Ideas for Late Winter Reading

Got those late winter blah’s like me?  One of the ways I perk up is with a good book!  Recently WaterBrookMultnomah provided me with two great fiction titles to review that I think you might enjoy.

The first is Linda Lee Chaikin’s Yesterday’s Promise. This is Book Two in her East of the Sun Series. I got so into the book I actually got them all and read them! I’ve always enjoyed Linda’s wonderful, historical research and her interesting characters.  I was, however, able to jump into the second book without having read the first and understand what was going on.  In Yesterday’s Promise we meet Evy Varley, a young woman in Grimston Way, England who has no idea of the events she’s about to be caught up in. And we meet Rogan Chantry, a rugged, young aristocrat who has gone to South Africa to look for his murdered Uncle Henry’s hidden gold mine.  On the way he encounters his ruthless Uncle Julien who is the head of the De Beer’s diamond mine and a host of other characters who are just as greedy for diamonds and gold.  In the middle of all this are natives who are also just as greedy for the diamonds and savagely determined to keep their homeland, even if it means killing all the British who are trying to invade.  Back home in England, Evy is fighting her own battle, for her life and for Rogan’s heart.  Of course, like any good romance novel, there’s a happy ending, but also suspense that sets the reader up for the next book.  But, I wouldn’t want to spoil it for you!  I think you would enjoy Yesterday’s Promise and all of the East of the Sun books.

The second book I read was Al Lacy’s book,  Faithful Heart. Again, this was the second in a series, the Angel of Mercy series.  Al does an excellent job of setting up the story, so that you don’t feel left out at all.  The book opens with a background chapter that summarizes everything that has happened to the characters in previous stories, so you are completely caught up by the time you start the book.  Kind of like when you turn on the TV and the show starts out, “Previously on LOST . . .”  This book is about cowboy John Stranger and his lady love, Breanna Baylor, who are on a wagon train travelling west.  Breanna is on her way to San Francisco to see her sister, Dottie.  The book is also about Dottie and her husband, Jerrod, who is suffering from shell shock after the Civil War.  His shell shock turns him into a violent man more and more frequently.  Dottie loves the Lord and wants to save her marriage, but it looks as though it’s not going to be possible, as Jerrod’s increasing violence threatens not only Dottie’s life, but the lives of her two young children.  This book was a very quick read, but didn’t hold my attention as much.  I would recommend Al Lacy’s books for those of you who love old Westerns, where the good guys always win, and the bad guys always get caught or shot. 

This book was provided for review by the WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group.

For more information on any of these books see www.waterbrookmulnomah.com