It’s First Line Friday! That means it’s time to pick up the nearest book and quote the first line. Today I’m sharing from Under the Tulip Tree by Michelle Shocklee, a 2020 release I recently found on sale. Here’s the first line from the Chapter One:
What’s the book nearest you, and what’s the first line?
About Under the Tulip Tree
Sixteen-year-old Lorena Leland’s dreams of a rich and fulfilling life as a writer are dashed when the stock market crashes in 1929. Seven years into the Great Depression, Rena’s banker father has retreated into the bottle, her sister is married to a lazy charlatan and gambler, and Rena is an unemployed newspaper reporter. Eager for any writing job, Rena accepts a position interviewing former slaves for the Federal Writers’ Project. There, she meets Frankie Washington, a 101-year-old woman whose honest yet tragic past captivates Rena.
As Frankie recounts her life as a slave, Rena is horrified to learn of all the older woman has endured—especially because Rena’s ancestors owned slaves. While Frankie’s story challenges Rena’s preconceptions about slavery, it also connects the two women whose lives are otherwise separated by age, race, and circumstances. But will this bond of respect, admiration, and friendship be broken by a revelation neither woman sees coming?
Carolyn Miller: her Regency Brides are perfect for Pride and Prejudice fans
David Rawlings: Worldbending fiction like The Baggage Handler that gets you thinking …
Meredith Resce: especially her new Luella Linley romances 🙂
Kristen Young: Apprentice is a brilliant Young Adult debut.
(In case you’re wondering, I have restricted my recommendations to books published in the last couple of years. If I didn’t restrict myself, I’d be here all day!)
Cop-turned private investigator Star Cavanaugh specialises in solving cold cases, and this one is personal. Star is working undercover in the diner in Pineville, Alabama, to discover the story behind the 1954 murder of an unknown woman buried as Daisy Doe.
The story was told in two timelines–Star’s story in the present was told in first person, which gave it a sense of immediacy and let us see inside her thought processes. The past storyline started shortly before the murder of Daisy Doe, and was told in third person from a couple of different viewpoints–witnesses to some of the secrets Star uncovers.
I enjoy a good mystery novel, and the premise of Burying Daisy Doe intrigued me.
I had high expectations around the plot, and my expectations were exceeded. As the story progressed, I was impressed by the unexpected twists and turns. These gave the novel unexpected depths as Star realises the issues go deeper than she’d originally suspected.
The characters were strong, and many hid secrets that were revealed gradually as the story progressed. Star was a great main character, and her point of view showed her intelligence and diligence as she seeks to find answers to the decades-old case.
The writing was excellent, and I highlighted a lot of great lines to reference later.
Recommended for mystery and thriller fans.
Thanks to Kregel and NetGalley for providing a free ebook for review.
About Ramona Richards
Ramona Richards is the author or contributor of over twenty books, including Memory of Murder, Field of Danger, and The Taking of Carly Bradford. She is the associate publisher for Iron Stream Media and has previously worked for Abingdon Press and Thomas Nelson. Ramona makes her home just outside of Birmingham, Alabama.
No cold case is more important than the one that destroyed her own family
Every small town has one unsolved case that haunts its memory, festering for generations below the surface with the truth of humanity’s darkness. Star Cavanaugh is obsessed with the one that tore her family apart.
Over sixty years ago, Daisy Doe was murdered and discarded outside Pineville, Alabama, buried without a name or anyone to mourn her loss. When Star’s father tried to solve the case, he was also killed. Now a cold-case detective with resources of her own, Star is determined to get to the bottom of both crimes. But she’ll have to face an entire town locked in corruption, silence, and fear–and the same danger that took two other lives. The only people in the town she can trust are her grandmother and the charming Mike Luinetti, and both of them trust a God Star isn’t sure she believes in. Can Christians so focused on the good really help her track down this evil?
It’s First Line Friday! That means it’s time to pick up the nearest book and quote the first line. Today I’m sharing from The Dwelling Place by Elizabeth Musser, the second book in her Swan House series. Here’s the first line from the Chapter One:
What’s the book nearest you, and what’s the first line?
About The Dwelling Place
In a family of successes, she’s the embarrassment, still defiantly refusing to color inside the lines.
Perhaps being a server at a trendy Atlanta restaurant isn’t a dream career, but it’s her work. She has friends, she has neighbors, she has causes. But Ellie has never fit in. When her artist mother’s fight with cancer takes a bad turn, Ellie is forced to reenter her family’s perfect world to help care for her.
As the two women struggle to reconnect, Ellie begins to understand that her family might not be as unblemished as it seems. As her mother’s condition worsens, Ellie embarks on a journey toward forgiveness, hope, and healing. Is there a place of peace for her? And like her mother, must she travel halfway around the world to find it?
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You can then click the link which will take you to the master page of all this week’s #FirstLineFriday posts. And you can click here to check out my previous FirstLineFriday posts.
Share your first line in the comments, and happy reading!
Unfortunately, time doesn’t allow me to read all the books. Oh, to have Hermione Grainger’s time turner!
Instead, I’ll have to content myself with the novels I know about … which isn’t many. I do know some of my favourite authors have books releasing in 2021, such as:
Laura Hannon was kidnapped by a gang of thieves, who have now been captured. She’s living in the doctor’s house in Settler’s Fort and helping care for Aaron, one of the kidnappers – the one who tried to help her, and who she accidentally shot. She feels guilty about Aaron, and nervous around Nate, Aaron’s brother, who visits regularly.
Nate was also part of the gang, but turned away and is now working in the local mine and saving every spare penny to repay the money the gang stole. But after meeting Laura at a hidden cave, he also wants to spend more time with her, especially after the discover two Native Americans living in the cave who need help.
Nate is an excellent character—someone who has done wrong in the past (although for what he thought were good reasons), and who has now become a Christian and who is trying to make up for his past misdeeds. Unfortunately, that’s not always easy.
Faith’s Mountain Home is the third book in Misty M Beller’s Hearts of Montana series. I read and reviewed the first book in the series (Hope’s Highest Mountain), but haven’t read the second.
While Faith’s Mountain Home worked well as a standalone novel, there were times when I felt I didn’t understand some of the character’s history because I hadn’t read Love’s Mountain Quest. At least, I assume the kidnapping and Nate’s subsequent conviction and redemption was part of the previous story. That unknown backstory was the one thing that annoyed me in Faith’s Mountain Home, and I would have enjoyed it more if I’d better understood what came before.
Apart from that, I enjoyed the story. I very much like Misty M Beller’s writing. She does an excellent job of writing Christian characters who feel like real people, and puts them in stories that have plenty of conflict but still allow for a happy ending. Her stories are easy to read, engaging, and a perfect way to relax.
Recommended for Christian historical romantic suspense fans.
Thanks to Bethany House Publishers and NetGalley for providing a free ebook for review.
About Misty M Beller
Misty M. Beller writes romantic mountain stories, set on the 1800s frontier and woven with the truth of God’s love. She was raised on a farm in South Carolina, so her Southern roots run deep. Growing up, her family was close, and they continue to keep that priority today. Her husband and daughters now add another dimension to her life, keeping her both grounded and crazy.
God has placed a desire in Misty’s heart to combine her love for Christian fiction and the simpler ranch life, writing historical novels that display God’s abundant love through the twists and turns in the lives of her characters.
Writing is a dream come true for Misty. Her family—both immediate and extended—is the foundation that holds her secure in that dream.
Nate Long has always watched over his identical twin brother, Aaron, even when it put him on the wrong side of the law. When Aaron is wounded in a shootout, the brothers are taken to Settler’s Fort to recover. As Nate works to make reparations for their past, he marvels at the nursing Aaron receives under the care of a woman with all the reason in the world to resent him. Laura Hannon knows what it is to start over, and she knows Nate’s newfound faith is real. What she can’t look past is how far he allowed himself to be led astray by his brother’s weaknesses. As a fledgling trust grows between Nate and Laura, they stumble upon a mysterious cave in the mountains that may not be as uninhabited as it seems. While working together to unravel the secrets surrounding the cave, will the new lives they seek for themselves include love, or does too much stand between them?
Good question! I don’t keep a track of my reading by month, so I don’t actually know whether I read more books in summer or in winter.
I know I read a lot of books during the summer,
I love spending a warm summer day at the beach, reaching on my Kindle between dips in the ocean.
I also know I read a lot of books during the winter months.
In winger, you can usually find me curled up by the fire with the cat in my lap while my husband watches TV. Reading is my preferred form of personal entertainment. I do watch a handful of TV series, but I’d usually rather read a book (or, in the case of TV or movie versions, I’ve usually read the book already).
And I read a lot in spring and autumn.
We have a spa pool (aka hot tub), and I do read in the pool in spring and autumn, but only paperback books (I don’t want to risk dropping my Kindle in the water, or having the steam cook the device). My pool reading therefore tends to be books on the to-read pile, as my recent purchases ten to be the Kindle version.
So do I read more in summer or winter? I suspect I read fairly evenly through the year, as work and weather permit.
What about you? Do you read more in summer or in winter?
It’s First Line Friday! That means it’s time to pick up the nearest book and quote the first line. Today I’m sharing from Dreams of Savannah by Roseanna M White. Here’s the first line from the Chapter One:
What’s the book nearest you, and what’s the first line?
About Dreams of Savannah
Cordelia Owens can weave a hopeful dream around anything and is well used to winning the hearts of everyone in Savannah with her whimsy. Even when she receives word that her sweetheart has been lost during a raid on a Yankee vessel, she clings to hope and comes up with many a romantic tale of his eventual homecoming to reassure his mother and sister.
But Phineas Dunn finds nothing redemptive in the first horrors of war. Struggling for months to make it home alive, he returns to Savannah injured and cynical, and all too sure that he is not the hero Cordelia seems determined to make him. Matters of black and white don’t seem so simple anymore to Phin, and despite her best efforts, Delia’s smiles can’t erase all the complications in his life. And when Fort Pulaski falls and the future wavers, they both must decide where the dreams of a new America will take them, and if they will go together.
Today I’m delighted to welcome author Kathleen Denly to share about her upcoming release, A Reason to Sing. Welcome, Kathleen!
Do you enjoy traditional hymns or do you prefer more modern worship songs?
Personally, I love both. Growing up I attended a variety of churches that sang a mixture of both. Some of my favorite childhood memories, however, are of the times when the older women in my extended family would gather around the nearest piano and begin singing hymns together. I wish we’d had smart phones back then. I’d love to have a video of those beautiful women praising God together in that simple way.
These spontaneous moments of worship from my childhood played a large part in the development of my novel, Sing in the Sunlight. Even as a child, I understood what a gift their voices were and as a writer I wondered what might have happened had one of them lost the ability to praise the Lord in this way. I considered writing a character who’d lost her voice, but that didn’t feel right for this story. So I continued playing with the idea. Eventually, I found my way to a character who didn’t lose her voice, but instead had lost her hope—her reason to sing.
This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine.
We all know that classic worship song, now a favorite in many Sunday School classes. In my novel, I explore the idea of what happens when a person’s light is hidden beneath the “bush” of tragedy, hurt, and confusion. When the singer believes God doesn’t care about them, what is there to sing about? Only when we are basking in the light of our heavenly Father’s love do we truly have reason to sing.
God has blessed me with many reasons to sing. One of those reasons is my daughter, Ava. We adopted her when she was sixteen months old, but before that Ava suffered a horrific tragedy. Not only did she lose her birth family, but an event transpired which left her with numerous scars. Many of those scars are on her arm and face. I’m grateful that she was too young at the time to remember what transpired, but being an author I wondered how her life might be different if the event (or something like it) had transpired at an age when she could remember. How might that have changed her life? When I combined this question with the treatment of visibly different people in the nineteenth century, I found the inspiration for my heroine, Clarinda.
This photo of the moment when I first met my daughter August 20, 2017, reminds me of how we all face the choice of whether or not to trust our Heavenly Father.
By the grace of God, Ava, is a happy, healthy child who loves to sing, dance, and “make a joyful noise” with her Fisher Price piano, but Clarinda’s joy has been lost. So she seeks it in places she shouldn’t and encounters consequences she never anticipated. Thankfully, our Lord is loving and mighty and works all things together for good for those who love Him. So He sends a special man into Clarinda’s life to point her back to the One who’s been with her all along—to remind her of her reason to sing.
What are your reasons to sing? Do you prefer contemporary or traditional worship songs? Let me know in the comments below!
Giveaway
To celebrate the upcoming release of Sing in the Sunlight, the second book in her Chaparral Hearts series, Kathleen is offering a giveaway!
Enter the rafflecopter for a chance to win a digital copy of Waltz in the Wilderness (book 1 in the Chaparral Hearts series), a custom set of Sing in the Sunlight gold vinyl stickers and 2 bookmarks made and signed by Kathleen Denly.
Open to U.S. and International winners, void where prohibited. Entries open until midnight on January 19, 2021 Winner will be announced on Kathleen’s Facebook, Twitter, & Instagram accounts and must contact Kathleen with your mailing address within seven days of announcement.
About Kathleen Denly
Kathleen Denly writes historical romance stories to entertain, encourage, and inspire readers toward a better understanding of our amazing God and how He sees us. Award winning author of the Chaparral Hearts series, she also shares history tidbits, thoughts on writing, books reviews and more at KathleenDenly.com.
Richard Stevens isn’t who he thinks he is. Neither is the woman who now claims his last name.
Disfiguring scars stole Clarinda Humphrey’s singing career, her home, and her family, but she refuses to let her appearance steal her future. While attending The Young Ladies Seminary in 1858 Benicia, California, she finds a man who promises to love and cherish her. Instead he betrays her, leaving her with child, and Clarinda must take drastic measures to ensure her child doesn’t suffer for her foolishness.
Richard Stevens’s life hasn’t turned out as he expected, and when a shocking letter turns even his past into a mystery, he travels to San Francisco in search of guidance. On the way, he encounters a mysterious young woman hiding beneath a veil. That night he experiences a dream that sends him on a quest to find the bride God has chosen for him. He never imagines she’s already told everyone they’re married.
Unwilling to lie, nor accept a marriage of mere convenience, Richard wants the real thing. Yet Clarinda’s not interested in love, only a chance to save her child. Can he help her rise above the pain that runs deeper than her scars to accept a love worth every risk?
Watch Kathleen Denly read Chapter One of Sing in the Sunlight.
Sing in the Sunlight releases on 21 March 2021 from Wild Heart Books.
In celebration of this second book in her Chaparral Hearts series, Kathleen’s offering preorder bonuses. These include a set of exclusive coloring pages (hand drawn by Kathleen for this novel), and an MP3 recording of the hymn referenced in the book (God Moves in a Mysterious Way) performed by Kathleen’s wonderful mother.
Anyone who preorders Sing in the Sunlight no later than February 28, 2021 can register to receive their preorder bonuses. To register, email your proof of preorder purchase to kdpreorderbonuses@gmail.com no later than February 28, 2021. A proof of purchase is typically a screenshot of your receipt.
Please do not include any personal information such as physical mailing address or account numbers when submitting your proof of purchase. Preorder bonuses will be emailed on the day of the book’s release to all who register.
I’ve signed up to read 150 books this year through the Goodreads Reading Challenge.
I don’t see at as much as a challenge as a way of keeping track of what I’ve read (helped by the fact that most new books I read are on Kindle, which automatically marks a book as Read at Goodreads).
I’ve also signed up to the Mt. TBR Challenge again, in the never-ending attempt to reduce the number of unread books I own. I’ve done this challenge for the last four or five years, usually aiming for 48 books per year. I actually aimed for 60 last year, but only got 48 so that’s the level I’ve chosen this year. Now to read books I own and not buy new ones!
I set myself the challenge of reading 30 books by new-to-me authors in 2020, and I achieved 47!
My rationale for this challenge was that I want to be able to support debut authors. The problem is that if I focus too much on debut authors, I don’t have time to read new books from favourite authors. So while I will still record how many new-to-me authors I read this year, I won’t be aiming for a specific number.
Another personal challenge was to read 50 independently published books last year. I managed 45. This is another figure I’ll continue to track, but won’t set a specific goal. I want to focus on content, not how the book was published. The reality is that the books I buy tend to be independently published, because they’re cheaper (yet the author receives a similar royalty per copy sold).
I also aimed to read 12 writing books and 12 marketing books last year.
I actually read 12 writing books (win) but only 4 marketing books. My focus this year is going to be on writing, so I’m going to ignore all the unread marketing books and focus on the writing books (and the writing).
So my Reading Challenge targets for 2021 are:
150 books
48 books off my to-read pile
12 writing books
What about you? Have you set a 2021 reading challenge? If so, what is it?
Misty M. Beller writes romantic mountain stories, set on the 1800s frontier and woven with the truth of God’s love. She was raised on a farm in South Carolina, so her Southern roots run deep. Growing up, her family was close, and they continue to keep that priority today. Her husband and daughters now add another dimension to her life, keeping her both grounded and crazy.
Cordelia Owens can weave a hopeful dream around anything and is well used to winning the hearts of everyone in Savannah with her whimsy. Even when she receives word that her sweetheart has been lost during a raid on a Yankee vessel, she clings to hope and comes up with many a romantic tale of his eventual homecoming to reassure his mother and sister.
Kathleen Denly writes historical romance stories to entertain, encourage, and inspire readers toward a better understanding of our amazing God and how He sees us. Award winning author of the Chaparral Hearts series, she also shares history tidbits, thoughts on writing, books reviews and more at 
