TUESDAY REVIEWS-DAY – BOOK REVIEW – HEART RESTORATION by REGINA RUDD MERRICK
THE BLURB
For interior designer Lisa Reno things go from bad to worse when her contractor-brother falls off a ladder and breaks his leg. Now she has to deal with the past coming back to haunt her, an old house with a corpse in the creepy cellar, and her best friend trying her best to fix her up with any man that moves. Nick Woodward is willing to do his old college roommate a favor – especially since it involves renovating his own inheritance. The last thing he wants is to get involved with anyone. When he lost his wife and unborn child so suddenly, he had made the decision to keep God and everyone else at arm’s length. So far, so good. Ah, the difference a trip to a dingy basement makes.
THE AUTHOR
Regina Merrick is a church musician, wife, mother, former librarian, and grateful follower of Jesus Christ. Having lived most of her life in Western Kentucky, she dreams of the sound of crashing waves and sandy beaches. Married to her husband of 30-plus years, she is the mother of two grown daughters, and the keeper of a 100-year-old house where she lives in the small town of Marion, KY.
MY REVIEW
It’s not too often that one can consider a “trip to a dingy basement” a God moment. Then again, God uses the most inopportune moments to tap us on our stubborn shoulder. That’ll get your attention!
I doubly enjoyed this story because my degree is Interior Design, and it’s always fun to meet characters who share my passion! Secret underground tunnels a bonus!
Ms. Merrick knows her stuff, from the construction and design angle to the nuances of character and building the story. She meets the challenge of taking raw materials aka characters, and shaping them into fabulously renovated personality make-overs.
Lisa is juggling her past crush, crashing into her present, as she navigates not only the reno but a cold case murder mystery. Nick faces his own heartache, buried under layers of protection, reluctantly peeling them back to reveal the beauty of his true nature.
Ms. Merrick pushes her characters just enough, nudges them, taunts and torments them, and rewards them. And keeps the reader turning the pages. This is my first read by this author (!)but it sure won’t be my last!
ROBIN’S FEATHERS
ALL | THE | FEATHERS!
I received a complimentary copy of this book, but was under no obligation to read the book or to post a review. I offer my review of my own free will. The opinions expressed in my review are my honest thoughts and reaction to this book.
#Blogwords, Tuesday Reviews-Day, #TRD, Book Review, Heart Restoration, Regina Rudd Merrick, Mosaic Collection, JustRead Publicity
TUESDAY REVIEWS-DAY – BOOK REVIEW – FIRE by LINDA K. RODANTE
ABOUT THE BOOK
Book: Fire
Author: Linda K Rodante
Genre: Christian Romantic Suspense
Release Date: July 28, 2020
THE BLURB
If a violent gang re-organizes, an undercover cop could lose everything…including the woman he loves.
After a gang war three years earlier, the undercover cop known as Patriot was forced to move and take a new identity. When the gang re-organizes and threatens a friend, Patriot, now a firefighter, races home to help him.
Chloe Swearingen confines herself to the fast pace of the ER and away from interpersonal relationships—for a reason she keeps to herself. But when she helps save a gangster’s life, she’s thrown into a cauldron of relationships from which she can’t escape—and one from which she doesn’t want to…
Then a series of fires target people they love, and Chloe and Patriot will need the Lord’s wisdom to stay alive.
Linda K. Rodante is a Florida transplant now living in Tennessee. She’s married with two sons, a wonderful daughter-in-law and six grandchildren. She loves sweet tea, apple butter and both the mountains and the oceans.
Her work with crisis pregnancy centers and anti-trafficking groups gave her a heart for women struggling in today’s society, while still respecting the role God has given men.
She’s a member of the American Christian Fiction Writers, Word Weavers International, and a past finalist of ACFW’s Genesis contest.
Linda writes Christian romantic suspense novels. Her books wrap sweet romance in real-life issues women face today then adds an edge of mystery and suspense. Her desire is to entertain and encourage others in their walk with God.
Linda’s two series, The Dangerous Series and The Spiritual Warfare Series, are each unique. Both are fun read in order, but every book is also a stand-alone.
MORE FROM LINDA
FIRE, A Christian Romantic Suspense novel, is the third book in the Spiritual Warfare Series. While it’s also a stand-alone, it’s enhanced if you’ve read the others first. The inspiration for FIRE came while listening to “There’s Another in the Fire” by Hillsong UNITED. I love the words to that song. It says so much about who Jesus is and that he never leaves us.
Most Christians know the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, how King Nebuchadnezzar had them thrown into a fiery furnace because they wouldn’t worship him (Daniel 3.19-25). We know that Jesus was the fourth man in the fire, that he kept them from being burned or even smelling like smoke. But the Bible refers to fire in many ways—God is a consuming fire, the Holy Spirit is represented by fire, his ministers are called flames of fire, his Word is like a fire, and Satan will be thrown into the lake of fire. So much representation there.
The first book in the Spiritual Warfare Series, Warrior, introduced us to an ex-gang member, a gang leader, and a kickboxer who wanted more from God than she’d been experiencing, not realizing the depth of what she’d asked, and the danger she’d find herself in. In the second book, ROAR, her church persists in ministering to gangs even amid threats and kidnappings. Then three members are caught in the middle of a gang war, and it will take a miracle to get them out. FIRE takes place three years later when things have settled down. Ex-gang members are finding Jesus and learning new life skills, but then someone sets fire to the church and one of the ex-gang members is arrested for murder. When you’re doing everything right, and Satan attacks, where is God?
FIRE brings back familiar characters and introduces new ones who fall in love, and who learn about prayer, and perseverance, and God’s faithfulness in the middle of the battle.
Romance, intrigue and the power of prayer are woven together to create a story of action and faith.
MY REVIEW
Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Ephesians 6:10–12 KJV
The importance—and power—of spiritual warfare rises to the front in this gripping story. Whether prayer or discernment or taking action, Ms. Rodante knows her stuff, and brings spiritual Truth to light in her stories.
Whether hiding behind a façade of indifference like Chloe, or a false identity like Patriot, Holy Spirit not only sees who we are but knows our needs and draws us from our cocoon—our comfort zone; He calls us to our purpose.
Double entendre is a favorite literary device of this reader, and the title of this book is quite a heated one. The utter and sheer destruction of a blazing fire brings images of charred timbers and heaps of ashes and blistered flesh.
But fire also purges, as with precious metals, removing impurities. Even more so Holy Fire upon the heart of the believer.
Ms. Rodante has portrayed this in her story, the juxtaposition of destruction against the cleansing of Holy Spirit.
The story is packed with a plethora of storylines and threads, with characters whose lived intertwine, and with clashing action and palpable emotion. While I felt the story jumped from scene to scene, it did not detract from the battle that rages, both on the page and around us.
Once again, Ms. Rodante had scripted an inside look at the very real spiritual battle we all face. She “gives us Truth in her stories, the Truth that is written from Genesis to the Book of Revelation. The Truth that this life is spiritual and not flesh only” (taken from my review of Warrior, 16 October 2018)
ROBIN’S FEATHERS
FOUR FEATHERS
I received a complimentary copy of this book, but was under no obligation to read the book or to post a review. I offer my review of my own free will. The opinions expressed in my review are my honest thoughts and reaction to this book.
TOUR GIVEAWAY
To celebrate her tour, Linda is giving away the grand prize package of the winner’s choice of format for the previous two books in series, Warrior and Roar, and a $25 Amazon gift card!!
Be sure to comment on the blog stops for nine extra entries into the giveaway! Click the link below to enter.
BLOGWORDS – Tuesday 1 September 2020 – TUESDAY REVIEWS-DAY – BOOK REVIEW – THE BLACK MIDNIGHT by KATHLEEN Y’BARBO
TUESDAY REVIEWS-DAY – BOOK REVIEW – THE BLACK MIDNIGHT by KATHLEEN Y’BARBO
ABOUT THE BOOK
Book: The Black Midnight
Author: Kathleen Y’Barbo
Genre: Christian Historical Suspense
Release Date: August, 2020
THE BLURB
Death Seems to Follow Harriet’s New Friend
Book 7 in the True Colors series—Fiction Based on Strange-But True History
Three years before Jack the Ripper began his murderous spree on the streets of London, women were dying in their beds as The Midnight Assassin terrorized the citizens of Austin, Texas. Now, with suspicion falling on Her Majesty’s family and Scotland Yard at a loss as to who the Ripper might be, Queen Victoria summons her great-granddaughter, Alice Anne von Wettin, a former Pinkerton agent who worked the unsolved Austin case, and orders her to discreetly form a team to look into the London matter.
The prospect of a second chance to work with Annie just might entice Isaiah Joplin out of his comfortable life as an Austin lawyer. If his theories are right, they’ll find the The Midnight Assassin and, by default, the Ripper. If they’re wrong, he and Annie are in a bigger mess than the one the feisty female left behind when she departed Austin under cover of darkness three years ago.
Can the unlikely pair find the truth of who is behind the murders before they are drawn into the killer’s deadly game? From Texas to London, the story navigates the fine line between truth and fiction as Annie and Isaiah ultimately find the hunters have become the hunted.
Bestselling author Kathleen Y’Barbo is a multiple Carol Award and RITA nominee of more than sixty novels with almost two million copies of her books in print in the US and abroad.
MORE FROM KATHLEEN Y’BARBO
I am a tenth generation Texan, but London has held a place in my heart for over ten years. You see, I have a son who has lived there for more than a decade. Thanks to him and his family of three—my granddaughter was born there on New Year’s Eve 2019—the city will always be special to me. There is absolutely nothing like walking those streets with a thousand years of history close enough to touch.
It was on a walk with my son through this great city that the stories of nineteenth century London came alive. With fog shrouding the rooftops of buildings that were hundreds of years old and our footsteps echoing on the cobblestones, I could imagine a time when lack of electricity and CCTV would make this place less than charming on a dark night. What reminded me of my favorite childhood movie, Mary Poppins, quickly became more reminiscent of Jack the Ripper. And then a story was born.
Only I just had half the story.
The other half came to me several years later when I stumbled across an article in Texas Monthly magazine about a serial killer who rampaged through Austin, Texas in 1884 and 1885 and was never caught. Some surmised this madman, called “The Midnight Assassin” by some, might have been Jack the Ripper honing his skills before he crossed the Atlantic to begin his famous crime spree in Great Britain.
But Austin? Ironically, my other two sons lived in Austin. So while part of my heart was in London, two more parts of that same heart resided in the Texas capital. I thought I knew Austin inside out. Between one of my sons getting not one but two degrees from the University of Texas (this Aggie grad is still proud of him in spite of what I jokingly call his burnt orange rebellion) and my other son living there and managing a restaurant at the time (and who just graduated from Texas A&M Galveston last month!), I had spent many years in the city. And yet I had never heard of the Midnight Assassin.
Research turned up a tale that sounds so close to fiction I had to write about it. Discovering the theory that the Austin killer might also be the Ripper just added to my interest—neither had been caught. And I like to write about Pinkerton detectives.
From there the story unfolded. If you’ve read any of my historical romances, you know that I love incorporating actual history into my stories. As you’ll see when you read The Black Midnight, this book is no exception. While I will continue writing the historical romances I love to bring to you, I will confess that writing this book has me itching to research another one like it.
What’s next in my foray into true crime novels? Maybe Houston. You see, I have a daughter who lives there…
In the meantime, I hope you’ll enjoy reading The Black Midnight as much as I enjoyed writing it!
MY REVIEW
This story is one of the things I love about historical fiction—fact and fiction overlap so seamlessly that this reader couldn’t tell which was which.
I liked Annie, feisty and no nonsense, she cut to the chase. In an era when women were seen and not heard, Annie roared, fighting both the stigma of her gender and the dictates of her status as a royal.
Ike was a trooper. Taking Annie willingly as a partner, no questions or qualms about working with the weaker gender. And the Queen! The man wasn’t intimidated at all. #kudos
For all the tension of the crimes, I felt the story dragged at times. The [SPOILER] interlude built the romance, but lost the crime story thread altogether.
This reader, however, was unaware of the Black Midnight crimes in Texas, and therefore the tie to Jack the Ripper. What a twist, truly truth is stranger than fiction.
ROBIN’S FEATHERS
THREE FEATHERS
I received a complimentary copy of this book, but was under no obligation to read the book or to post a review. I offer my review of my own free will. The opinions expressed in my review are my honest thoughts and reaction to this book.
GIVEAWAY
To celebrate her tour, Kathleen is giving away the grand prize package of a $25 Amazon gift card and a copy of the book!!
Be sure to comment on the blog stops for nine extra entries into the giveaway! Click the link below to enter.
THREE FEATHERS
robinsnest212 - stories by design 