The Choice, Suzanne Woods Fisher

The Choice by Suzanne Woods Fisher is a warm and tender story about a young Amish girl struggling with the Plain way. Tragedy strikes her innocent life transforming her innocence into a knowing beyond her years. Marrying as an excape, we watch her mature and become a woman faced with difficult decisions and much responsibility.

The writer throws in a few curve balls that I didn't see coming. It was refreshing not to be able to predict everything.

The Choice is warm, tender and charming. I highly recommend it to those who love an easy refreshing read and those who love to see a moral within a good fiction.

Available now at your bookseller from Bethany House, a division of Baker Publishing Group.

Watch Over Me, Christa Parrish

Watch Over Me, by Christa Parrish is my first book by Christa Parrish. Her style of writing is easy and captivating.

Abbi and Benjamin have been struggling in their marriage since he returned from his military tour to Afganistan. Back in South Dakota, where he is a deputy, he finds a newborn baby girl in a field while carrying out regular duties. He saves the baby and starts visiting her in the hospital every day. When a foster home is needed for the baby, Abbi and Ben step forward.

Ben has shut Abbi out and there is little remaining in their relationship. Abbi finds less and less reason to stay in their rocky marriage.

The story is riddled with unfolding subplots: Matthew, a deaf and mute math genius needs a new kidney; He lives with his dysfunctional aunt and her four daughters; Abbi is bulimic; Abbi's best friend shut her out when her husband was killed in Afganistan; The on-going investigation of who left the baby to die in a field dominates Ben's thoughts, along with his Afganistan experience; Abbi and Ben's less-than-satisfactory church experience. There were many flesh and blood messy characters.

I appreciated the realism of the book. I liked that it wasn't the story-book ending. Life is not filled with fairy-tale endings, and I was afraid this book would disappoint me with a happily-ever-after conclusion. It did not. But it had a conquering ending. It was a realistic ending and one where the characters were continuing to grow and overcome.

Things Worth Remembering, by Jackina Stark

Things Worth Remembering was my first book by Jackina Stark. It was emotionally laden with regret and pain, but redeemed by forgiveness and a new start.

Kendy is Maisey's mother and Kendy loves Maisey more than life itself. Over the years she's been shut out of Maisey's life more and more. Now Maisey is planning her wedding and it's becoming evident to all that Maisey is hostile toward her mother. Finally the dam burst and with raging anger it's revealed why Maisey hates her mother.

When Maisey was thirteen years old she witnessed her mother's indiscretion and has hated her ever since. Meanwhile, until a couple of days before the wedding, Kendy is oblivious to why Maisey is so distant and that she ever saw anything questionable. In a torrent of tears and hatred, Maisey's rage threatens her wedding.

The emotions in the book were realistic and the predicaments too. I liked that the story unfolded from both Maisey and Kendy's perspective.

I was mildly disappointment with Kendy's indiscretion, that relatively speaking, was minor. It was powerful enough to jeopardize many relationships. However, for the person who is reading this book who has experienced much worse indiscretions, I think the message wasn't too hopeful. The message could be about God's forgiveness of relatively minor indiscretions, but not the big ones.

I enjoyed the book. I felt the emotions, I experienced the temporary hopelessness of "having screwed up too badly." I will definitely read more Jackina Starks writing.

Leaving Yesterday, by Kathryn Cushman

Leaving Yesterday, by Kathryn Cushman is a captivating book about a mother (Alisa) who has lost a son to murder and her second son (Kurt) has embraced a life of hard drugs. Living on the streets and with no contact with his family, Alisa is overjoyed to finally hear from Kurt and learn he has checked himself into rehab. Feeling hope for the first time in years, her hopes are dashed by the revelation that he is a suspect in the murder of a drug dealer.

Alisa discovers hard evidence of Kurt's guilt and the majority of the story is devoted to her struggle to hide or disclose the evidence.

Subplots within the story are her struggling marriage and her work in women's ministry.

Kurt and Alisa are faced with horrific decisions and both have to decide between safety and doing the right thing. Their story is realistic and their poor choices reverberate throughout the book, as does their wisdom. A unique combination, for sure.

This was my first book by Kathryn Cushman and I enjoyed her writing. Her first-person writing style took me a bit to get used to, but I did adjust. However, I think the read would have been smoother in third-person.

Fresh Start, by Doug Fields

Fresh Start is written by Doug Fields, youth minister of Saddleback Church. Although it's written by a youth minister it is not written with youth in mind. It is written to anyone who's craving a new beginning in life. Fields generously sprinkles Fresh Start with humor, and gave me many laugh-out-loud moments as I read about conquering and overcoming the snags in life that we all experience.

With humility, compassion (and a lot of humor which I loved) he encourages the reader to get out of the stuck life and embrace a fresh start in life, in abundant joyful living. He addresses areas we all get bogged down in at various stages in life: pride, regret, hurt, conflicts, fear, rejection, anger, superficial friendships.

He writes, "We are stuck people... the power to change doesn't come from our own strength or resolve or positive thinking... Real lasting change comes from God's unlimited power. Anything else is a temporary fix... God is in the transformation business. He takes real, flawed, messy people and invites us to start fresh and live lives of fullness and forward motion... fresh starts are available more than once... God doesn't demand that we walk a tightrope of perfection. His grace is offered continually and is always within reach."

I enjoyed this book. It's radically laced with messy humanity and loaded with practical help in overcoming the messy predicaments we fall hostage to along life's path.

FEARLESS, by Max Lucado

Max Lucado’s newest book, Fearless, is a short easy read of 180 pages (not including the discussion guide) covering the topics that tend to breed fear in many of us: uncertainty about the future, our children and their safety, violence, finances and more. I was encouraged and especially loved how Lucado always returned to the Bible as the antidote to our fear.

My favorite chapter was “Scared to Death” on death and dying. He says death might be “less a curse and more a passageway; not a crisis to be avoided, but a corner to be turned.” I loved the parallel he made between our prenatal life and this life. What makes no sense in this life will make perfect sense in the next. Just as the womb suited us for this life, so this life is suiting us for the next. Some prenatal features served no purpose and were actually useless in the womb; we had eyes but couldn’t see; noses but couldn’t smell; tongues but couldn’t taste or talk. Those same features serve distinct purposes in this life. Might this life’s challenges prepare and equip us for the next life?, Lucado asks.

Lucado says, “The promise of Christ and the contention of this book are simple: we can fear less tomorrow than we do today.” He continually encourages the reader to pursue God, get better acquainted with the Master. “God chooses to be known to us so we will stop being afraid of the wrong thing.” I was encouraged by the reminder that loving God is the solution to the fear I experience. Relationship with Him is the source of my peace, the antithesis of my fear.

What's He Really Thinking, by Paula Rinehart

What’s He Really Thinking, by Paula Rinehart is an excellent tool to help wives navigate some of the bumps on the marriage highway. Rinehart methodically explores some of the complex components that make a husband who he is and how the wife’s response to those components can powerfully impact who her man is and who he becomes. “God has given you eyes to see. And those eyes can be a man’s most reliable mirror of who he is and who he can be.”

I particularly appreciated that she offered no quick, easy fixes but rather spoke of “lifelong dialogue,” the establishing of patterns of relating.

I enjoyed and benefitted from her exploration of the male and female souls using the sex act as an analogy. “There are lots of clues to the soul hidden in the common simplicity of a man and woman coming together.” This section was helpful and beautifully illustrated intelligent design.

Through this book I was encouraged to be my husband’s biggest cheerleader, try and feel the impact of his story and to show my respect by being vulnerable enough to reveal my needs.

I appreciated Rinehart making “enjoyment” in relationship into a beautiful bite sized something to aspire to. “What feels like love between two people is mostly a string of moments in which you feel enjoyed.”

Through Rinehart’s humorous and clear writing I’m better equipped to enjoy my husband, thus building our enjoyable lifelong dialogue of love.