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Margaret Daley's Saving Hope

8/4/2012

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Saving Hope by Margaret Daley,
Book 1: The  Men of the Texas Rangers
Abingdon Press, 2012

Because I wanted to support literacy as well  as
Margaret Daley, I bought her Saving Hope, at the Romance Writer's of America (RWA) Literacy Booksigning this past July in Anaheim. Margaret Daley is on my auto-buy list and I've enjoyed her books whether they are contemporary, suspense, or historical.

From looking at the cover, I assumed Saving  Hope was another of her forays into the historical realm. 

Was I wrong. 

Saving Hope is a contemporary suspense and about as gritty as you can get in inspirational publishing.

Was I disappointed? Not in the slightest. Margaret Daley has made the successful transition from category to trade books, bringing a new depth of characters and plot to her story. 

Sticking to her roots, Daley weaves the romance of the two main characters around, between, and into the hidden world of child prostitution and shows us enough to spike our anger without glorifying the acts of despicable  adults who prey on forgotten children. This book is not only about bringing  awareness of this hideous crime to our eyes.... it's also about the
need  to support - financial and otherwise - the people who work to help the victims  get out of that life and give them whatever they need to begin again. 

The hero is Texas Ranger Wyatt Sheridan, a member of the Child Rescue Task Force, and a widower with a daughter the same age as the victims he seeks to rescue. This makes his job close to his heart because any one of the girls he  finds - dead or alive - could be his daughter. It's the reason he keeps a close,  almost over-protective, watch on her. But has he constricted her movements to  the point of rebellion?

Kate Winslow is the founder and director of the  Beacon of Hope School, a place where rescued child prostitutes can recover from  their trauma in a loving environment. Kate's staff gets the girls' education  back on track while raising their self-respect and hope for a future. Although  most of the girls welcome their rescue, some can't handle it and go back. So  when a girl who's on the road to success goes missing, Kate suspects foul play.  But will anyone believe her?

The romance between Wyatt and Kate is the  perfect pace for realism, and I held my breath with each touch and through  each tender moment.

A master at characters as well as suspense, Daley  pits her characters' weaknesses against numerous suspects. Early on, she allows  us to see one villian, but keeps us guessing about his
secret partner.  And  although I'd guessed the 2nd villain correctly halfway through the book, I  wavered, not really believing my guess until proven in the end.

I admit  to liking Daley's Love Inspired Suspense books, but this longer novel of Saving Hope, rich in personality, with the right touch of excitement  and dismay, makes me tingle with anticipation of the next book in The  Men of the Texas Rangers series, Shattered
Silence
.

Saving Hope was one of books under discussion for July at The  Book Club Network's ACFW on-line book club.

Did you participate  in the discussion? If the discussion is available to read, would you access it  after the fact? Do you ever discuss the questions authors provide at the back of  their books?


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You can find more information about
Margaret Daley and her books at
www.margaretdaley.com
 
Margaret is  also a  lively participant on
Twitter and Facebook.

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From This Day Forward by Margaret Daley

11/24/2011

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From This Day Forward
by Margaret Daley
Summerside Press, Sep 2011 

Margaret Daley has successfully filled her debut historical with the emotion, suspense, and action her fans have come to love and expect. The 1816 inspirational romance begins with a dramatic situation and doesn’t let up as the tension builds toward a climatic end.

As a Canadian, I was particularly interested in the way Daley handled the War of 1812 and whether it would stir patriotism to such an extent as to colour the effect of the story itself.
 
I needn’t have worried. Daley is a professional - an expert at the writing craft. Her English heroine, Rachel Gordon and hero, Nathan Stuart each carried a full arsenal of internal conflict and used them with equal effectiveness. The result is a book which can be read in the romantic and inspirational spirit it was written without the reader worrying about choosing sides.

After choosing  love over family, Englishwoman Rachel Gordon was banished from the ancestral home. In a new land with nothing save for a maid, her baby and what she carries in a cart, newly widowed Rachel faces her own shortcomings. Raised in the nobility without a thought to where her food came from, Rachel must now provide nourishment for three. She has her husband’s gun for protection, but not the skills to fire it. And the hazards of the new land include creatures she never imagined she’d encounter, never mind have to defend herself against. Oh, for the safety of an English manor.

Doctor Nathan Stuart is still suffering the effects of the war, both from the men he was unable to save as well as those whose lives he was forced to take before they took his. Yet he can’t help feeling remorse for breaking the Hippocratic oath. What good is a man if he can’t stand on his word?  Flowing on Nathan’s internal conflict is the demoralizing relationship with his grandfather – a man whose hatred of anything English overrides everything.
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With a cast like this, readers who love Daley’s novels for what she puts in them will take away a satisfaction of knowing another time hurdle has been breached.
Look out history – Margaret Daley has you in her sights.

If you'd like to know more about Margaret Daley and her books, check out her site at  http://www.margaretdaley.com/


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Masquerade Marriage by Anne Greene

11/7/2011

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Masquerade Marriage by Anne Greene, White Rose Publishing

It’s 1746 in the Scottish Highlands and Brody MacCaulay wakes to a massacre. Blinded in one eye, buried beneath his dead clansmen, he hears the clipped English voices as they walk amidst the wounded Highlanders and finish them off with bayonets. Against his urge to strike out in fury, he silently waits for them to pass. Then leaving his fallen brothers and father behind on the battlefield, he gathers other injured clansmen and makes his way to a hidden cave. If they leave, they’ll be hunted by the English. Their fight, their world, is over.

In a distant castle, Megan MacMurry mourns the loss of her fiancé who led and perished in the Highland battle. Upon her pastor’s advice, she decides to honor her fiance’s death by saving one of his men the only way possible – through marriage. Megan is sure the chosen man will be willing to trade his doomed life for a new name, new clothes, and new life as her marriage-in-name-only husband. When the list is presented to her, she chooses the only familiar name – that of a boy who teased her mercilessly until she took a club to him and his friends. No doubt, Brody MacCaulay wouldn’t remember her girlish warrior stance. And if his teasing was what she had to put up with, she’d do it for her fiance’s sake.

Of course, once Megan is introduced to the adult Brody – a man with a mind of his own who fears nothing for himself - she begins to doubt her choice. Brody has turned into a fine specimen who turns the lasses’ heads. Surely she’s not jealous!

For his part, Brody only agrees to the marriage because his sister and mother are now under his care and they’ll be safer under his protection in a castle. And no matter what Megan says, he’ll never admit to making a secret vow of love when he was but 15 yrs old and a 12 yr old female warrior with flaming red hair stood defiantly before him with a club and warned him to stop the taunting.

Totally satisfying, the end was not been what I expected. On reflection, I realized it was what I’d hoped would happen in a fleeting moment of despair. For I cried when the end was near and things had not gone as planned. I felt Brody and Megan’s loss when they realized precious time had slipped away and there was nothing they could do. And then, when I read the last paragraph of Masquerade Marriage, I smiled.

The story is one of faith in the face of adversity. Faith in God. Faith in yourself. And faith in those people God surrounds you with.

My only concern with this book was the thick Scottish brogue in the beginning chapters since the book starts in Brody’s point of view. But the farther I read, the more I began to appreciate the soft burr of his words. I knew when he was talking and began to follow his speech patterns in my mind. And after a while I didn’t want to separate the brogue from the man, because … well… that was part of Brody.

Anne Greene, I commend you on your character choice of worthy adversaries. And more.

Masquerade Marriage is available in both ebook and print.

Anne Greene can be found at http://www.annegreeneauthor.com/

This Book Review was originally posted on my Draper's Acres blog 
before I created this website and divided the one blog
 into a series of blogs based on content.
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The Brides of Simpson Creek series by Laurie Kingery

9/18/2011

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The Brides of Simpson Creek series
by Laurie Kingery
Love Inspired Historicals

I want to bring your attention to The Brides of Simpson Creek series created by Laurie Kingery and published by Love Inspired Historical. Laurie has taken the mail order bride plot and flipped it upside down to create a series based on mail order grooms.

This series fascinated me from the moment I heard about it. I mean, we’re all familiar with the destitute or despairing mail order brides who choose to start a new life with a stranger in order to escape their old one. Let’s face it, in the 19th century, there wasn’t much for a woman to choose from if she didn’t have money to do what she wanted.

But why on earth would a man choose to be a mail order groom?

Laurie’s reasoning in the Brides of Simpson Creek is sound and believable. It’s 1865 Texas and the war is over. So many men and boys were lost in the fighting with some towns hit hard than the rest. So it is the case in Simpson Creek. Men are in short supply and almost a dozen young women of marrying age want a family of their own. Without the men, the town won’t survive. When one enterprising young lady suggests they place an ad for husbands, the idea doesn’t set well with everyone, but the ones looking to get married are all for it. And so The Simpson Creek Society for the Promotion of Marriage aka The Spinster’s Club is born. An ad is submitted to the Houston Telegraph with explicit instructions for marriage-minded bachelors to write back and wait for an invitation before appearing in town. With business taken care of, the ladies start checking the post office. It would be nice if men did what they were told, right?

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Book 1 – Mail Order Cowboy

Milly Matthews and her sister, Sarah, are trying to protect their ranch from Indians, rustlers and unruly neighbors. Milly is also the one who thought up the Spinster’s Club. She wants a man she can love and trust to help her run the ranch. And she’s adamant that men who reply to the ad should follow the rules and not just show up in town without an invite.

British Cavalry officer, Nicholas Brookfield isn’t really interested in finding a wife and settling down in Simpson Creek. He’s on his way to a job at the British Embassy, but after reading the ad where ladies were looking for husbands, he just has to come take a look – without writing of his intentions. He just shows up in the middle of a Spinster Club meeting and once he sees Milly, he's a goner. 

Brave, spunky heroine vs dashing, protective hero. I thoroughly enjoyed this book.

Foreshadow: Throughout this book, Milly’s sister, Sarah had one crippling fear – that one of the marriage-minded bachelors would be a Yankee and try to hide it. By the time I finished Mail Order Cowboy and was ready for Book 2, I was yearning for the heroine to be Sarah and the man who comes calling to be a Yankee. Laurie did not disappoint me.

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Book 2: The Doctor Takes a Wife

Sarah Matthews takes over the running of the Spinster Club when Milly marries. Sarah is still mourning her fiancé who never returned from the war – most likely shot by a Yankee. She loathes Yankees. When a badly-needed doctor answers the ad, Sarah takes on the task of corresponding with him. During their correspondence, Sarah’s interest is sparked. Her attraction intensifies the first time she sets eyes on Nolan – until he opens his mouth and his words have a flat, nasal accent! Betrayed by the lying Yankee, she passes him off to the Spinster's Club.

Dr. Nolan Walker is a widower who wore the blue during the war, but treated men of all colors. He wants to settle down where no one else cares either. Nolan doesn’t want to choose another member of the Club, he wants the woman he fell for through the letters, and he’ll wait until she’s ready to accept him. But will Nolan’s dream come true when Sarah’s prayers are answered and she has to choose?

Brave, misguided heroine vs honorable, lonely hero. This book sent me on a rollercoaster of emotions, but what I liked best was the snappy interplay between Sarah and Nolan.

Foreshadow: Sarah’s housemate is Prissy Gilmore, the new chairwoman of the Spinster’s Club. Sarah is hoping Prissy will meet someone this time. But in the background of this book is Caroline who lost her fiancé in Book 1 and feels her life is over. I really want to read Caroline’s story.

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Book 3 The Sheriff’s Sweetheart

Prissy Gilmore, the mayor’s daughter, is easily attracted to handsome men so when she sets her cap for the new sheriff the minute she lays eyes on him, she has a hard time proving he’s really the one for her. But no man could be better for her than the honorable sheriff who only wants to take care of her and protect her town.

Sam Bishop and his dog are on the run and need a place to lay low. When Sam spots an ad for marriage-minded bachelors, he heads to Simpson Creek intent on finding a job and attracting a rich wife to cover his gambling problems. It’s his lucky day when he rides into town and within minutes of each other, gets a job as sheriff and meets the mayor’s attractive daughter. After awhile, Sam wishes he hadn’t lied about his credentials and wants to come clean with Prissy. But can he come clean with her and keep her love before his past catches up to him?

Devoted, impetuous heroine vs dishonest, loyal hero. At first, this hero made me mad. I understood why he did things, but that didn’t explain his continued dishonesty. Yet, Laurie took this ‘bad boy’ and turned him into a worthy hero.

Foreshadow: Caroline applies for the town's schoolmarm job. If she can’t have a family of her own, she’ll teach other people’s children. Oh Laurie – why haven’t you written a story for Caroline?

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Book 4 The Rancher's Courtship

Guess what? I was over at Laurie’s website the other day and she has the 4th book in the Brides of Simpson Creek coming out in November and yes, the book is finally Caroline’s story. The Rancher’s Courtship has Caroline working as the town schoolteacher when her deceased fiancé’s brother, Jack, shows up with twin six-year-old girls and a herd of cattle. Jack is unaware of his brother’s demise and had planned to leave his daughters with the newlyweds while he finished his cattle drive. Oh, this sounds like another good one from Laurie Kingery although I’m not sure it classifies as a mail order groom story. Of course I’ll have to read it to be certain, though.


I sure hope Laurie will be at the ACFW conference in St Louis this coming week because I’d personally like to tell her how much I’m enjoying this series, as well as find out more about Book 5 scheduled for Jul 2012 according to her website.

Good twist on an old theme, Laurie. I'm enjoying this series immensely.

You can find out more about this Texas-born author at http://www.lauriekingery.com/index.html


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To Win Her Heart by Karen Witemeyer

6/19/2011

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To Win Her Heart by Karen Witemeyer, Bethany House, May 2011

Karen Witemeyer’s suburb story skills shine in this second-chances tale that caught my attention at the first paragraph and kept me enthralled until the very end. Little details on every page gripped my heart and drew me into the lives of a man seeking a new life and a woman trying to shed her old one. I agonized between writing my own story and reading To Win Her Heart which I kept close so I could snatch a peek at every chance.

I believe Karen Witemeyer reached new heights with her choice of strong, yet vulnerable characters - social opposites who believe past errors have ruined their chance for a family of their own.

Eden Spencer is only in her late twenties, but in 1887 she’s considered a spinster. She lives with a small staff - people who’ve known her forever, and opens her personal library to the town. Church, good works for orphans and reading at her weekly children’s story hour fills her with joy, but it’s not enough to satisfy the emptiness for babies of her own. She needs a husband for that, except her mistrust in men is almost as strong as her need to keep her reputation spotless.

Levi Grant is a huge blacksmith who’s been in prison for accidently killing a man in a boxing match. Newly released, he heads to Spencer, Texas where the local preacher is the only one who knows his past, but is keeping it a secret because the town is desperate for a smithy. All Levi wants is to wrap himself in his new-found faith and do his ironwork without bringing attention to himself.

Two people from different social circles, neither needing a hint of scandal, yet they share a love of books. Never mind that Levi looks out-of-place in Eden’s library. It’s what’s inside him that counts. And here's where it gets interesting because Karen Witemeyer has given Levi a character trait he’s ashamed to show in public. As a child faced with ridicule, Levi fought back the only way he knew how - with his fists. And now that he’s out of prison, he’s sworn off fighting and has found a way to overcome his ‘defect’. Or has he? Perhaps it’s just hidden and waiting for an inopportune moment to make itself known. How I empathized with Levi because every day was a struggle of suppression, especially when he met Eden and his guarded emotions slipped away and revealed the real Levi Grant.

By that time I’d accepted him as a strong, yet vulnerable hero. I knew him. I knew his regrets. I knew he was an honorable man intent only on following God’s path. I knew his heart. And I was ready to do battle for him if he wasn’t going to defend himself.

Eden thinks she’s falling in love with a peaceful, reputable man. A pacifist who won’t allow herself to be linked with anyone with a hint of dishonesty or violence to their name, she’d rather live alone than let another man make a fool of her. If she isn’t careful, she’ll be the fool for not seeing Levi as God’s gift to her.

I hope you can tell home much I loved this book. The morning after I finished reading it, I awoke with Levi and Eden on my mind – and they stayed with me throughout the day and week. Truly a wonderful, heart-touching story with tears and laughter and finally, relief that yes, there is a happy ending after all. But oh, what a beautiful romantic tale of God’s hand on their lives.

If you'd like to know more about Karen Witemeyer and her books, go to her website at http://www.karenwitemeyer.com/ and take a look around. You might even want to try your hand at her Fan Fiction contest where you get to let her know how you think a book should end.


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    What is a book?

    A book is an adventure I'd love to take but know I never will. It can make me feel everything is right in the world. And it can make me want to throw it across the room regardless of what it knocks over. A book can make me laugh and cry. It makes me realize no matter what I'm going through, someone somewhere is in a much worse predicament
    than me. 
    My all-time favourite book
     is the Book of Ruth 
    in the Bible.
    Anita Mae Draper

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