Weekly Messages & Book Reviews
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I will post messages you email me, and review any Christ-centered book you send. Contact me.
Testimonies of lives changed by God are welcome. And any helpful hints you might like to share, especially to writers, are appreciated.
---an extraordinary true story by Retha & Aldo McPherson of South Africa
Haven't we all longed to hear from God? To have Him speak to us personally? To know His heart, His will for us?
You can and you will if you read this. Or read it for no other reason than to hear God speak through a twelve-year-old boy who couldn't possibly know all the things that went on while he was in a coma,
COURTING EMM
Sharlene MacLaren
Whitaker House
ISBN13: 978-1-60374
Historical Romance
Reviewer: Betty Anne Bantz
Unapproachable Emma Browning has built an impenetrable wall of protection around her heart, blocking out all males in general and her scurrilous father in particular. She runs a successful boarding house in Little Hickman, Kentucky in 1896, successful meaning she can occasionally afford to buy material to make new curtains, and if enough is left over, make herself a new dress
Her wall of defense begins to crack when a boy who had teased her as a child returns to Little Hickman as Reverend Jonathan Atkins, the new preacher, and takes up residence in her boarding house---against her better judgment.
About the same time, mysterious letters begin arriving from Chicago from someone who knows her father. Someone who talks about relatives she had never heard of, and a God who forgives us as we forgive others. As the letters continue coming in, and the preacher befriends her no-good father, Emma is caught in the middle with nowhere to go but up.
MacLaren makes you feel like you've been dropped into the middle of a flourishing 1890s town with all its eccentricities, evils, and basic goodness. A pleasurable read, with an awesome finish. (382 pp, $9.97)
BOOK REVIEWS
or quote all the scriptures he does---including their references, except from having met the author.
His Mom, Retha, appeared to be living the perfect life. Successful in business, faithful in church atten-dance, she had just been voted Mrs. South Africa, and always tried to include her family whenever possible as she traveled around the country to speak.
They were on their way home from one such speaking engagement when they had to swerve to avoid hitting a stopped vehicle, causing their car to tumble multiple times. The two children were thrown out, the oldest clear across the road, yet from their parents' first moment of panic, God was orchestrating miracle after miracle that would ultimately lead this family from tragedy to triumph.
The process turned out to be at times instan-taneous, yet at other times slow and painful. (Wouldn't we all rather have a quick fix for what ails us?) But God had a goal in mind that could only be reached in His timing and by His method, and when they surrendered to God's perfect will for their lives, beautiful things happened. And are yet to happen.
Expect beautiful things to happen to YOU as you read A MESSAGE FROM GOD, which may be pur-chased ($16) through "It's Supernatural" TV host Sid Roth at www.sidroth.org (since currency is different in South Africa). You may visit Retha's web site at www.rethamcpherson.co
Click on the blue circle to reach Retha
Click on red triangle for Sid Roth's web site
A MESSAGE
FROM GOD
FINDING MARIE
Susan Page Davis
Harvest House Publishers
Suspense
Reviewer: Betty Anne Bantz
Married young, Marie Belanger has grown up these past two years in Japan stationed with her Navy husband Pierre. But she's glad to finally be going home to visit her family in Maine, even if her husband must finish one last hush-hush assignment before he can join her. Having moved from the shelter of her father's house straight into her husband's arms, Marie has never really been on her own. This trip halfway around the world should prove her new
adult status, this is if she could only conquer her fears.
But as she boards, sinister characters seem to be lurking, and her seat-mate seems agitated. When Marie changes planes in San Francisco and happens to witness the woman's murder, she finds their attentions quickly focused on her. Marie's stamina is tested, as well as her her new-found faith, as she struggles to outwit and outrun not just one, but several evil men bent on capturing her for the secrets she unwittingly carries. Not to mention the FBI, NCIS, CIA, and the police who want to catch her first. It's a cross-country chase that ends in the Atlantic Ocean with Marie hanging off a sixty-foot yacht.
The bait was subtle at first, but I was soon so thoroughly hooked I had to read this book in one sitting. (Well, not literally.) You won't be able to put it down either. I give it five gold stars. You won't be disappointed.
Frasier Island series Book 1, Frasier Island, is available at your bookstore. Book 3, Inside Story, now complete, will be released in January, 2009.
What, or I should say "who" he encounters at the shack will surprise you, even anger you at first. But not for long. By the end, you, too, will feel like you've spent an evening with God.
For a comprehensive list of movies, games, and book reviews for the whole family that
will entertain, inspire, and challenge the
Christian and/or conservative, visit
THE SHACK
William P. Young
ISBN: 13-978-09647-29230
Windblown Media
Reviewer: Betty Anne Bantz
"Who wouldn't be skeptical when a man claims to have spent an entire weekend with God---in a shack, no less? And it was the shack." Thus begins the unfolding tale of a family troubled by tragedy, trying to cope, but failing miserably. Mack, takes full responsibility when his young daughter was kidnaped from a wilderness capsite; after all, the trip had been his idea. Only her bloodied dress was ever found.
RETURN TO LOVE
Susan Page Davis
Heartsong Presents
ISBN: 978-1-60260-011-9
Historical Romance
Reviewer: Betty Anne Bantz
In 1689, raiding Indians forever change the remote village of Cochecho New Hampshire. The sole survivor in her family, Sarah Minton is taken prisoner and marched north across the Canadian border.
Also taken is Richard Dudley's 10-year-old brother. But when negotiators finally bring a group of straggly captives home, the boy is not among them. His parents' grief is renewed, and although the Dudleys had been friends of the Mintons, they cannot open their hearts or home to their orphan daughter. Even Richard cannot acknowledge the once beautiful Sarah, now a gaunt ghost of the girl he had once dreamed of marrying.
Met with varying degrees of revulsion, fear, and distrust, the redeemed women find it difficult to find a place among the settlers. Only the parson and his family of five (with another one on the way) opens his one-room home to the last three unclaimed women.
Davis transports the reader back in time, not only in mannerisms and speech, but in historical accuracy. I recommend this short story,.and am looking forward to finding out more about these former captives in the author's future sequels. (172 pp. $4.95)
A look at God's faithfulness thru the years
by Betty Cunningham Holleuffer
Available AUGUST 1, 2008
All proceeds go to
Twin Riviers Church building project
Suggested donation: $15
Order now!
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To All Who Are To Come
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