January 2017 – Writer of Sweet Small Town Stories of Love and Family

Book Talk Tuesday: RESCUE ME

Published on January 31, 2017January 30, 2017 by Live Vi-Carrie-ously

RESCUE ME is Susan May Warren’s second book in her Montana Rescue Series.

The PEAK team in Montana is back and RESCUE ME picks up where WILD MONTANA SKIES left off. I’m loving this series.

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RESCUE ME is Sam Brooks’s story. At the end of WILD MONTANA SKIES, he’d asked Sierra Rose out and made his interest in her plain. Sierra and Ian had stopped working together their incipient romance crashed and burned. Sierra’s heart was broken, but she was determined to move on and she accepted Sam’s invitation.

Fast forward a few weeks and Sam and Sierra are still dating. The PEAK team is still searching and rescuing both locals and tourists in the area and in Glacier National Park.

Sam is busy with his job, caring for his mom recovering from cancer treatments, dealing with an increase in bear attacks in the park, and his flaky younger brother Pete, a fellow PEAK team member. Sam still blames Pete for their father’s death when the boys were teenagers.

Willow, Sierra’s sister, has been trying to get over her crush on her sister’s new boyfriend by concentrating on her job and volunteering as a youth leader at her church. Then she is passed over for the youth director job at the church and her father marries and is so busy with his new family that he doesn’t have time or space for Willow anymore.

Sam keeps denying how drawn he feels to Sierra’s sister. Sierra is perfect for him. They’re both organized, steady, focused. Willow is … well, she never finished high school. She’s a free spirit who loves Jesus and her sister.

For Willow, getting over Sam is even harder when she and Sam end up leading several youth group members on a day hike. They have an accident on the way back and are stranded in the park with injured kids.

The PEAK team swings into action, searching for their missing friends. Especially Pete who is determined not to let his brother down again.

Like all of Warren’s best books, RESCUE ME has several plot threads that are woven tightly to make an incredible read. The characters’s faith is real and not heavy-handed.

Willow struggles with feeling worthy and like she belongs. Sam finally sees just what his anger and unforgiveness has cost him.

Pete has a sub-plot with Jess, one of the other PEAK Team members. I’m guessing their story will be in a future book. And, I hope, we’ll finally get back to Ian and Sierra in an upcoming book.

I was so sad when Warren’s Christiansen Family series ended, but Montana Rescue is a worthy successor. I’m looking forward to A MATTER OF TRUST, due in early July.

I received a free copy of RESCUE ME from Revell via NetGalley in return for an honest review. Not a problem for me. I loved this one!

Book Talk Tuesday: AN UNCOMMON COURTSHIP

Published on January 24, 2017January 18, 2017 by Live Vi-Carrie-ously

I absolutely adore this book! I’ve read everything in Hunter’s Hawthorne House series and each book is better than the last. This is Trent’s story. He’s a second son so is now the younger brother of the duke. He’s been happy to take his time finding a wife, but plans to marry for love like his parents and his sisters are derailed.

He never expected having to marry a virtual stranger in order to salvage her reputation.

Adelaide is a second daughter, so she’s used to being overlooked as her mother readied her older sister for society and a desirable match. She never expected to marry before having her Season in London.
But married they are, and making their home in London.

The first two books in the series are all about the courtship and I thought it was brilliant to have this book begin with the wedding. Since there was no courtship, Trent and Adelaide’s marriage is full of the kinds of conflicts newlyweds experience.

Some of the other reviews I read on lAmazon and Goodreads have commented about the “sex.” There is nothing lewd or gratuitous.

Is it appropriate for a twelve-year-old? No. Is it appropriate for a sixteen-year-old? Given the highly sexualized culture we live in, I think yes. It could be a great conversation starter about wedding night expectations vs. realities. And given that this book is about a new marriage, the consummation is going to be a big event. Hunter handles it very well indeed.

It’s only mid-January, but I know this will be going on my Top Ten of 2017 list.

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I received a free copy of this book from Bethany House Publishers in exchange for an honest review. I honestly loved it!

Wednesday Wanderings: Yosemite Waters

Published on January 18, 2017January 18, 2017 by Live Vi-Carrie-ously

We hope 2017 is the year the California drought ends. We’re off to a good start with some storms giving us water and snow.

Stud Muffin dashed up to Yosemite last week to check on conditions and how Wawona was doing with all the water.

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He took this at our favorite swimming hole in Wawona. It gets its name, Swinging Bridge, from the … well, from the swinging bridge that spans the river. This is the south fork of the Merced River in Yosemite on January 9, 2017.

The water roiling in the forefront covers the sandy beach where we park our gear. The torrent on the left is where we paddle around and swim and cool off in the summer.

This picture gives us hope!

Book Talk Tuesday on a Thursday

Published on January 12, 2017January 11, 2017 by Live Vi-Carrie-ously2 Comments

The last two to round out my Top Ten.

I thought long and hard about this.

These last two are by friends. And I can hardly bear to only put two friends on the list, so I may have to add a few more. I have so many amazing writer friends that I’m very afraid to start down the road of naming my faves, because I just know I’ll accidentally leave off someone.

But … here goes.

FADING STARLIGHT by Kathryn Cushman. Katie’s been a best writing friend for a long time. And I couldn’t love this book more even if she was a complete stranger. The story is delicate and nuanced and perfectly presents both sides of a sticky moral issue. And the clothes sound fabulous! I love that dress and the window on the cover. Gorgeous!

A HERO TO HOLD by Sheri Humphreys is a great book. There’s just no getting around it, hero friend or not. I mean, I’ve always known HERO is special, but it was named one of Kirkus Reviews’ Best Books of 2016. So I may be biased, but someone else who doesn’t know Sheri personally also loved it.

The hero is in a wheelchair, injured in the Crimean War. The heroine is a widow, pretty much shunned by society. Their chemistry ignites on the page and I guarantee that the reader forgets he’s not completely able-bodied.

Whew! That was harder than I thought.

And I had to leave off some really stellar books by friends and strangers. I also either read and enjoyed these books or I’m looking forward to reading them soon (disclaimer: I’m sure I left off someone whose book I loved or will love. Please know it was inadvertent):

BOOK TALK TUESDAY ON A WEDNESDAY: MORE OF THE TOP TEN

Published on January 11, 2017January 11, 2017 by Live Vi-Carrie-ously

I’ve added a caveat for my list. I can’t include any authors I know well enough to call “friend.”

Because I know once I start naming some of my favorites, I’m afraid I’ll inadvertently leave off someone and I can’t bear the thought of missing someone or hurting their feelings. So this list has the ten best books by strangers, that I read in 2016. A few of the writers I would go so far as to call acquaintances, but we don’t have the kind of relationship that I could email and ask if we could stay with them when we’re passing through town. That’s what I mean by “knowing” them.

Now that that’s out of the way, back to the list.

In Mysteries:

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JD Robb, CALCULATED IN DEATH. All of Robb’s In Death books are fabulous, well-crafted, and shining examples of excellent mysteries. I love them all, but CALCULATED IN DEATH stood out for me this year. The plot was exceptionally well done.

Margaret Maron’s books are often in my To Be Read piles or on my Top Ten lists. But maron-dd DESIGNATED DAUGHTERS was stellar in many ways. The mystery is well set up and executed. The red herrings were done so skillfully that I continued second-guessing myself all the way through.

In Non-Fiction:

EMPTY MANSIONS by Bill Dedman and Paul Clark Newell is an amazing empty_mansions_paperback_cover_small look at a little known person in American history. William Clark was a U.S. Senator from Montana, he made a fortune in silver and copper mining, hung out with the Astors and Vanderbilts and Carnegies. Built huge homes. Amassed a collection of fine art to rival a museum. EMPTY MANSIONS covers Clark’s life, but is focused more narrowly on Clark’s youngest daughter, Hughette, who lived as a virtual recluse but maintained three homes she never visited, one she never even set foot into. It’s fascinating.

PRESENT OVER PERFECT is Shauna Niequist’s newest. I loved COLD TANGERINES, POP-cover BITTERSWEET, and BREAD AND WINE. PRESENT OVER PERFECT is a wonderful story of Shauna’s journey from stressed and overloaded to a simpler life with a focus on what’s important: God and family. I feel like I’m probably just a skoosh too old to fully appreciate all she has to say. I’ve already lived the stressed life (kids, work, social stuff, church obligations, the house — although admittedly not at her level. I wasn’t speaking in arenas). So the lessons were less revelatory to me than they would be to a mom in her thirties. But it was a good reminder and did provoke some though about how to slow down and enjoy life a bit more.

That’s enough for today. The rest of the Top Ten will post tomorrow. Thanks for reading!