"Sincerely, Mayla”   by Virginia Smith

Review #51

“Sincerely, Mayla” is a great follow up to “Just As I Am”.  
(See Review #41)

Mayla is back and she has been ‘laid off’ her job! Question time… Why didn’t she go to college right from high school? How is she going to find another job before her severance pay runs out? A friend refers her to a possible position and after an interview in wet, snow soaked clothes (from trying to rescue a pet rabbit off the road), Mayla decides to head to Florida to visit the aunt and grandmother that she has not seen in 13 years (due to her mother's decision to end life support for her father).

In this book you will find a dysfunctional family, a pastor who is the object of Mayla’s affections, a stubborn rabbit, a teenager in trouble, a gay friend with a different point of view on Christianity, and then there's Mayla…right in the middle of everything!

Who else but God can help Mayla deal with life and the various circumstances we often find ourselves in? She's a headstrong Christian with a good heart, bent on straightening out a few things in her life. She's not one to "let things go".

I have always believed the idea illustrated here…our lives touch and influence many other lives as we go on our merry way and, sometimes, we never know just how that will turn out!

Ginny Smith has become another of my favorite authors. I cannot wait to see Mayla in book three…coming out in May!

“A Dream of Wolves”   by Michael C. White

Review #50

Part-time medical examiner and full-time ob-gyn doctor, Stuart Jordan is called early one morning to a murder scene at a cabin nestled in the frigid hills of North Carolina. Doc Jordan is surprised at the composure of the confessed murderer, the deceased's common-law wife, Rosa Littlefoot and...her absorption with her four-month-old baby daughter, Maria. Rosa decides the only person she can trust with her daughter is Dr. Jordan. This results in him making a rash pre-arrest vow. Doc promises Rosa he'll care for her child until the end of the trial and not let the dead man’s family get their hands on her.

Despite his age (50), his full-time practice, his current affair with a married woman, and his estranged wife, Annabel (who has drifted in and out of his life for the past 14 years), Doc feels honor-bound to keep his promise and to deal with all that brings into his life. Maria's entrance into Doc's world also, sends him on a new path, unearthing remembrances of his son and Annabel, who has been unstable since their son's death.

Doc has his hands full juggling work, a wife, a mistress, foster-parenthood plus sleuthing on the side!

This book was recommended to me by my cousin, Mary and...it is a good one!

“Quaker Summer”  by Lisa Samson

Review #49

Heather Curridge feels as though she is not fulfilling God’s purpose for her life. She is a woman who, seemingly, has everything, a mansion on a lake, a loving son, a handsome heart-surgeon husband, yet still feels miserable inside. She doesn’t know what’s wrong with her, but something is wrong and she needs to find out what. When she crashes her truck into a ditch and staggers to a nearby house for help, she meets two elderly sisters, one a Quaker, the other a religions explorer. With her husband’s approval, she decides to stay with the sisters for a while. She stays 3 weeks. With their help along with a number of her friends and a crusty old nun running a downtown homeless shelter, she begins to find her answers. Her journey lasts all summer and into the fall and winter and takes her places she wouldn’t have gone before.

I have included this…From the Publishers Weekly Review because it says it better than I can:

“One of the most powerful voices in Christian fiction, Samson delivers what seems, on the surface, to be just another Christian women's novel, but in reality is a staggering examination of the Christian conscience. Samson's unflinching exploration of childhood bullying, as well as inner-city poverty and drug culture, are rivaled only by her portrayal of the soul-desiccating acquisitiveness in which many Christians engage, often in a misguided attempt to numb both their heartache and their awareness of God's potentially life-upending plans. Unlike many Christian novelists, Samson does not tidily resolve every single problem her heroine faces, but instead paints an emotionally and spiritually luminous portrait of a soul beckoned by God.”

My daughter, Marcy, recommended this book to me. I enjoyed it very much!

“FINGER LICKIN FIFTEEN”                                                 By Janet Evanovich

Review #48

Main Characters:
Stephanie Plum…Bail Bond Enforcer, (bounty hunter).
Lula… friend and file clerk in the Bond office
Morelli…Stephanie’s on again-off again boyfriend
Ranger…owns private Security Company, Bail Bond Enforcer and Stephanie’s temptation.


When Stephanie’s ditzy friend and co-worker, Lula, inadvertently witnesses the beheading of culinary TV star Stanley Chipotle on a Trenton, N.J. street, Stephanie's on-again off-again (presently off) boyfriend, cop Joe Morelli, reluctantly takes the case.

Lula get the bright idea to enter the same barbequing competition Chipotle was in town to promote, hoping to lure the murderers out of hiding. With the help of Stephanie’s Grandma Mazur, Lula creates havoc in the Plum households while trying to come up with a barbeque recipe and dodge the killers’ meat cleaver, bullets, fire bombs and car bombs.

Meanwhile, Ranger has recruited Stephanie to help solve a series of break-ins at properties under the protection of Rangeman Security. The inevitable sparks fly between Stephanie and Ranger, with Morelli grumbling on the sidelines.

The book dishes up the usual mixture of shoot-'em-up action (numerous cars explode) and quirky characters (notably a neighborhood flasher with a devoted following and a fire starting guy), but if it were not for the belly laugh situations and dialog, this book would be just like all the others. If you have never read Evanovich before, you will love this book. If you are a fan, you may be a little disappointed with the same old, same old.

“DARK OF THE MOON”    By John Sandford

Review #47

Headed to rural Bluestem to assist local law enforcement with the seemingly motiveless murder of an elderly couple, Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension investigator Virgil Flowers happens upon a raging house fire on the edge of town. The house's owner, Bill Judd, killed in the blaze, was an elderly recluse who, back in the day, ran an elaborate pyramid scheme and simultaneously bedded half the women in town. He escaped conviction on the fraud charge, and the money was never recovered. There have been no murders in Bluestem for a half-century, and now there are five in a couple of weeks. Virgil is not an advocate of coincidence and so, begins digging for a connection between the victims. Complicating matters is his affair with the sister of the local police chief.

Flowers made his debut as a secondary character in Sandford’s Lucas Davenport “Prey” series, (Invisible Prey, Chosen Prey, Wicked Prey, etc.) He is a thrice-divorced, low-key loose cannon whose wardrobe consists of alternative-rock t-shirts carefully chosen to match his agenda of the day and…he reports to Lucas Davenport.

There are scary moments and funny moments. There is a lot of action.

Lucas Davenport has always been one of my favorite characters and Virgil Flowers is
rapidly, becoming another one.

“SAIL”   by James Patterson and Howard Roughan

Review #46

Heart specialist Katherine Dunne knows her career has been hard on her three kids, a situation compounded by the death of Stuart, their father, four years ago. Now happily remarried to hotshot lawyer, Peter Carlyle, Katherine is determined bring her family together again and what better way to do it than with a family sailing adventure.

Carrie, the eldest is a freshman at Yale who suffers from depression and eating disorders. Sixteen-year-old Mark is two years younger than Carrie and has little ambition other then getting high while Ernie, with his smarts and innate wisdom, seems much older than his ten years. Acting as Captain aboard ‘The Family Dunne’ sailboat is the capable Jake Dunne, Stuart’s brother and Katherine’s lover during one particularly lonely summer.

Due to an upcoming trial, Peter is unable to accompany his new family but, encourages Katherine to go through with their plans. Thus, the stage is set for an epic adventure where everything goes drastically wrong and culminates in the family coming together even as they are written off for dead.

When a strange twist of fate reveals the Dunne family is still very much alive, things get ugly in a hurry and it will take help from an unexpected place before justice is finally carried out.

I found this to be an exciting, can’t-put-it-down, book.

I heard a rumor that the idea for this book was James Patterson’s but,
that Howard Roughan wrote it. If this is true, then I can’t wait to read Roughan’s other books. I found 2 at the Library by him ("The Up and Comer" and "The Promise of a Lie") and 2 others with Patterson’s name on them also. ("Honeymoon" and "You Have Been Warned").

"The Wednesday Letters”                            by Jason F. Wright

Review #45

Jack and Laurel Cooper are two hardworking, loving Christian pillars of the community who die (of natural causes) in each other's arms one night in the bed-and-breakfast that they own and operate. The event calls their three grown children home for the funeral, including their youngest son, a fugitive from the law who must face an outstanding warrant for his arrest and confront his one true love, now engaged to another man.

While making arrangements for the funeral, the children discover boxes of "Wednesday letters", notes that Jack wrote to his wife every single week of their 39 years of married life. It’s a history of those 39 years…some not known to their children. As they read, the children brush across the fabric of a devoted marriage that survived a devastating event kept secret all these years.

It's a lovely story: heartening, wholesome, humorous, suspenseful and redemptive. It resonates with the true meaning of family and the life-healing power of forgiveness all wrapped up in a satisfying ending.

I liked this book very much.