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 Key to Everything by Valerie Fraser Luesse. Here’s the first line of Chapter One:

What’s the book nearest you, and what’s the first line?

About The Key to Everything

Peyton Cabot’s fifteenth year will be a painful and transformative one. His father, the heroic but reluctant head of a moneyed Savannah family, has come home from WWII a troubled vet, drowning his demons in bourbon and distancing himself from his son. A tragic accident shows Peyton the depths of his parents’ devotion to each other but interrupts his own budding romance with the girl of his dreams, Lisa Wallace.

Struggling to cope with a young life upended, Peyton makes a daring decision: He will retrace a journey his father took at fifteen, riding his bicycle all the way to Key West, Florida. Part declaration of independence, part search for self, Peyton’s journey will bring him more than he ever could have imagined–namely, the key to his unknowable father, a reunion with Lisa, and a calling that will shape the rest of his life.

Through poignant prose and characters so real you’ll be sure you know them, Valerie Fraser Luesse transports you to the storied Atlantic coast for a unique coming-of-age story you won’t soon forget.

Find The Key to Everything online at:

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First Line Fridays hosted by Hoarding Books

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Share your first line in the comments, and happy reading!

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Bookish Question #156 | Will you buy a book if you don’t like the book cover?

by Iola Goulton

26 May 2020

Will you buy a book if you don’t like the book cover? Why or why not?

Maybe …

When it comes to ebooks, I’m not picky about what the cover looks like, because I don’t have to look at it and no one else has to see it.

I’m more likely to be picky when it comes to paperbacks. Mostly because they’re more expensive. But also because I have to look at it 🙂

A book’s front cover is one of the main selling tools, so there needs to be something else about the book to draw me in if I don’t like the front cover. Perhaps it’s a book someone recommended to me. Perhaps it’s from a favourite author. Perhaps it’s an older book, and the cover hasn’t been updated in line with modern trends.

In those cases, I’ll read the back cover description and the opening pages. If I’m interested, I’ll buy it … but I’m much more likely to buy the ebook than the paperback if I don’t like the cover.

What about you? Will you buy a book if you don’t like the cover?

Book Review | Carolina Breeze (Bluebell Inn Romance #2) by Denise Hunter

by Iola Goulton

25 May 2020

When the tabloids publish pictures of up-and-coming actress Mia Emerson in what looks like a compromising position with her (married) leading man, Mia escapes Hollywood for the Bluebell Inn in North Carolina. After all, it’s the week of what was to have been her honeymoon, before her fiance broke it off.

Mia chose the Bluebell Inn for her honeymoon because her deceased grandparents used to own the building. She’s delighted to find the Inn’s library includes her grandmother’s journal, where she discovers unknown stories about her family history … including a missing jewel that is supposed to be hidden in the inn.

Meanwhile, Levi is hiding his own secrets. The inn is facing financial problems, something he’s been hiding from his sisters, who co-own the inn. If there really is a missing jewel and Levi could find it, then their financial problems would be over …

What follows is a Christian romance that’s more complex than many, as both Mia and Levi need to get past the lies and half-truths in their pasts to allow for a possible future together. I found it had to put the novel down once I’d started, because the characters and their situation was so compelling. As with many romances, there was an obvious answer … but what seems obvious to the reader isn’t so obvious for the characters.

Carolina Breeze is the second book in Denise Hunter’s Bluebell Inn Romance series, following Lake Season. You don’t have to read Lake Season first (I didn’t), but Carolina Breeze does contain a couple of spoilers for Lake Season. If that’s going to bother you, read Lake Season first.

Recommended for fans of contemporary Christian romance.

Thanks to Thomas Nelson and NetGalley for providing a free ebook for review.

About Denise Hunter

Denise Hunter is the internationally published bestselling author of more than 30 books, including “The Convenient Groom” and “A December Bride” which have been made into Hallmark movies. She has appeared on the The 700 club and won awards such as The Holt Medallion Award, The Carol Award, The Reader’s Choice Award, The Foreword Book of the Year Award, and is a RITA finalist.

Denise writes heartwarming, small-town love stories. Her readers enjoy the vicarious thrill of falling in love and the promise of a happily-ever-after sigh as they savor the final pages of her books.

In 1996, inspired by the death of her grandfather, Denise began her first book, writing while her children napped. Two years later it was published, and she’s been writing ever since. Her husband says he inspires all her romantic stories, but Denise insists a good imagination helps too!

When Denise isn’t orchestrating love lives on the written page, she enjoys traveling with her family, drinking good coffee, and playing drums. Denise makes her home in Indiana where she and her husband raised three boys and are currently enjoying an empty nest.

Find Denise Hunter online at:

Website | Facebook

About Carolina Breeze

A jilted bride. A struggling innkeeper. And a romantic mountain getaway that changes everything.

Rising Hollywood star Mia Emerson is looking for a safe place to land in the wake of a public breakup and celebrity scandal, and she finds it in the lake town of Bluebell, North Carolina—the location of her canceled honeymoon. She wants nothing more than to hide and wait for the tabloids to die down.

Soon after her arrival at the Bluebell Inn, Mia meets Levi Bennett, who runs the inn along with his two younger sisters. Drawn to one another from the start, Mia trusts Levi to keep her location from the press, and Levi confides in Mia about the precarious financial state of the inn—a secret he’s been keeping from his sisters.

When Mia and Levi discover an old journal that hints at a rare diamond necklace hidden in the inn, they set off on a treasure hunt to find the long-lost heirloom. What they don’t expect to surface are feelings they thought were safely locked away. Mia and Levi must decide if falling in love again is too big a risk—or if it will uncover a treasure of its own instead.

You can find Carolina Breeze online at

Amazon | ChristianBook | Goodreads | Koorong

And don’t forget to click here to check out my Amazon shop for my top picks in Christian fiction!

First Line Friday | Week 136 | The Widow’s Secret by Katharine Swartz

by Iola Goulton

22 May 2020

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 Widow’s Secret by Katharine Swartz (who also writes as Kate Hewitt). It’s an intriguing dual timeline book about a shameful period in England’s past. Here’s the first line of Chapter One:

What’s the book nearest you, and what’s the first line?

About The Widow’s Secret

Marine archaeologist Rachel Gardener is thrilled to be summoned to the coast of Cumbria to investigate a newly discovered shipwreck. She is also relieved to escape the tensions of her troubled marriage, and to be closer to her ailing mother. Yet the past rises up and confronts Rachel, as seeing her mother surfaces hidden childhood hurts. When the mysteriously sunken ship is discovered to be a slaving ship from the 1700s, Rachel is determined to explore the town of Whitehaven’s link to the slave trade.

Soon she learns of Abigail Fenton, the young wife of a slave trader, who has a surprising secret of her own, lost to the ages. The more Rachel learns about Abigail, the more she wonders if the past can inform the present… Perhaps Rachel can learn from Abigail and break free from her troubled history, and embrace the future she longs to claim for her own?

Find The Widow’s Secret online at:

Amazon | Goodreads | Koorong

Click the button to check out what my fabulous fellow FirstLineFriday bloggers are sharing today:

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!

And don’t forget to click here to check out my Amazon shop for my top picks in Christian fiction!

Bookish Question #155 | Have you enjoyed reading a book despite not liking the cover?

by Iola Goulton

19 May 2020

Have you enjoyed reading a book despite not liking the cover?

Yes!

I will admit to being drawn to certain books because of the cover. It’s a quick visual signal the book might be a book I’d like (or not e.g. if the cover has too much black or too much bare flesh …).

I can’t recall any titles off the top of my head, but I do know I have enjoyed many books despite not liking the cover.

Even if I could remember titles or authors, I wouldn’t name them. After all, it’s possible the author didn’t like the cover either, and I wouldn’t want to embarrass them (or remind them).

What about you? Have you enjoyed reading a book despite not liking the cover?

Book Review | A Mosaic of Wings by Kimberly Duffy

by Iola Goulton

18 May 2020

Christian Historical Romance with a Unique Setting

Nora Shipley is a woman ahead of her time, and a unique heroine. She doesn’t want to marry the man her stepfather has chosen for her (and no surprise there. He’s a misogynistic boor). She wants to go back to university and complete her master’s in entomology (yes, the study of insects). First she’ll need to win a scholarship … which means spending six months in India.

While I like butterflies and understand the importance of honeybees, I’m not a fan of other insects. And I definitely share Nora’s feelings about cockroaches. What captured my interest in A Mosaic of Wings was the Indian setting, and this was definitely the strength of the novel for me. These chapters showed the beauty of India, and something of the culture—both good and bad.

I enjoyed seeing Nora develop as a character and make some difficult choices.

The novel wasn’t overtly Christian, but Nora’s responses to her most difficult choices were definitely based on a Christian world view—even when those choices contradicted the decisions made by some of the Christians she met.

I didn’t enjoy the US-based scenes nearly as much.

That was mostly because of stepfather Lucius, although partly because of Nora’s mother. She was a frustratingly weak character who seemed to spend her time either ill in bed, or arranging social events her daughter wanted no part of. She was such a vapid character that I sincerely wondered if she was being drugged by Lucius (she wasn’t, but that would have been the most logical explanation for much of her behaviour).

Lucius is plainly set up as the antagonist and has no redeeming features except for loving Nora’s mother. Well, he says he does. He certainly doesn’t act as though he does. Mind you, the same could be said of Nora’s mother’s attitude towards Nora. As a result, while Nora’s difficulties with Lucius drove most of the novel’s conflict, I didn’t find it entirely believable. Lucius tries to force Nora to do something, saying she gave her word. Fine. She did, and she is a woman who seeks to keep her word. But I don’t think she needs to keep her word when he has so plainly not kept his.

Overall, this is a novel about choices and freedom.

Some people have more choices than others. It’s also about how sometimes we have to make a choice that might not be the easiest choice for ourselves, but is the right choice for others.

Thanks to Bethany House Publishers and NetGalley for providing a free ebook for review.

P.S. If you read or have read A Mosaic of Wings and you’re as horrified by Sita’s predicament as Nora is, then I encourage you to check out the Dignity Freedom Network and their work rescuing jogini girls in India. Yes, this practice is still going on despite having been outlawed in 1988.

About Kimberly Duffy

Kimberly Duffy enjoys writing historical fiction that takes readers back in time and across oceans. Her books often feature ahead-of-their-time heroines, evocative settings, and real-life faith. When not writing or homeschooling her four children, she enjoys taking trips that require a passport and practicing kissing scenes with her husband of twenty years. A Long Island native, she currently resides in southwest Ohio.

Find Kimberly Duffy online at:

Website | Facebook | Instagram

About A Mosaic of Wings

It’s 1885, and all Nora Shipley wants, now that she’s graduating from Cornell University as valedictorian of the entomology program, is to follow in her late father’s footsteps by getting her master’s degree and taking over the scientific journal he started. The only way to uphold her father’s legacy is to win a scholarship, so she joins a research expedition in Kodaikanal, India, to prove herself in the field.

India isn’t what she expects, though, and neither is the rival classmate who accompanies her, Owen Epps. As her preconceptions of India–and of Owen–fall away, she finds both far more captivating than she expected. Forced by the expedition leader to stay at camp and illustrate exotic butterflies the men of the team find without her, Nora befriends Sita, a young Indian girl who has been dedicated to a goddess against her will.

In this spellbinding new land, Nora is soon faced with impossible choices–between saving Sita and saving her career, and between what she’s always thought she wanted and the man she’s come to love.

Find A Mosaic of Wings online at:

Amazon | ChristianBook | Goodreads | Koorong

First Line Friday | Week 135 | The Silk Merchant of Sychar by Cindy Williams

by Iola Goulton

15 May 2020

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 Silk Merchant of Sychar by Cindy Williams, a wonderful novel about the woman Jesus met at the well.

Here’s the first line of Chapter One:

What’s the book nearest you, and what’s the first line?

About The Silk Merchant of Sychar

One woman, five husbands and the weary rabbi at the well who knows everything she ever did.

The day after they bury her husband Leah Marcellus loses her baby. A widow and childless, what man will want her now?

Her father arranges a second marriage—a profitable business arrangement—sealed on Mount Gerizim, the holy mountain where every true follower of Yahweh worships, but Leah’s heart belongs to another. Her passion only brings trouble – jealousy, murder and lies.

Leah’s skill at the loom and the secrets of dye –the woad, the murex and madder—brings her renown among the Roman women of wealth.
Yet death and betrayal soon steal her security. In desperation, Leah sacrifices her peace of mind and risks everything to protect her family.

From the olive groves of Samaria to the bloodied sand of a Roman stadium to the exquisite silks brought from the East, The Silk Merchant of Sychar weaves colour into the biblical account of the woman at the well.

You can find The Silk Merchant of Sychar by Cindy Williams online at

Amazon | Goodreads | Koorong

Click the button to check out what my fabulous fellow FirstLineFriday bloggers are sharing today:

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!

And don’t forget to click here to check out my Amazon shop for my top picks in Christian fiction!

Bookish Question #154 | Can you recommend a book that has helped you deal with a major life issue?

by Iola Goulton

12 May 2020

We can learn a lot from reading. Books can change the way we look at things, and help us deal with life issues.

Can you recommend a book that has helped you deal with a major life issue?

The Bible, obviously. But what else?

It speaks to my preference as a fiction reader that my first thought with this question was to think of a novel. I considered the question, but nothing came to mind.

But when I stepped back and thought about it, I realised I have recently read a nonfiction book that has answered some big questions … unasked questions, perhaps, but questions all the same.

Becoming Sage by Michelle Van Loon

Becoming Sage is written for “mature” Christian women, and talks about how to cultivate spiritual maturity in the second half of life. It points out that most churches are full of programmes for the young (children and teens) and the young in Christ (discipleship programmes for new Christians), but they often fail when it comes to addressing the needs of more mature members of the church.

Van Loon points out that our spiritual life is an ongoing journey. That’s something we probably know intellectually (after all, we know we will be human and sinful until we die). But we don’t always think through the implications: that we need to continue to grow spiritually, which means putting ourselves in a church family that enables and encourages that growth.

While there haven’t been any novels that have helped me deal with a life issue, I have certainly come across novels that have challenged my thinking. Two books stand out to me–one you’ve probably heard of, and one you probably haven’t.

When the Shofar Blew by Francine Rivers

Francine Rivers needs no introduction. When the Shofar Blew is a warning call for the church about putting pastors and other Christians on some kind of pedestal and assuming they can do no wrong. It’s also a reminder that God can and will forgive.

Confessions of a Teenage Hermaphrodite by Lianne Simon

This is the story of a child born with a body that falls outside our definition of “normal” and her challenge as she grew up: should she be the son her earthly father wanted, or the daughter she believed her heavenly Father created her to be. The book opened my eyes to a medical condition that’s a lot more common than we know, and the issues aren’t as black and white as many of us were raised to think.

What about you? Can you recommend a book (fiction or nonfiction) that’s helped you deal with a major life issue?

Book Review | For Love and Country by Candace Waters

by Iola Goulton

11 May 2020

For Love and Country isn’t a typical novel.

It’s more historical fiction with romantic elements rather than a pure romance. It’s from a Christian fiction publisher, but it’s more Christian-lite. There’s very little that’s overtly Christian, but also no on-page violence or sexual content.

The story moves in fits and starts. The first three chapters move relatively slowly as they introduce Lottie, her fiance, and her background. But the story then skips ahead, sometimes days or weeks at a time and that felt a little off, as though something was missing. The writing is solid but not spectacular, but it’s a compelling story and I found it hard to put down (which is saying something, given my current attention span. Thanks, lockdown and quarantine).

Lottie is one of the most original characters I’ve come across.

She’s a child of wealth and privilege, in that her father owns a Detroit motor company. On that basis, it’s not altogether surprising that Lottie is interested in cars and engines. What is perhaps surprising is that she’s prepared to give up her lifestyle and her fiance to serve in the WAVES—Women Accepted for Voluntary Emergency Service.

For Love and Country by Candace Waters is a must-read for fans of World War II fiction from authors such as Sarah Sundin and J'nell Ciesielski. #BookReview #ChristianFiction Share on X

I’ve read various novels about women serving in World War I and II, but I think this is the first I’ve read about the WAVES. I enjoyed the historical aspects, especially watching Lottie’s challenges in working in a male-dominated field. But I also enjoyed Lottie’s personal journey, her realisation that we do get to make choices in life and how those choices can change us.

Overall, For Love and Country is a must-read for fans of World War II fiction from authors such as Sarah Sundin and J’nell Ciesielski.

Thanks to Howard Books and NetGalley for providing a free ebook for review.

About For Love and Country

When Lottie Palmer runs away the day before her wedding to join the Navy WAVES program, she not only leaves behind a fiancé, but also the privileged lifestyle that she has known as the daughter of one of the most important manufacturers in Detroit’s auto industry. Spurred by a desire to contribute meaningfully to the war effort, Lottie pours all of her focus and determination into becoming the best airplane mechanic in the division, working harder than she’s ever worked before.

Her grit impresses her handsome instructor, Captain Luke Woodward. But when the war ramps up and she is assigned to Pearl Harbor she must fight her growing feelings for Luke and navigate her role as one of the only female mechanics among a group of men, all while finding out what it means to be your own hero.

Illuminating the story of a woman who sets out to make a difference in the world by following her heart, Candace Waters draws on her extensive research, transporting us from Detroit to New York, and San Diego to Pearl Harbor during the tumultuous time of World War II.

Find For Love and Country online at:

Amazon | ChristianBook | Goodreads | Koorong

Read the introduction of For Love and Country below:

First Line Friday | Week 134 | Love’s Rescue by Christine Johnson

by Iola Goulton

8 May 2020

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 Love’s Rescue by Christine Johnson—a novel that’s been languishing on my to-read pile for too long. Here’s the first line of Chapter One:

What’s the book nearest you, and what’s the first line?

About Love’s Rescue

When her mother dies, Elizabeth Benjamin heads home to Key West, determined to transform herself into the perfect Southern belle her parents always wished her to be. But nothing goes according to plan. Her crippled brother resents her, the servants do not obey her, and Rourke O’Malley, the dashing man she vowed to forget, refuses to relinquish his hold on her heart. Worst of all, it becomes painfully obvious that her father is not the upright man he appears to be.

As family secrets come to light, Elizabeth is faced with a difficult choice: to do her duty and abandon her dreams, or to leave her life of privilege behind to chase the man her father sees as little better than a pirate.

From the first emotional page, author Christine Johnson throws readers into a world of impossible choices, hidden desires, and heart-melting romance in the steamy south. Readers will cheer for Elizabeth and Rourke as they battle the odds and the elements to secure their future.

You can find Love’s Rescue online at:

Amazon | ChristianBook | Goodreads | Koorong

Click the button to check out what my fabulous fellow FirstLineFriday bloggers are sharing today:

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.