not her family or her nearly-fiancé Josef.  It would just distress her parents, and Josef. . . well, Josef was away so much, and he was already upset at how Germans were being treated.  He didn’t need anything else to disturb him. Read the full review