A Heart’s Refuge

by Carolyne Aarsen

The situation according to Rick Ethier:

The challenge, as issued by Colson Ethier: to turn the family’s newly-acquired magazine, Going West into a profitable business. The problem: Rick, grandson, has no desire to tie himself down instead of traveling the world. The benefit: tackling this assignment and being successful in a year’s time means Colson will get off his back about joining the family business. The road block: Going West’s attractive editor, Becky Ellison, doesn’t like change and doesn’t like him.

The situation according to Becky Ellison:

The irony: when her first published book hit the shelves, it also hit a nasty review by none other than her new boss, Rick Ethier. The annoyance: said new boss has very little idea what life in this part of the country is like, and hence tends to focus on profit more than people. The good side: Rick’s way of challenging her forces her to round out her style and look at things from another perspective. The fear: she’ll lose her heart to a man destined to walk away in a few short months.

With this classic and entertaining set-up, Aarsen sets the groundwork for an inspiring and touching story about two people who have to help each other change in order to be who they want to be. On the job, they learn quickly that compromise isn’t just a loathsome word, it’s the only way to get around their many clashes. Rick doesn’t always approve of Becky’s editing style, and Becky certainly doesn’t always like the way he runs the show. But both find that by giving a little, they can all gain a lot. Through a series of assignments that throw the two together on a personal level, they find the ammunition to bring the magazine back into the black, guns blazing. What they hadn’t counted on was the way they’d start to feel. Becky has to loosen up, to let go of some things, and to charge into the life she wants most: to be a novelist. Rick can help her do that, but not until he starts to realize that shutting himself off from love and faith only causes problems, rather than solving them.

A Heart’s Refuge was fun and entertaining without losing sight of the important challenges the characters faced. Watching them butt heads and fall in love was a true treat.

 Visit the author's website at www.carolyneaarsen.com

A Tender Touch

by Lenora Worth

Love Inspired readers are by now quite familiar with the three earthen brothers of Sunset Island; we’ve sighed over Rock the philosopher-preacher, shaken our heads over Stone the corporate shark, and now we get to smile as we learn about the baby of the Dempsey clan, Clay the K-9 unit police officer. In A Tender Touch we meet a very different Dempsey, one whose bitterness isn’t so great and whose tender heart is what leads him through all of life’s decisions. He came back to Sunset Island for Stone’s wedding and an extended vacation, hoping that the time of relaxation will be just what he and his canine partner, Samson, need to recover from the wounds they both received in a drug-bust gone bad. It was a stroke of good fortune that the Island just acquired a new veterinarian to look after Samson. It was a stroke of God’s plan that Fredrica Hayes, known as Freddie, could not only offer the healing the dog needed, but also needed the lessons Clay could teach.

She had been married to a cop before, and she knew how crooked they could be. Before her husband’s death, she had learned the hard way that life with the law was not always just. Determined that her six year old son will grow up away from the corrupt influence of the Hayes family, she moved from Texas to the small southern island to be closer to her father and to give Ryan a chance to grow up in a caring community. She isn’t ready for love again, certainly not in the form of the big-city police officer that has the most charming smile she’s ever seen. But working on Samson brings them together, and when Ryan falls for both dog and man, she knows she has to tread carefully, especially when her brother-in-law makes it clear he’ll stop at nothing to get his nephew back in his life.

Clay and Freddie both struggle a bit as they each renew their faith, but both are determined to once again be the people the Lord wants them to be, rather than the ones they fell into in their hard lives. They found a friendship that threatens to topple in the face of their attraction, and it takes a tragedy to make them realize that love, in spite of all risks, isn’t something to fear, but to embrace. Their book is a warm conclusion to the trilogy that shows a family once again come together after too many years apart and love that springs up where you might least expect it.

Gabriel’s Discovery

by Felicia Mason

The third book in the "Faith on the Line" series takes the reader deeper into the issues that have been plaguing the network of characters from the start. Our main character this time around is Susan Carter, director of the Galilee Women’s Shelter and widowed mother of two twin girls. Her goal is to teach her church’s new pastor, ex-marine Gabriel Dawson, a very important lesson: you can’t ignore the underside of the world you live in, especially if you say your calling in life is to help those in need. She takes him forcibly into the shadows that keep her in business, sharing as she does so her own history, not so different from the tales of the women who come to her in need. Her head-on approach finally opens pastor Gabriel’s eyes. What she hadn’t counted on was that his attention would fall, not only on her project, but on her, and would shake her carefully constructed life down to its foundations.

Gabriel can no longer turn a blind eye to the truth he sees just blocks away from his prospering church; an evil is invading their city, and it isn’t just the poor it afflicts. The women he meets in the shelter come from all walks of life, their one common trait their need for Susan’s shelter. But the whole reason he had been avoiding Galilee’s to begin with was his reaction to his beautiful parishioner. The entire congregation seems set on finding him a wife, but time with Susan and her daughters proves effectively that his sights have already been caught. Convincing her that his heart is pure and his love strong enough, however, is as difficult as rooting out the invading presence of drugs and violence in Colorado Springs.