Tracie Peterson is the bestselling, award-winning author of more than 85 novels.
She received her first book contract in November, 1992 and saw A Place To Belong published in February 1993 with Barbour Publishings’ Heartsong Presents. She wrote exclusively with Heartsong for the next two years, receiving their readership’s vote for Favorite Author of the Year for three years in a row.
In December, 1995 she signed a contract with Bethany House Publishers to co-write a series with author Judith Pella. Tracie now writes exclusively for Bethany House Publishers.
She teaches writing workshops at a variety of conferences on subjects such as inspirational romance and historical research.
Tracie was awarded the Romantic Times Career Achievement Award for 2007 Inspirational Fiction and her books have won numerous awards for favorite books in a variety of contests.
Making her home in Montana, this Kansas native enjoys spending time with family–especially her three grandchildren–Rainy, Fox and Max. She’s active in her church as the Director of Women’s Ministries, coordinates a yearly writer’s retreat for published authors, and travels, as time permits, to research her books.
ABOUT THE BOOK:
When her father orchestrates a surprise trip to the summer house of her childhood, Bailee Cooper is unprepared for what follows. What is intended to be a happy reunion for Bailee and her sisters, Geena and Piper, quickly becomes shrouded by memories from the past.
Together again, the three sisters sift through their recollections of fifteen years ago…of an ill mother, and of their father making a desperate choice. They vowed, as children, to be silent–but one sister believes the truth must now be revealed. Yet can they trust their memories?
Mark Delahunt arrives in the wake of this emotional turmoil. Determined to win Bailee’s affection, Mark becomes the strong fortress for her in this time of confusion, and what was once a tentative promise begins to take root and grow. Caught between the past and an uncertain future, can Bailee let God guide her to heal the past and ultimately to embrace love?
If you would like to read the first chapter of House of Secrets, go HERE.
Learn more about Tracie and her books on her Website.
MY REVIEW:
Although Tracie Peterson is probably best known for her excellent historical fiction, House of Secrets is proof that her talent is multifaceted. In this contemporary novel, Bailee Cooper and her two younger sisters still wrestle with childhood family secrets that have immobilized their lives in many ways. Bailee in particular suffers frequent nightmares as well as an unnatural sense of responsibility for her sisters and has never allowed herself to develop friendships let alone contemplate a romantic relationship. Nevertheless, each of the sisters has managed to squelch the memories and to keep up appearances of normalcy – that is until their father arranges for them all to return for the first time to the house where their mother died.
House of Secrets tells a vivid story of the crippling effects of mental illness on the Cooper family. Not only do the memories haunt them, particularly Bailee, but each of them deal with different levels of anger, fear, depression, and other dysfunctional traits. When their return to the vacation home brings all the memories and secrets back to the surface, they must decide whether to meet them head-on and overcome the past or to forever remain trapped there. House of Secrets is an emotional tale that ultimately illustrates principles of true forgiveness and the decision to rely on God.
“Hello, Hollywood” is another fun filled tale from Janice Thompson that is filled with her trademark quirky humor. Set in the same sitcom TV studio as “Stars Collide”, first installment of Thompson’s Backstage Pass series, the primary character is Athena Pappas, the head screenwriter for the wildly popular TV series. Included are some beloved old friends as well as several new friends the reader will love, including Athena’s fun and loving crazy Greek family.
Athena’s world tilts when a new writer is added to the writing team. It doesn’t help that he is a somewhat famous comedian who has just starred in his own HBO TV special and has been nominated for an award. Her lack of self-confidence has her convinced that it is only a matter of time before everyone knows she is a fraud and her job security is gone. Prepared to hate the new writer, Steve Cosse, Athena finds herself liking him against her better judgement. But in her mind, there is NO WAY an Adonis like Steve could ever be interested in someone like her.
Well, it is a given that “Hello, Hollywood” is a romantic comedy featuring Steve and Athena. What you don’t know is how much fun it will be on the journey to the expected conclusion. Let me just say, “Conflict, conflict, conflict!” I loved the mentions of classic TV comedies and the chapter titles of old TV shows. Athena’s tendency to script her own romantic moments in her head as she experienced them was hilarious. As I can always expect from one of Janice’s novels, “Hello, Hollywood” has a well paced plot, wonderful characters, plenty of humor, a sweet romance, and an unobtrusive but clear message of faith. I know I can count on Janice to supply me with stories that brighten my day. If you have never read one of her books, “Hello, Hollywood” (and “Stars Collide”) would be a good place to start.
This book was provided for review by
Revell, a division of Baker Publishing Group.
ABOUT THE BOOK: Say Hello to Hollywood! Find out just how funny life can be when you try to script it.
Popular romance author and screenwriter, Janice Thompson, is charming her readers once again with a behind-the-scenes look at life in Hollywood. Her new book, Hello, Hollywood! (ISBN: 978-0-8007-3346-9, $14.99, 288 pages, September) is the second installment in the Backstage Pass series. This time, Thompson takes her readers inside the writer’s room.
At 28, Athena Pappas has a pretty great gig. She’s the head writer of one of the most popular sitcoms in television history, Stars Collide. Yet, something’s still lacking: her love life.
Athena finds nothing wrong with still living at home with her large, wacky Greek family and making her bed with the same Strawberry Shortcake sheets she had as a kid. None of that has prevented Athena from plotting her characters’ romances. So why is her own love life so hard to script?
Athena’s love life gets the shakeup it needs when her boss hires up-and-coming Vegas comedian, Stephen Cosse, to help boost the show’s sagging ratings. Feeling her position as head writer threatened, she starts to doubt her talents, and the fact that Stephen is as good looking as Adonis doesn’t escape Athena’s attention either.
Sparks fly as the competition—and attraction—between the two heats things up. While they struggle to create conflict and comedy for their characters on the page, Athena and Stephen develop a relationship they never would have scripted for themselves and discover that not being in control of the plot of their lives may just be the best thing that’s ever happened.
Hello, Hollywood! delights readers with its charm and humor. Every character will jump off the page and into the readers’ hearts.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Janice Thompson is a seasoned romance author. An expert at pulling the humor from the situations we get ourselves into, Thompson affords an inside look at TV land, drawing on her experiences as a screenwriter. She is the author of the Weddings by Bella series and lives in Texas. To learn more about Janice visit her at: www.janicethompson.com
Beverly’s first venture into adult fiction is the best-selling trilogy, The Heritage of Lancaster County, including The Shunning, a suspenseful saga of Katie Lapp, a young Amish woman drawn to the modern world by secrets from her past. The book is loosely based on the author’s maternal grandmother, Ada Ranck Buchwalter, who left her Old Order Mennonite upbringing to marry a Bible College student. One Amish-country newspaper claimed Beverly’s work to be “a primer on Lancaster County folklore” and offers “an insider’s view of Amish life.”
Booksellers across the country, and around the world, have spread the word of Beverly’s tender tales of Plain country life. A clerk in a Virginia bookstore wrote, “Beverly’s books have a compelling freshness and spark. You just don’t run across writing like that every day. I hope she’ll keep writing stories about the Plain people for a long, long time.”
A member of the National League of American Pen Women, as well as a Distinguished Alumnus of Evangel University, Lewis has written over 80 books for children, youth, and adults, many of them award-winning. She and her husband, David, make their home in Colorado, where they enjoy hiking, biking, and spending time with their family. They are also avid musicians and fiction “book worms.”
ABOUT THE BOOK:
Rose Kauffman pines for prodigal Nick Franco, the Bishop’s foster son who left the Amish under a cloud of suspicion after his foster brother’s death. His rebellion led to the “silencing” of their beloved Bishop. But is Nick really the rebel he appears to be? Rose’s lingering feelings for her wayward friend refuse to fade, but she is frustrated that Nick won’t return and make things right with the People. Nick avowed his love for Rose–but will he ever be willing to sacrifice modern life for her?
Meanwhile, Rose’s older sister, Hen, is living in her parents’ Dawdi Haus. Her estranged “English” husband, injured and helpless after a car accident, has reluctantly come to live with her and their young daughter during his recovery. Can their marriage recover, as well? Is there any possible middle ground between a woman reclaiming her old-fashioned Amish lifestyle and thoroughly modern man?
If you would like to read the first chapter of The Mercy, go HERE.
Watch the book trailer:
MY REVIEW:
The Mercy is the final installment of Beverly Lewis’ Rose Trilogy and for the most part the story focuses on tying up all the loose ends from the previous two novels. By the end of the book the reader will find out what happens with Hen and her husband Brandon, whether Rose’s mom had a successful surgery to relieve her chronic pain, what really happened with Nick and his brother Christian, and whether Rose found the husband she so desperately wanted.
It was good to see all the unresolved issues from the earlier books wrapped up so neatly but in many ways, The Mercy was pretty much just another Amish novel in a market full of them. Issac’s character introduced a bit of originality with the groups of Amish young people who participated in barn dances but it didn’t take very long to realize that he and Rose were total opposites and that he was merely a distraction from her obsession with Nick. Very little effort was made to portray Issac because in the long run, he just wasn’t important enough.
Overall The Mercywas a decent read. It was well written and moved at a reasonable pace. Forgiveness and reconciliation were major themes and the spiritual content was more than adequate. So, if you are a true Amish fiction fan, you should love The Mercy.
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 Camy Tang for sending me a review copy.***
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Camy Tang grew up in Hawaii and now lives in San Jose, California, with her engineer husband and rambunctious mutt, Snickers. She graduated from Stanford University and was a biologist researcher for 9 years, but now she writes full-time. She is a staff worker for her church youth group and leads one of the Sunday worship teams. On her blog, she ponders knitting, spinning wool, dogs, running, the Never Ending Diet, and other frivolous things. Visit her website at http://www.camytang.com/ to read short stories and subscribe to her quarterly newsletter.
After finally graduating with a culinary degree, Jennifer Lim is pressured by her family to work for her control-freak aunty’s restaurant. But after a family blowout, Jenn is determined to no longer be a doormat and instead starts her own catering company. Her search for a wine merchant brings John into her life—a tall, dark, handsome biker, in form-fitting black leather, and Hispanic to boot. It would be wonderfully wild to snag a man like that!
Shy engineer Edward tentatively tries out his birthday present from his winery-owner uncle—a Harley Davidson complete with the trimmings. Jennifer seems attracted to the rough, aggressive image, but it isn’t his real self. Is she latching onto him just to spite her horrified family? And if this spark between them is real, will showing her the true guy underneath put it out?
And what’s with the goat in the backyard?
Product Details:
List Price: $13.99
Paperback: 124 pages
Publisher: WinePress Publishing (June 7, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1414120591
ISBN-13: 978-1414120591
AND NOW…THE FIRST CHAPTER:
The goat in the backyard had just eaten tonight’s dinner.
Jennifer Lim stood on her mother’s minuscule back porch and glared at the small brown and white creature polishing off her basil. She would have run shouting at it to leave off her herb garden, except it had already decimated the oregano, mint, rosemary, thyme, cilantro, and her precious basil, which had been slated for tonight’s pesto.
Besides, if it bit her, she was peeved enough to bite back.
“Mom!” She stomped back into the house. Thank goodness the pots of her special Malaysian basil were sectioned off in the large garden on the side of the house, protected by a wooden-framed wire gate. Jenn was growing it so that she could make her cousin Trish’s favorite chicken dish for her wedding, which Jenn was catering for her. But everything in her backyard garden was gone. The animal was welcome to the only thing left, the ragged juniper bushes. Were juniper bushes poison? If so, the animal was welcome to them.
“Mom!” Her voice had reached banshee range. “There is a goat—”
“You don’t need to yell.” Mom entered the kitchen, her lipstick bright red from a fresh application and her leather handbag over her arm, obviously ready to leave the house on some errand.
“Since when do we own a goat?”
“Since your cousin Larry brought him over.” She fished through her leather purse. “His name is Pookie.”
Jenn choked on her demand for an explanation, momentarily distracted. “He has a name?”
“He’s a living being. Of course he has a name.” Her mother fluttered eyelashes overloaded with mascara.
“Don’t give me that. You used to love to gross me out with stories of Great-Uncle Hao Chin eating goats back in China.”
Mom sniffed and found the refrigerator fascinating. “That’s your father’s side.”
Jenn swayed as the floor tilted. You are now entering … the Twilight Zone. Her parent had evoked that feeling quite often in the past few weeks. “Where did Larry get a goat and why do we have it now?”
“They were desperate.”
Actually, Jenn could have answered her own question. That goat was in their backyard right now because everyone knew that her mom couldn’t say no to a termite who knocked on the door and asked if it could spend the night.
And outside of physically dropping the goat off at someone’s house—and she didn’t have an animal trailer, so that was out of the question—Jenn wouldn’t be able to get anyone else in the family to agree to take the animal, now that it was here. That meant leaving a goat in a niece’s backyard because no one else wanted to go through the hassle of doing anything about it.
Mom said, “You wouldn’t have me turn away family, would you?”
“Uncle Percy knows, too?”
“No, not Percy.”
“Aunty Glenda?” No way. Even if Larry were thirty-one instead of twenty-one, Aunty would still dictate to her son the color underwear he wore that day—how much more his choice of pet?
“No.” Mom blinked as rapidly as she could with mascara making her short, stiff lashes stick together, almost gluing her eyes shut.
The tiger in Jenn’s ribcage growled. “Mother.” Her fist smacked onto her hip.
“Oh, all right.” Mom rolled her eyes as if she were still a teenager. “It belongs to Larry’s dormmate’s older brother, but really, he’s the nicest young man.” Burgundy lips pulled into what wanted to be a smile, but instead looked hideously desperate.
Jenn tried to count to ten but only got to two. “I know Larry’s a nice young man. If an abundance of immaturity counts as ‘nice’ points.”
“Jenn, really, you’re so intolerant. Just because you’re smart and went to Stanford for grad school …”
The name of her school—and the one dominant memory it brought up—made her neck jerk in a spasm. It had only been for two years, but that was enough. Desperately lonely after spending her undergrad years living with her cousins, Jenn had only formed a few friendships among the other grad students, none of them close. There was only one she’d never forget, although she vowed she would every morning when she got up and saw the scar in the mirror.
“Why. Do we have. A goat.”
“It’s only for a few days—”
“We don’t know a thing about how to take care of—”
“They’re easy—”
“Besides which, this is Cupertino. I’m sure there are city laws—”
“It’ll be gone before anyone notices—”
“Oh, ho, you’re right about that.” Jenn strode toward the phone on the wall. “I’m calling the Humane Society. They’ll take it.” Although they wouldn’t provide a trailer to transport it. How was she going to take the goat anywhere, much less to an animal shelter?
Mom plopped onto a stool and sighed. “That boy was so cute. His name was Brad.”
There went her neck spasming again. But Brad was a common name. She grabbed the phone.
“Such a nice Chinese boy. Related to the Yip family—you know, the ones in Mountain View?”
The phone slipped from her hand and bungee-jumped toward the floor, saved only by the curly cord. She bent to snatch it up, but dizziness shrouded her vision and she had to take a few breaths before straightening up.
“Oh, and he went to Stanford. You two have something in common.” Mom beamed.
No. He wouldn’t.
Yes, he would.
“Brad Yip?”
Mom’s eyes lighted up. “Do you know him?”
Sure, she knew him. Knew the next time he came for his goat she’d ram her chef’s knife, Michael Meyers style, right between his eyes.
MY REVIEW:
Weddings and Wasabi is short and sweet and can probably be read by the average reader in around an hour. Actually a self-published novella intended to complete the author’s Sushi series, it gives cousin Jenn a story of her own.
With her usual focus on Asian family dynamics, Camy has once again created a laugh out loud tale that nevertheless manages to covey a strong spiritual message. For such a short book, Weddings and Wasabi has a lot going on in its well paced plot with several vivid and humorous action scenes. Imagine a water-gun invasion to retrieve stolen cake pans! The food descriptions (and there were many) served to make me hungry and craving Asian food. The romantic aspect of the story was sweet and Edward seemed the perfect match for Jenn but like many other reviewers I would have liked to have read more about him.
I came away from this story with three strong spiritual impressions:
You don’t have to be a doormat just because you are a Christian.
God cares about you and will come through for you if you trust in Him.
You never know who is watching you and the effect you might have on their life for Christ.
So to wrap it up – yes, Weddings and Wasabi is a pretty short book but it packs a huge punch. I thoroughly enjoyed it and would recommend it.
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