Book Review: Revolutionary War history, Fields of the Fatherless

Fields of the Fatherless

Elaine Marie Cooper

 

© October 22, 2013

Lighthouse Publishing of the Carolinas

Historical novella

ISBN: 978-1938499920

$3.99 eBook; Print $11.66

 

In 1774, Massachusetts isn’t exactly the safest place to be, what with the Red Coats and all, trying to keep the colonies from declaring Independence from England. Young Betsy Russell is about to learn one of those life lessons that only experience can teach. Just who is the enemy, after all?

 

When their home community of Mentonomy Village becomes a hot zone battle ground in the spring, Betsy must choose to fight her prejudices and fears or give in to hatred. After her father is murdered, Betsy’s neighbor begs for help caring for wounded soldiers in her home. One of the men is eventually claimed and taken away by family. The other is a lobster back, a British soldier, an enemy, alone and mortally wounded. How could anyone find it in her heart to give aid to those responsible for the death of her father, a cripple old man, unarmed, on the doorstep of his home?

 

Fields of the Fatherless is a soul-searching read, meant to encourage the reader to look inside our own hearts and examine our prejudices and hold them up to the light of Christian love and charity. Are we better persons for defending our rights no matter the circumstances? For holding our ground, no matter how or why?

 

Join Betsy and her family as they experience life during this tumultuous time in American history, with all the laws and customs, culture and speech, life and death, packed into this great short read. For those who love history, Fields of the Fatherless will touch your spirit. Especially interesting is the author’s note at the end, detailing the inspiration behind this story.

 

About the author:

Novelist Elaine Marie Cooper is the author of The Road to Deer Run, The Promise of Deer Run and The Legacy of Deer Run. Her passions are her family, her faith in Christ and the history of the American Revolution, a frequent subject of her historical fiction. She grew up in Massachusetts, the setting for many of her novels.

Elaine is a contributing writer to Fighting Fear, Winning the War at Home by Edie Melson, and I Choose You, a romance Anthology. Her freelance work has appeared in both newspapers and magazines, and she blogs regularly at http://ColonialQuills.blogspot.com,

Book review: Reluctant Courtship by Laurie Alice Eakes

Reluctant Courtship

By Laurie Alice Eakes

Historical fiction, Regency

ISBN: 9780800734688

Print: $14.99, October

Ebook: $14.99, November; ISBN: 9781441243089

Revell

 

From the publisher:

A woman without a prospect. A man without a homeland. Can love give them a future?

Honore Bainbridge has been courted by two men, one of whom turned out to be a traitor, the other a murderer. Banished to her family’s country estate, she will hopefully stay out of trouble.

Under suspicion because of his American upbringing and accusations that he has helped French prisoners escape Meric Poole, Lord Ashmoor, must secure his place in British society. He needs a wife beyond reproach—something the vexingly beautiful Honore certainly is not.

My review:

This third book in the Daughters of Bainbridge House series from Laurie Alice Eakes begins with peril, something the heroine, Honore, is apparently used to. As any aspiring authoress is wont to do, she uses her near-fall and rescue by impossibly handsome, muscular neighbor, Meric, Lord Ashmoor, as a future scene in her Gothic novel.

 

This story that rounds up the three Bainbridge girls’ romance in Regency England is written in the style of day; delightfully wordy with no apologies for lavish description, costume perils, food woes, and daily nitty-gritty. Readers have to appreciate the style of Jane Austen to catch the drift of the typical vocabulary of the day.

 

With double romance in the wind for Honore and her companion, thirty (gasp)-year-old Miss Morrow, the adventure winds among grave misconception, hurt feelings, aspirations, and dastardly deeds. Readers of this period will enjoy Eakes’s witticisms and humor. An American nobleman attempting to claim his inheritance in Britain is a fun twist on the usual brooding and occasionally reluctant lives of the aristocracy.

 

Told from both Honore and Meric’s points of view, readers will enjoy the ins and outs of high society, danger, and romance. Although Reluctant Courtship stands alone, many tantalizing references are made to the other books in the series.

For more information, please visit http://www.bakerpublishinggroup.com/books/a-reluctant-courtship/324500

 Available October 2013 at your favorite bookseller from Revell, a division of Baker Publishing Group.

Tender Triumph, romantic novella, review

 

Tender Triumph

Ruth Roberts

Romantic novella
c. 2013
Prism Book Group
ISBN: 978-1-94009-20-0

$.99

 

I’m transported back to the book club romance days and thoroughly enjoying a vicarious visit to a realm of the rich and famous I’ll never experience.

 

The well-to-do have the same issues the rest of us have – only bigger and splashier. When luxury hotel heiress and recently orphaned Natalia Montalvo met and married tycoon Ramon Giambelli, her brother Nico hadn’t been crazy about it. But Natalia finished school and stepped into the family company, running a hotel in Italy. The marriage lasted ten years and left Natalia’s heart shredded.

 

Enter famous architect and playboy Jared Thornton who’s designing their new hotel, and Natalia realizes she’s not dead; not even dormant. Jared’s about to get the surprise of his life when he falls for Natalia and stops wanting to run around. But could these two make a normal relationship work? Maybe, with a little help from Nico’s wife, Kate, and her special brand of encouragement.

 

Tender Triumph is a really nice quick romance, told from both his and her sides. There is a little spice as well, just a heads up.

Book Review: Here Today, Gone Tomorrow by Carlene Havel

Here Today, Gone Tomorrow

Carlene Havel

Prism Book Group

September, 2013 

ISBN: 978-1-940099-13-2

$3.99 ebook; $10.99 pbook

Contemporary Inspiration

 

Havel’s newest novel takes the reader into the life of Casey Slaughter, a cliché divorcee working hard to put the pieces of her life together after her cheating husband leaves her for the other woman. Casey never had the opportunity to figure who she was, or who she wanted to be because she was so busy putting her husband through law school, and just shy enough not to talk about her suspicions over her cruddy marriage to anyone else. Everyone has problems sometimes, so it never occurred to her that the problems were not normal.

 

Added to the above a lower than average self-esteem and what could be a health issue, Casey spends two years stepping outside her comfort zone, not wildly, but enough to find a happy medium life. She establishes herself in a hobby she enjoys, and even buys a house. During this time, Casey also takes the time to step down from her pity party and listen to that still small voice, inviting her back to fellowship with God. When she realizes there are always two sides to the story and she wasn’t a perfect marriage partner, either, she is able to move on.

 

Casey’s new neighbors are both loving and exasperating, as are her co-workers, who enjoy gossip both for fun and for vicarious escapes from their own problems. When a new neighbor moves in, he is ripe for the picking. Casey even listens to some of the gossip and makes up her own mind about Carlos Tucker, who she first meets while he’s decked out for…something…in a pirate costume and full make up. But nothing, of course, is what it seems.

 

Join Casey and her fun family as they all work out their relationships and identities, as they learn who they can trust when the going gets tough, and that the only thing that won’t be gone tomorrow is the Lord who is in control of it all.

 

Havel has created a pleasant read, a sweet story that’s a step away from the typical romances. It’s a piece of life that’s all too real, but a nice diversion from your own. Time passes a little quickly in some spots and there are a few leaps in logic which I had no trouble following. I thoroughly enjoyed the characters and the setting, and even the hurricane, experienced safely from my chair. Readers who are looking for something different from the same-old same-old will enjoy this tale.