Stealing the Preacher by Karen Witemeyer

Jo wanted a preacher for her birthday but she never for her father who is an ex-outlaw to steal one off the train. She didn't intend to start developing feelings for the preacher but she did. Her community was without a preacher. She wanted so much for her father to come to the Lord and felt a preacher would help soften her father's heart. Crockette Archer had his heart set on pastoring a church in another town but the Lord had other plans for Crockett.

We got acquainted with the Archers in Karen Witemyer's previous book "Short Straw Bride" so it was nice to revisit with them again in this book. I loved all the characters. I wouldn't mind reading another sequel to find out what happens to the last Archer brother. Reading a Karen Witemeyer book is always a treat.

I received this book compliments of the LibraryThing Early Reviewer program and Bethany House.

Adoring Addie by Leslie Gould

I liked the first book in the series a lot better. I got confused with all the siblings, aunts, uncles and cousins involved in this storyline. Also the love at first sight was hard to swallow. Addie and Jonathon fall in love four hours after meeting each other for the first time.  Who falls madly in love with someone four hours after meeting someone? There was a young man that her parents tried to push her to court. This man was annoying and pesky. Her parents were a little harsh too.

We got caught up on the characters from the first book. It also annoyed me that everything is going smoothly for the spoiled rotten sister from the first book. She gave birth to a child and by the end was preggers again by the end of the book while Cate is having fertility problems. Doesn't seem fair. I hope if there is a sequel that Cate will have the babies she deserves. She is a born mother and deserved babies more than her selfish sister.

The Chance by Karen Kingsbury

Ellie and Ryan were childhood friends and then at 15 Ryan tells her that one day she will become his wife. Ellie's world is torn apart when it is revealed that her mother had an affair with a country music singer and as a result conceived the man's child. He father takes her away from her mother refusing to let her mother have anything to do with her. At the beginning I didn't like either of the parents. I thought the father was hateful and I thought the mother was selfish for thinking of herself by having an affair in the first place. She had the affair because she felt neglected. Anyway the father whisks Ellie off to another state. Ellie makes some bad decisions with boys and as a result had a child out of wedlock. She abandons the faith of her childhood. In the meantime Ryan becomes an athlete and his faith just gets stronger and stronger. He never forgets Ellie and hopes to one day be reunited with her. This book is a stand alone novel but some characters from The Bridge make an appearance in this novel. I have enjoyed these new stand alone novels by Karen Kingsbury a lot more than I did the Baxter novels that dragged on for 20 books.

A Plain Disappearance by Amanda Flower

It is the Christmas season when the book starts out. Timothy and Chloe are at an abandoned farm when they discover the body of a young Amish girl. Timothy recognizes the girl as the girl's sister is best friends with his sister. There are several suspects in her murder. Is it Billy the mechanic, the girl's strict father or one of her boyfriends. She dated two different boys and there was an English boy who had a crush on her. Was it one of them? I was kept in suspense throughout the whole book trying to guess who it was and boy was I surprised. I didn't see that one coming.

Also in this novel we see Becky Troyer, Tim's sister and Chloe's roommate still struggling with what she wants to do. Will she return to being Amish or will she pursue being English like her brother. What complicates things is that she has feeling for Aaron who is Amish and happy being Amish. Aaron has strong feelings for her too.

I enjoyed this series so far and would love to read more in this series should the author decide to write more.

This e-book was provided for me for review compliments of B&H books and Netgalley. I am not required to provide a positive review. This is my honest review. The release date for this book is September 1, 2013.
his cozy Christian mystery is the third in the Appleseed Creek mysteries and is my favorite of the series. In this book we are revisited with all the old characters from the previous books and get introduced to some new. We finally get to meet Chloe's best friend Vanessa Green. I loved Vanessa's character. I hope that if future books are written in this series we get to see Vanessa again.

Courting Cate (The Courtships of Lancaster Country) by Leslie Gould

The character of Cate is based very loosely on Shakespeare's [The Taming of the Shrew]. Cate has many of the characteristics of Katherine from the Taming of the Shrew. Like Katherine she is stubborn, independent and very headstrong. She would rather work for her father in the office of his woodworking business than do the typical women's duties like cooking and sewing. Some of the reasons she is like this is because she has had to be a mother to her younger sister. Her mother died in childbirth so Cate had to grow up fast even though she was still a child herself. Another reason is that she has experienced ridicule by men in the community and was hurt by one potential suitor. As a result she does not trust men at all that is until she meets Pete Tregor and some of her rough exterior starts to get smoothed out. She and Pete share a love of books.

I like this book. There is humor in the book. Can't go into too much detail here without giving away the plot. A couple of characters I did not really like. One of Pete's mother but by the end of the book I understood her and liked her a little better. The other character I did not care for was Betsy, Cate's little sister. She was a spoiled little brat who thought the world revolved around her. She did not change much by the end of the book. At the end of the book she was still a self-centered little brat. This book is the first in a series called The courtships of Lancaster County. I can't wait to read the rest of the series.

Thanks to LibraryThings's Early Review Program and Bethany House for providing me a copy of this book to review.

Real Life, Real Miracles: True Stories That Will Help You Believe by James L. Garlow, Keith Wall

Real Life Real Miracles will lift your spirits!  Depressed? Down in the Dumps? Want to be uplifted? Think that God does not intervene in our lives today? Read this book and all negative thinking will be eliminated from your mind. You will be inspired, uplifted and encouraged when you read countless stories of how God intervened and changed people's lives.

Unbreakable by Nancy Mehl

Hope is torn between two men who both love her. She has feelings she doesn't understand  for one man and is engaged to the other man. Which man does she finally wind up with? The author kept me guessing until the LAST page. I'm not kidding. You don't know who she decides to spend the rest of her life with until the last page.

There's a mystery going on. Hope was nearly attacked while on the road to a neighboring town in her buggy. All she knows that it was a man in a red pickup truck. One of the local beloved Mennonite men was murdered. Their nice little town is under attack and nobody is going to feel safe until the person is caught. This storyline also kept me guessing. I did not even begin to guess who the bad guy was until the end. I love a novel that keeps me guessing and this book fit the bill.  This book will be released in February 2013 with the third in the series to be released later in 2013.