Book Review: Trevelyan by Naomi Musch

Trevelyan

Naomi Musch

 

     Publisher: Desert Breeze Publishing, Inc. (May 21, 2014)

     ASIN: B00KI26HKW

4.99, 10.95 print

Buy on Amazon

From the publisher:

Five men and two Elven princes have embarked upon a quest: to save a sister from the wasteland of the Great Winter where she is held in the clutches of a Monster Lord who all believe brought desecration and ruin to the once glorious kingdom of Trevelyan. It is a land where hideous creatures and madness prey upon the careless, a land where faerie magic has taken an evil turn. For fifty years, no man or ally of men has been safe beyond the Cranreuch Plain. 

Until Belle's choice leads them all to discover the truth. 

Now rescuing her might come at a cost no one expects -- and from an evil no one but a princely beast and the faeries of Evensong ever anticipated. 

My review:

Combining the most fun of several genres and fairy tales, Musch’s latest novel for all readers adds a new twist to the tale of Beauty and the Beast.  A ruined, widowed father makes a terrible decision in order to save the rest of his family. His daughter Belle, one of his six children, is loved by all except her two sisters. Their vanity and jealousy rises to a horrible level of selfishness that may ruin not just the family but the world as they know it.

When a prince is cursed by an evil faery queen, the spell is only gentled by a promise of true love. The prince is turned outwardly into a hideous beast and the land around the legendary kingdom of Trevelyan turned into perpetual winter. The prince believes he has found true love, but must convince the woman he has exchanged for her father’s life to return that love. Meanwhile, the young woman, Belle, becomes enraptured with a dream of the love of a young and handsome prince whose portrait and diaries she finds.

Granted a leave to return to care for her ailing father, Belle is able to convince him he is well. When the leave is over, she must decide whether or not to return to her captor. However, the choice is taken from her when the means of return vanishes. Even as she learns her brothers’ search for her has led them to the Beast’s palace, she prays her delay will cause no lasting harm.

As with every good fairy tale, the ends justify the means and the moral of the story teaches us that sometimes what we wish for isn’t what’s best for us. Well done story. Told from multiple viewpoints with enjoyable humor and suitable angst for most readers.  

About the Author:

Naomi Musch loves stories rich in American history, but writes in several other genres as well. Naomi's aim is to surprise and entertain readers while telling stories about imperfect people who are finding hope and faith to overcome their struggles, whether the setting is past, contemporary, or even fantastic. 

She and husband Jeff have five adult children, and enjoy epic adventures with them around their home in the Wisconsin woods. She invites readers to say hello and find out more about her stories, passions, and other writing venues at http://www.naomimusch.com or look her up on Facebook (Naomi Musch - Author) and Twitter (NMusch). 

Lisa Lickel's Last Detail Book Giveaway September 11-13

Join me for my birthday celebration and enter to win a print version of The Last Detail.

Goodreads Book Giveaway

The Last Detail

by Lisa J. Lickel

Giveaway ends September 13, 2014.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win

Meet My Character, Grace Runyon

Meet My Character

Sweet romance author Gail Pallotta has some thoughtful questions about my character, Grace Runyon, who is the heroine in Healing Grace, a paranormal inspirational romance. Before I tell you about Grace, let's talk a little about Gail, and her great teen mystery, Stopped Cold.

About Gail:

Award-winning author Gail Pallotta is a wife, Mom, swimmer and bargain shopper who loves God, Stopped Cold, was a best-seller on All Romance eBooks, finished fourth in the Preditors and Editors readers’ poll, and was a finalist for the 2013 Grace Awards.

She loves beach sunsets and getting together with friends and family. She’s been a Sunday school teacher, a swim-team coordinator and an after-school literary instructor. A former regional writer of the year for American Christian Writers Association, she won Clash of the Titles in 2010. Her teen book,

She’s published short stories in Splickety magazine and Sweet Freedom with a Slice of Peach Cobbler. Some of her published articles appear in anthologies while two are in museums. She's also my friend and personal cheerleader, accountability and critique partner who's signed a new contract you'll just have to watch for.

Readers can find her on the Internet on the staff of Clash of the Titles, at her blog, on her Website,   on Authors and More on facebook at and twitter, Gail Pallotta @Hopefulwords

 
About the Book, Stopped Cold:

Teen Margaret McWhorter, a freshman in high school in Mistville, North Carolina, enjoys flirting with her first romantic interest, swimming and hanging out with friends. Then her brother, Sean, suffers a stroke from taking a steroid. Now, he's lying unconscious in a hospital. Margaret's angry at her dad for pushing Sean to be a football star, but a fire of hate burns inside her to find the criminals. While she, her heartthrob and best friend look for them, she calls on her Christian faith, asking God to cure Sean, heal the hate and open her heart to love.

Buy on Amazon. 

****

Thanks, Gail, for asking about my contemporary heroine Grace Runyon, a wounded soul who’s trying to run from her troubles and start life over, only to find that God has followed her, and that she’s not going to allowed to hide or to forget about her very special gifts.

Meet Grace, a mysterious woman who shows up and buys a house in a little tucked-away community in Michigan. 

1. What is the name of your character? Grace Runyon

2. When and where is the story set? Healing Grace is a contemporary fiction, billed paranormal romance by the publisher, MuseItUp. The story is set mainly in the fictional community of East Bay, Michigan, fruit growing country.

3. What should we know about her? Grace has lost her entire immediate family—oh, not all at once, but in lumps and bumps, and a slow oozing over the past few years. This loss from a woman who is known to be able to fix anyone, left her heartbroken and lost, full of self-doubt and self-recrimination.

4. What is the main conflict? What messes up her life? Grace can’t seem to get far enough away from herself. She’d been gifted with an incredible talent in medicine that’s more than an uncanny ability, it’s empathy in its most virtual form. No one can explain it, and Grace certainly has never questioned it, until her husband got sick, and nothing made him better. Whose fault was it? Hers? God’s? Determined to get away from anything medical, Grace runs...right into another situation that may demand more of her than she can give. It takes a sick man and his little boy to make her face and confront her demons, even if it costs her life.

5. What is the personal goal of this character?  Grace must accept who and Whose she is, whether in this life or the next. Ted, and his little boy Eddy, would much prefer to love her in this life. But is that possible? Either Ted or Grace must put his or her life on the line to save the other. Grace is confronted with what seems to be an impossible situation, where giving up or giving in are her only options. Facing the pain of herself may cost more than she thinks she can give.

6. Can we read more about Healing Grace? Sure, there’s an excerpt you can check out on my website, here, at this link.

7. When will it be available? Healing Grace, the second edition with the lovely golden leaves on the cover, is currently available in electronic format, and coming in print this fall from MuseItUp, Canada. Look for the ebook here at Amazon, the publisher, Barnes and Noble.

Lindsey Paley's new book, The Wish List Addiction

Now, how can you not stop and ask about this intriguing title?

Lisa: Lindsey, tell us about the book.

Lindsey: Lots of us make lists - some of us, like Rebecca, draw up lots of different lists. There's the daily 'To Do' list, the carefully researched 'Wish List' and the 'Bucket List'. They are a safety net for our overloaded memories. In 'The Wish List Addiction' I wanted to explore what would happen if those lists were taken away and Rebecca was forced to live life 'as it comes'. 

When we meet Rebecca, it's when her life is at an all time low. Everything has gone wrong and she is clutching the edge of sanity by her fingernails. Her obsession with list-making has not led to a happier life at all, in fact they were a catalyst for most of her difficulties. So, at the beginning of the story, her friends challenge her to 'ditch the lists' and instead pursue her life in a more random, 'dip in/dip out' choice of activities, without the safety net of her lists. 

So, no lists - the story is about how those golden coins of happiness can be found in the randomness of life, away from the rigid, tightly controlled organisation of her former existence. 

Lisa: What do you hope readers will tell other readers?

I hope readers will identify with Rebecca's struggles and cheer for her success from the sidelines. I also hope that the novel encourages readers to consider their own 'wish lists' and maybe take a peek at 'The Little Green Book of Wishes' themselves.

We are consistently advised that happiness lies not in the amassing of monetary gain but in the connections we make and sustain with others. 'The Little Green Book' does not advocate that you draw up a finite list of things to do before you reach a certain age or event and then you can die happy in the knowledge that your dreams have been achieved. Far from it - it's too stressful by half! The risk is that in the strenuous pursuit of one goal and the satisfaction of striking it from your list to move headlong on to the next, the Wish List Addict becomes oblivious to the fact that real life rushes by alongside - exactly what happened to Rebecca.

The back cover:

Rebecca Mathews is a Listoholic—you name it, she has a 'To Do' list for it. Coupled with her daily 'Must Achieve' List, she possesses a mid-term, creatively drawn 'Wish List' and an exhaustively-researched 'Bucket List'. But so far, they have delivered nothing but spectacular failure. 

With her much-loved career exploded in her face, her marriage terminated in an acrimonious divorce and her frail father's pleas to return to her native Northumberland ignored, Rebecca concludes that if it wasn't for her beloved four-year-old son, Max, she would be adding a trip to a Swiss clinic to her list.

A sparkle of light appears in Rebecca's life wrapped in the guise of 'The Little Green Book of Wishes', which challenges the reader to 'ditch the list' and instead to use its gems of wisdom as a 'dip in/dip out' lucky bag of challenges from all areas of life.

Persuaded by her colleagues to relinquish her obsessive reliance on her multiple lists, cast adrift from their reassuring structure, she agrees to complete random tasks selected for her from the 'little emerald book of miracles'.

Will it deliver the desired result and cure Rebecca of her Wish List Addiction? 

Buy The Wish List Addiction

Amazon

B&N

Visit Lindsey on Facebook - where she'd love to hear what's on readers' own wish/bucket lists

Susan Rush's Just Over the Horizon - great story!

Just Over the Horizon

Susan Rush
c. July, 2014

Astrea Press

Inspirational fiction
e-book, 250 pp
$3.99

Buy on Amazon

also on Kobo

From the Publisher: While grieving the death of her eccentric nana, Sarah discovers an unexpected gift. She soon grows dependent on the heirloom, a little box, for comfort and guidance. Feeling restless and needing a change, Sarah accepts a job as a traveling hospice nurse and ends up in the quaint, historical town of Camden, South Carolina. Although she loves caring for her patients, loneliness creeps in and threatens to take root. Eventually she opens herself to new friendships, and two remarkable yet vastly differing men compete for her attention. Nate is a true Southerner with a sarcastic wit and genuine warmth, while Dr. Joseph Thornton is a caring oncologist who is known as the best catch in the state.

Facing heart-wrenching trials, the faith of her childhood is all but shattered. In spite of this, Sarah seeks comfort from her box and is determined to cling to Nana’s godly legacy. But when a mysterious stranger appears with devastating news, can her cherished box continue to provide answers or will Sarah realize her life has been based on nothing but lies?

 

My Review:

Just Over the Horizon is a sweet romance with a couple of great twists. The author follows the genre faithfully with the romantic couple meeting early in the story under quirky circumstances, there’s a rival, and there are conflicts which keep them apart. The great twists happen with advice from Sarah’s past, and biggest conflict is in Nate’s past. I also love that the story was allowed to progress past the natural happily ever ending to the wedding and beyond a year. It felt natural and although there wasn’t a problem that forced the couple to reexamine their relationship and themselves, there was a serious issue that Sarah shouldn’t have faced alone. This issue certainly could have been handled before the wedding to create that evaluating issue and may have made the structure of the story more typical genre romance, but that’s a problem in itself—typical genre romance. Sometimes it's nice to break out.

 

Sarah is a hospice nurse, a career I admire from a great distance. The author writes based on her own chosen career, and the details makes the character realistic. If you have trouble with end of life issues, this story may be difficult for you. It certainly isn’t easy for Sarah, and her grandmother, the woman who raised her, helps Sarah with sage advice left in an old recipe box before. At times it started to feel as though Sarah was relying on this advice to guide her, though it never fell into the realm of spiritism. Even Nate came to appreciate the wisdom of Sarah’s grandmother, and they were both blessed and comforted. The advice was sprinkled with life lessons that Grandmother shared while raising Sarah.

 

If I’d read this book at any other time in my life, I would have thought, oh, it’s just a sweet story. Like it, move on. But I recently became a grandmother and my greatest desire is to leave a lasting impression on my grandchildren that is positive and loving, joyful, and godly wise. The life lessons and teachable moments are ones that I hope to build upon, so I’ll definitely be reading this book again and looking for more stories from this author.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Get on Board and Stay on Board by Pearl Nsiah-Kumi

My friend Pearl Nsiah-Kumi, who is a multi-published Christian Author, has put together an inspiring book for us, Get On Board and Stay On Board. 

It is a collection of poems, short articles and short Bible studies based on scripture, to encourage non-Christians to place their faith in Jesus, and also to support Christians to have a closer relationship with God and be ready for eternal life in Heaven!

Click Here to Get Your Copy: http://www.pearlkumi.net

Christian Writers Conference

Country  Memories Farm Christian Writing Conference

August 8-9 in Manitowoc, Wisconsin

We have wonderful speakers again this year:

 Becky Melby

 Ben Wolf  

Kathryn Springer

Friday evening critiques by Susan Baganz  

On-the-farm networking social "getting writers together" 

Please check us out at www.countrymemoriesfarm.com.