Saturday, June 30, 2012

My Stubborn Heart by Becky Wade




Her heart said yes, but God was saying no. He said God hadn’t answered his prayers and had abandoned him. So begins the story of the stubborn hearts of Kate and Matt. Kate has returned to her ancestral home, called Chapel Bluff, with her grandmother to fix up the old house and bring it back to life. Unsuccessful in relationships, Kate hasn’t found the man God had for her future husband. Discouragement has set in. Matt had been hired to do the work at Chapel Hill. Preferring to work alone and actually to be left alone, he doesn’t appreciate Kate’s wanting to help, wanting to talk, wanting to be his friend. When his wife died, he had withdrawn into himself and given up his career, but he didn’t count on the persistence of one young woman who saw the hurt in his eyes and wanted to help.

As Kate spends time with Matt, she sees his heart and believes that God sent her to help him find purpose in his life again. Finally, her heart says yes and God says yes.

The reader hurts with the main characters, laughs with the antics of the “older” generation, and cheers for Matt and Kate when the final chapter is read. I don’t want to give away what happens to both Kate and Matt as they work on finding out that God does care about them and does answer prayers in His time.


I received this book to review for free from Bethany House.

Saturday, June 16, 2012


 Beloved Enemy 
Al Lacy

What do you do when the love for family comes in conflict your feelings for a man you love? Such is the dilemma faced by Jenny Jordan. Her father, maintains his Southern sympathies and agrees to work as a spy for the south. A member of President Lincoln’s Senate Military Committee, he is part of the group planning the Northern offensive and defensive. As the north continues to lose battles, it becomes apparent that there is a spy in their midst. As this is going on, Jenny has met and fallen in love with a Union office names Buck. Being discouraged by her father for forming an attachment with Buck, Jenny can’t help herself and fears what will happen when Buck learns her father is a spy.
As part of a network of young ladies recruited to carry the battle information south, the day comes when Jenny is asked to carry her first message to the Confederate troops. Caught at a Union road block, she is now under arrest and subject to being put before a firing squad. Buck, as commanding officer, now seeks to intercede with the president on her behalf. Because she was instrumental in saving the life of Tad Lincoln, the president commutes her execution.

A behind the scenes look at the Civil War, I enjoyed this book and recommend it as a book worth reading. The male Confederate spies were caught and executed.  Because of an aversion to shooting the female spies, the woman responsible for recruiting the young girls with information for the Confederates was imprisoned for a while and then sent back south. She never arrived, having drowned in a boating accident on the trip.

I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review.