Jolene O’Neil has wind, prairie, and cattle in her blood, but circumstances have removed her far from the ranch life she enjoys. John Harris, a handsome Air Force captain, is determined to win her heart, but then there is the ever-present, enticing, urbanite Dexter DeLange . . .
Dexter was the most complex, handsome, and exciting man she had ever known, and she loved him with abandon. However, there were moments she was suspicious of his motives, and even a little scared of his obsession with her . . .
If Jolene follows her heart, will she find happiness, even if she never rides the range again?
From the stability of the family ranch to the glamour of the modeling world, Jolene struggles to find herself and to discover God’s plan for her life. With the prairies of South Dakota and Nebraska as background for this unusual story, Jolene O’Neil rides over the pages and into your heart with refreshing honesty and humor.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Joyce Wheeler grew up on the prairies of South Dakota, learning at an early age to appreciate the greatness of God’s creation. The transition from rancher’s daughter to rancher’s wife when she married Justin came easy, and they have continued to pass their ranching tradition down to their children and grandchildren.
Joyce’s interest in adventure and intrigue persuaded her to conjure up meaningful stories about ordinary people in difficult circumstances. She has walked, ridden, and drove over prairie trails and used those times to not only praise our Creator, but also weave stories that would reflect her appreciation of God’s world.
As an avid reader, Joyce traveled the world in her armchair with a cup of coffee in one hand and a book in the other, until her own unfulfilled desire to write a book began to unfold. At the urging of friends and family, Joyce took delight in developing characters of her own in and among the settings of a ranching lifestyle in which she is knowledgeable. The result was Joyce’s very first book, entitled My Lady.
In addition to being a wife, mother, and grandmother, Joyce has enjoyed being a homemaker, bookkeeper, and gardener. Her hobbies include activities like family gatherings, music, horseback riding, hiking and ranch work. Some of her fondest memories are skiing with her grandchildren and white water rafting on the Snake River. Her greatest joy, however, is the growing knowledge that God is a part of every aspect of our lives and serving Him is the most exciting adventure of all.
MY REVIEW:
I guess you could say that I have mixed feelings about My Lady. The narrative style is not my favorite type book to read. I prefer one with more character interaction and dialogue. I also felt that there was so much going on in this book that it really deserved much more space to develop. Jolene’s first husband John was pretty much a nonentity due to lack of character development. For this reason, it was difficult to sympathize with Jolene’s grief at his death. Dexter, on the other hand, was an annoyance to me and I could not understand Jolene’s attraction to him. Chauncey was a different story. I really liked him but would have liked more character development there also.
Jolene’s life was filled with tragedy and vulnerability. Even her strong faith in God seemed unable to help her overcome her tendency to make poor and hasty choices. As the story progressed, Jolene learned some valuable lessons about herself and God’s faithfulness.
My Lady was provided for review by Wine Press Publishing Group through Glass Road Public Relations.
It is time for a FIRST Wild Card Tour book review! If you wish to join the FIRST blog alliance, just click the button. We are a group of reviewers who tour Christian books. A Wild Card post includes a brief bio of the author and a full chapter from each book toured. The reason it is called a FIRST Wild Card Tour is that you never know if the book will be fiction, non~fiction, for young, or for old…or for somewhere in between! Enjoy your free peek into the book!
You never know when I might play a wild card on you!
***Special thanks to Audra Jennings of The B&B Media Group for sending me a review copy.***
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Chris Coppernoll has authored six books including A Beautiful Fall and Providence. A national speaker to singles, Chris is also the founder of Soul2Soul, a syndicated radio program airing on 800 outlets in 20 countries. Chris holds a Masters degree from Rockbridge Seminary and resides outside Nashville, Tennessee.
List Price: $14.99
Paperback: 352 pages
Publisher: David C. Cook; New edition (January 1, 2010)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1434764826
ISBN-13: 978-1434764829
AND NOW…THE FIRST CHAPTER:
I absolutely had to be in New York by 1:30 p.m. Did my life depend upon it? Yes, as a matter of fact, it did. Just the thought of calling Ben or Avril with bad news from O’Hare churned my stomach and made my face prickle with a dizzying fear. I joined a sea of travelers bundled in parkas, hoods, hats, and gloves; they stretched out in front of me, pressing in and wresting me through a queue of red velvet theater ropes.
All of Chicago wanted to flee the blizzard they’d awakened to. Sometime after midnight the sky exploded with snowflakes. Icy white parachutists fell from their celestial perch as innocently as doves. The year’s last snowstorm tucked the city in with a white blanket knitted through the long winter’s night.
When I reached the American Airlines check-in, I hoisted one of my two black canvas bags onto the scale for the ticket agent.
“Harper Gray?” she asked, confirming my reservation.
“Yes.”
She returned my driver’s license, dropping her gaze to the workstation and tapping my information into the system. At the kiosk next to me, a large Texan with a silver rodeo buckle typed on his iPhone with his thumbs, mumbling something about checking the weather in Dallas.
Computers, I thought. What don’t we use them for?
It was obvious how many of my fellow travelers were heading somewhere for the New Year’s Eve festivities. I couldn’t help but eavesdrop on a cluster of merry college students reveling in their Christmas break. They joked and chattered, mentioning Times Square, unbothered by long lines or the imminent threat of weather delays. At thirty, almost thirty-one, I could no longer relate to their carefree lifestyle. Too much water under the bridge, most of it dark and all of it numbing.
“Here you are,” the ticket agent said, handing me a boarding pass still warm from the printer. I fumbled with my things, stuffing my photo ID into my wallet as a mother and her young son squeezed in next to me. The crowd current swept me away from the ticket counter, denying me a chance to ask the agent the one question I most wanted answered.
Is anyone flying out of here this morning?
I rolled my carry-on through the main concourse. I’d used the small black Samsonite for so many trips, I thought the airlines should paste labels on it like an old vaudevillian’s steamer trunk. A row of display monitors hung from a galvanized pipe, cobalt blue icicles glowing all the brighter in the dark and windowless hallway. I joined a beleaguered crowd of gawkers studying the departure screens. Their collective moans of frustration confirmed what I already knew. My flight—indeed, all flights out of O’Hare—was:
DELAYED
I pinched my eyes shut. This was not what I needed. Not today, not today of all days. I absolutely had to be in New York by 1:30 p.m. Did my life depend upon it? Yes, as a matter of fact, it did.
It is not often that I run across a book written from a female perspective by a male author and I wondered if Chris Coppernoll would be able to carry it off through the entire book. All I can say is that his wife must be tremendously blessed to be married to a man who understands women so well.
Screen Play is one of those books that began innocuously but gradually built and before I realized it I was totally immersed in the story. After Harper Gray’s salvation experience, she emerges from a deep depression and begins working again in the field she loves. Harper’s primary desire is to please God and as the book progressed I could seen the fingerprints of God all over her life. Coppernoll’s narrative of theater life and online dating added details that kept me intrigued. Screen Play is a story of hope and evidence that with God nothing is impossible.
I will leave details of the book for other readers to discover for themselves. It’s so much more fun to read when the plot hasn’t been divulged. I heartily recommend Screen Play and hope that everyone will pick up a copy of their own.
Peggy Sue Yarber, PhD in psychology, lives in central California with her husband, two daughters, six turtles and two dogs. She works in the field of education.
The Judas Ride was inspired by her current and previous students. She has seen and experienced and seen similarities between the students and Jesus’ traitor, Judas Iscariot. She has always been fascinated with Judas. Yarber went to a catholic school when she was young and Judas was always portrayed like a mysterious rebel.
She ventures to say, “I guess he was my James Dean of the Bible. But in a good way! In the way that…he did something so wrong so that the entire world could be saved. He had to betray Jesus in order for the rest of the story. I have always wondered what it would be like to not do that one bad thing that would lead to that one great thing. So I had the Vader character sort of run through the paces of Judas.”
Redemption and reality are the two distinguishing features about Yarber’s writing. Not all teens find redemption in The Judas Ride. Yarber considered trying to show the negative outcomes as much as the positive. She wasn’t thinking in terms of positive and negative but she did try to balance the two sides. Yarber says she often sees people daily that , “…have even more screwed up lives than these characters.” Yarber admits sometimes there is not an ending to the madness unless someone dies and then even after the death the ripples still linger. She has written another novel TARE and a children’s book Rocketships to Heaven and the SOS Fuel Station. She loves to run, read, shoot guns and watch her daughters play soccer.
ABOUT THE BOOK:
An unwed (and unwanted) teen pregnancy with two possible fathers. Abusive relationships. Drug and alcohol addiction. Rape and molestation. The struggle to understand grace, forgiveness, and free will versus predestination. The Judas Ride hits the road running in the opening pages, where Sonia and Xavier argue explosively about whether Sonia should have their unborn child and about who the father is: Xavier, a struggling Christian, or Vader, an abusive and abused drug dealer. As the pages turn, readers continue to meet a hodgepodge of troubled teens and eclectic characters, including Pastor Manny, a quirky immigrant pastor infatuated with John Wayne. Pastor Manny desires to help the tortured souls in his community but finds that it takes more than unconditional love to reach them. Secrets literally kill in The Judas Ride, an edgy, in-your-your face Christian novel that boldly explores the struggles of modern-day young people.
I tried to read The Judas Ride, I really did. I struggled through many chapters with characters and events that got progressively worse as I read, hoping for a glimpse of redemption in the midst of all the ugliness. I never did find it and chose to stop reading before I reached the end. The characters were so unlikeable that I could not drum up even an ounce of sympathy for even one of them. I had a stack of much more inviting books waiting to be read and I gave in to their invitation.
I do not object to reading books about real life situations. Edgy fiction does not bother me. Unfortunately The Judas Ride did. I simply cannot recommend this book to anyone.
Warren Harlan Pease, the young narrator of this spellbinding novel, returns to his native New Hampshire from the Iraq War and spends an entire day with Jesus visiting and contemplating hi own life with fresh eyes, and a willing heart. He examines his relationships to those he loves?his girlfriend, his best friend, his father, his dead mother, his daughter ? and grapples with the pain he has been carrying since the death of his mother when he was still a boy.
While in Iraq, armed with his sniper’s ‘s rifle and his deeply held faith, Specialist Pease traveled across ideological borders and earned an appreciation for his enemy’s culture and for what connect us all as human beings. He also learned how to kill and taught others to do the same. “War doesn’t test your faith in Jesus,” Warren comes to realize. “It tests your faith in yourself.” The Last Day answers some questions and asks many more. It’s a powerful meditation on religion and war, love and loss.
This work of compassion and healing grace will resonate with skeptics and believers, be shared and discussed between friends and among families. It is a book for our time, and forever.
If you would like to read an excerpt from Chapter one of , go HERE
For more than a decade, Author Sandra D. Bricker lived in Los Angeles. While writing in every spare moment, she worked as a personal assistant
and publicist to some of daytime television’s hottest stars. When her mother became ill in Florida, she walked away from that segment of her life and moved across the country to take on a new role: Caregiver.
One of Sandie’s passions revolves around the rights of animals. She’s been involved in fundraising for Lost Angels Animal Rescue for several years now; in fact, a portion of the proceeds of Love Finds You in Holiday, Florida will go to help the non-profit group with their expenses. And Lost Angels paid her back in a big way: They brought a free-spirited Collie named Sophie into her life after the loss of her 15-year companion Caleb.
It was her 8th novel that opened the door to finding her way as a writer.
In Sandie’s words: “I guess most people would see my career as a publicist as a sort of dream job. But giving it up turned out to be the best thing that could have happened to me!” she declares. “Not only was I given the gift of getting to know my mother as an adult woman before she passed away, but I was also afforded the blessing of being able to focus completely on my dream of a writing career. I’m a Christian woman, first and foremost, so it was a bit of a dream-come-true when Summerside Press chose me as one of two authors to launch their new Love Finds You line.”
ABOUT THE BOOK: Lawyer Cassie Constantine has no plans to stay in Florida. She’s here just long enough to sell her late husbands vacation house, a tacky bungalow she’s always despised then she’ll hightail it back to her gracious Boston brownstone.
But the place needs more work than Cassie bargained for. What’s more, her widow status is like a target on her back and the elderly matchmakers around town manage to sidetrack her mission at every turn.
Holiday is a landmine of golf tournaments, ballroom dancing competitions, shuffleboard and day trips. But the biggest obstacle of all? Richard Dillon, the stuffed shirt she’s paired with on the dance floor.
Cassie had always considered herself uptight but Richard won’t take a walk on the beach without his socks and shoes! There’s one little problem he makes her heart beat faster than the rhythm of the quickstep. Can Cassie and Richard let loose long enough to have a little fun?
Love Finds You in Holiday, Florida is one of those rare romance novels featuring more mature love interests rather than the pretty young thing and handsome buff guy. Not that there is a thing wrong with those other novels. It’s just that us older gals might find a little hope that if we suddenly found ourselves single again there could possibly be a second chance at love despite the grey hair and extra pounds acquired during the years.
Love Finds You in Holiday, Florida is a fun romp with delightful and crazy characters. It is a pleasure to observe as Cassie not only finds unexpected love but her true self as the story progresses. Faith and humor are interwoven to make it the perfect companion to a cup of hot chocolate and a cozy chair during a cold winter evening.
Single mother and foster parent, Christina Berry carves time to write from her busy schedule because she must tell the stories that haunt her every waking moment. (Such is the overly dramatic description of an author’s life!) She holds a BA in Literature, yet loves a good Calculus problem, as well. All that confusion must have influenced her decision to be team captain of a winning team on Family Feud.
Her debut novel, The Familiar Stranger, released from Moody in September and deals with lies, secrets, and themes of forgiveness in a troubled marriage. A moving speaker and dynamic teacher, Christina strives to Live Transparently–Forgive Extravagantly!
Her work has also appeared in The Secret Place, The Oregonian, and Daily Devotions for Writers.
ABOUT THE BOOK:
Craig Littleton’s decision to end his marriage would shock his wife, Denise . . . if she knew what he was up to. When an accident lands Craig in the ICU, with fuzzy memories of his own life and plans, Denise rushes to his side, ready to care for him.
They embark on a quest to help Craig remember who he is and, in the process, they discover dark secrets. An affair? An emptied bank account? A hidden identity? An illegitimate child?
But what will she do when she realizes he’s not the man she thought he was? Is this trauma a blessing in disguise, a chance for a fresh start? Or will his secrets destroy the life they built together?
I find it difficult to add anything to the above book description without it turning into a real spoiler. I can say that the book is very well written for a first novel and totally held my attention until the end. A couple of revelations that I suspected in advance did not diminish my enjoyment of this story. I would definitely recommend The Familiar Stranger.
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Jolene O’Neil has wind, prairie, and cattle in her blood, but circumstances have removed her far from the ranch life she enjoys. John Harris, a handsome Air Force captain, is determined to win her heart, but then there is the ever-present, enticing, urbanite Dexter DeLange . . .
Joyce Wheeler grew up on the prairies of South Dakota, learning at an early age to appreciate the greatness of God’s creation. The transition from rancher’s daughter to rancher’s wife when she married Justin came easy, and they have continued to pass their ranching tradition down to their children and grandchildren.
