Category: Book Recommendation

11 May 2016

2016 Grace and RITA® Award Finalists

It’s Award Time!

Last week I introduced the six awards I look to in the Christian publishing industry. Today I’m bringing you the finalists for two of these awards: The Grace Awards, and the RITA Awards. Next week I’ll be back with the INSPY Award and Christy Award finalists.

The Grace Awards

The finalists for the 2016 Grace Awards are:

Womens Fiction/General Fiction:

(Serious women’s/men’s issues, can have humor and suspense elements)

Freed To Forgive by Julie B. Cosgrove (Prism Book Group)

Waters Of Separation by Carol Mcclain (Desert Breeze Publishing)

Annabelle’s Ruth by Betty Thomason Owens

Romance/Historical Romance

(Primary element is love/courtship/marriage, be it set now or then)

The Thornbearer by Pepper Basham (Vinspire Publishing)

Plum Upside Down by Valerie Comer (Greenwords Media)

Bridge Of Faith by Catherine West (Amazon Digital Services)

Mystery/Romantic Suspense/Thriller/Historic Suspense

(Crime fiction, probably a body)

No Place To Hide by Lynette Eason (Amazon Digital Services)

Trial By Twelve by Heather Day Gilbert (Woodhaven Press)

Sabotaged by Dani Pettrey (Bethany House)

Speculative Fiction

(Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror, Etc.)

Storming by K. M. Weiland (PenForaAword Publishing)

Angelhood by A.J. Cattapan (Vinspire Publishing)

A New Threat by Aaron Demott (Altwit Press)

Action-Adventure/Western/Epic Fiction

(Exploits, quest, daring, expansive)

Saving Eric by Joan Deneve (Write Integrity Press)

Two Days In Caracas by Luana Ehrlich (Potter’s Word Press)

A Lady For The Lawman by Jewell Tweedt (Prism Book Group)

Young Adult

(Including Middle Grade And New Adult)

To Get To You by Joanne Bischof (Mason Jar Books)

Roped by Diane Gates (Prism Book Group)

Stone And Snow by Sibella Giorello (Running Girl Productions)

Winners Will Be Announced On 31 May 2016.

The RITA® Awards

The 2016 RITA finalists in Inspirational Romance are:

A Love Like Ours by Becky Wade (Bethany House)

Mistletoe Justice by Carol J. Post (Love Inspired Suspense)

The Mountain Midwife by Laurie Alice Eakes (Zondervan)

A Noble Masquerade by Kristi Ann Hunter (Bethany House)

The Rescued by Marta Perry (Berkley)

Note that while the RITA® rules say that Inspirational can include any religious or spiritual belief system, it’s rare to see a finalist that isn’t Christian fiction.

Some Christian novels have also been named as finalists in other categories:

Best First Book

A Noble Masquerade by Kristi Ann Hunter (Bethany House)

Historical Romance – Long

Tiffany Girl by Deeanne Gist (Howard Books)

(I reviewed Tiffany Girl, and was disappointed at the lack of Christian content. I guess this nomination confirms that Gist is now focused squarely on the general market. Readers checking out her earlier books will find them a little different.)

Romance Novella

Toward the Sunrise by Elizabeth Camden (Bethany House)

Winners will be announced on 16 July.

7 May 2016

Book Review: Close to You by Kara Isaac

If you’ve signed up for my monthly Newsletter, you’ll already have receive my entirely biased list of 50 novels from my favourite Christian authors. If you haven’t . . . sign up on the right! Today I’m reviewing Close to You, the debut novel from Kiwi author Kara Isaac.

Extremely Biased Review Ahead

Amazon Description

A disgraced scholar running from her past and an entrepreneur chasing his future find themselves thrown together—and fall in love—on a Tolkien tour of New Zealand.

Allison Shire (yes, like where the Hobbits live) is a disgraced academic who is done with love. Her belief in “happily ever after” ended the day she discovered her husband was still married to a wife she knew nothing about. She finally finds a use for her English degree by guiding tours through the famous sites featured in the Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit movies. By living life on the road and traveling New Zealand as a luxury tour guide, Allison manages to outrun the pain of her past she can’t face.

Jackson Gregory was on the cusp of making it big. Then suddenly his girlfriend left him—for his biggest business competitor—and took his most guarded commercial secrets with her. To make matters worse, the Iowa farm that has been in his family for generations is facing foreclosure. Determined to save his parents from financial ruin, he’ll do whatever it takes to convince his wealthy great-uncle to invest in his next scheme, which means accompanying him to the bottom of the world to spend three weeks pretending to be a die-hard Lord of the Rings fan, even though he knows nothing about the stories. The one thing that stands between him and his goal is a know-it-all tour guide who can’t stand him and pegged him as a fake the moment he walked off the plane.

When Allison leads the group through the famous sites of the Tolkien movies, she and Jackson start to see each other differently, and as they keep getting thrown together on the tour, they find themselves drawn to each other. Neither expected to fall in love again, but can they find a way beyond their regrets to take a chance on the one thing they’re not looking for?

My Review

To the best of my knowledge, Close to You by Kara Isaac is the first novel from a New Zealand author contracted and published by a major US Christian publisher. That alone is worth five stars, at least from this parochial Kiwi reader. Those of you who can’t see the appeal of a romance novel set in the Land of the Long White Cloud (and the land of hobbits) should leave now and go back to … I don’t know. What do people who don’t like New Zealand or hobbits read? Do they read? Can they read?.

Anyway, on to the novel.

Allie is short of money, as her funds are currently tied up in a messy divorce. She’s working as a tour guide delivering high-class (i.e. seriously expensive) tours of New Zealand’s Lord of the Rings and Hobbit movie locations, making good use of her PhD in English literature. Unfortunately, she now loathes all things Tolkien.

Jackson’s company has just gone bust, and he’s accompanying a long-lost—and rich—uncle on Allie’s Lord of the Rings tour in the hope he can persuade uncle to invest in his next business idea. Unfortunately, he knows nothing about Tolkien, hobbits or Lord of the Rings … despite telling his uncle he’s a die-hard fan.

Naturally, Allie and Jackson start off on the wrong foot and equally naturally (this is Christian romance!), things change as they start to get to know each other. Throw in a tour bus full of seriously eccentric characters, a wily uncle and a weasly almost-ex-husband, and the stage is set for fun and romance.

I loved all the Kiwi touches, from the nail-biting approach to Wellington Airport to the lush greenery of the Waikato, the “scents” of Rotorua, the majesty of Queenstown, and the Tolkien tourist mecca of Hobbiton (which is even better in real life). The writing was good, with a good dose of humour (people actually speak Elvish?) and a subtle underlying Christian theme.

Recommended for fans of Carla Laureano and Susan May Warren. And New Zealand, and Tolkien. So that should cover pretty much everyone.

This review was previously posted at Iola’s Christian Reads. Thanks to Howard Books and NetGalley for providing a free ebook for review.

4 May 2016

Introducing the Major Christian Fiction Awards

It’s Christian Fiction Award Time!

It’s coming to that time of year again, when the publishing industry seeks to honour the best of the books published in the last calendar year. Entries to the various Christian fiction awards have closed, judging has commenced, and authors are waiting to find out if they’ve made the longlist or the shortlist or if they’ve won. I imagine each announcement brings a sense of relief for those authors still in the running for a prize, but also a raised sense of anxiety: so close, and yet so far.

Today I’m going to give you information on the six contests I watch every year. Over the next few weeks I’ll introduce you to the finalists in each Award, as they are announced. If you’ve ever wondered what to read next, these lists will provide some ideas—and you’ll see a few of the same titles popping up on several lists.

Introducing the major Christian Fiction Awards

The CALEB Prize

The CALEB Prize is organized by Omega Writers, a writing organization for Australian and New Zealand Christian Writers. Entry is open to Australian and New Zealand authors, and there are two categories for the 2016 prize: fiction, and children’s picture books.

CALEB is an acronym: it stands for Christian Authors Lifting Each other’s Books. That’s why Omega Writers sponsor the CALEB Prize. It’s about giving all entrants a higher profile for their books, regardless of whether they win or not . . . Promoting excellence, for the glory of God, so that the highest quality books are given that little bit of extra ‘oomph’.

The Christy Awards

The Christy Awards are named for Christy, the groundbreaking novel by Catherine Marshall, who wrote over two dozen books which have sold in excess of 25 million copies. The awards were established in 1999 to honour and promote excellence in Christian fiction, and to showcase the diversity of Christian fiction genres.

The Carol Awards

The Carol Awards were established by American Christian Fiction Writers in 2002 to recognize the best in Christian fiction. Both print and ebooks are accepted, but ebook authors must submit print copies. Novels must be nominated by their authors, must be written from a Christian world view, and may be self-published or traditionally published.

ACFW define “traditionally published” as being where the author did not “participate financially in the production or distribution of their book, including any requirement to buy a certain number of books from their publisher”.

Independent authors must apply to ACFW for Qualified Independently Published (QIP) status if they have not previously been traditionally published. In order to achieve QIP status, an author has to show evidence they have earned at least $4,000 from the sale of one novel over a 12-month period.

The Grace Awards

The Grace Awards were established in 2010 to “expand the tent pegs of Christian fiction”. They allow traditionally published and self-published novels, and make no distinction between paper or digital formats: anyone can enter, as long as the book is Christian Fiction, and 55,000 words or longer. Novels should be:

Traditional Christian, Inspirational, realistic and/or gritty Christian and edgy Christian, stories from a Christian worldview, redemptive themed, biblical, Messianic, catholic, faith-based, Christian and/or Messianic mystical themes, values imbued, grace and forgiveness oriented, marriage and family friendly, depicting Christian lifestyle (can be struggling with it), spiritually and emotionally healing fiction

The Grace Awards were founded by a group of small-press and independent authors, so they tend to feature a lot of small press and self-published books that are overlooked by the larger industry awards (which didn’t necessarily permit entries from these authors and publishers when the Grace Awards were founded).

Their process is unique: readers, reviewers and bloggers nominate titles along with a 40+ words outlining why they like the book. All nominated novels are then put to public vote, and three finalists are chosen for each category. A panel of judges then read the finalists and decide on a winner.

The INSPY Awards

The INPSY Awards were established in 2010, and is described as the Bloggers’ Award for Excellence in Faith-Driven Literature. The INSPY Awards are only open to print books from a publishing house (be it a large traditional house, a small press, or a micropress publishing as few as two authors).

The Awards are looking to recognize books of exceptional literary qualities including but not limited to: innovative, original writing, and depth of characterization. The book must respectfully grapple with some element of the Christian faith.

Novels are nominated by readers (self nominations by authors are not permitted). The INSPY Advisory Board (also bloggers) determine a shortlist of five finalists in each category. A team of three blogger judges then choose a winner. Judges are chosen by the Advisory Board from a pool of self-nominated bloggers which makes the INPSY Awards unique, as the creators of the award have limited influence on the overall winners.

The RITA® Awards

The RITA® Awards are run by Romance Writers of America, and are named after the organisation’s first president, Rita Clay Estrada. The Awards are specifically for romance novels, in a range of sub-genres (including Inspirational) and lengths (including long, short and novella).
While the RITA® Awards were originally restricted to novels published through a traditional publisher, they now permit self-published novels, and several categories feature self-published or hybrid authors (being authors who have both self-published and been published by a traditional publisher).

Books are nominated by their author or publisher, and nominated authors act as first-round judges (not in their own category, of course). All novels achieving higher than a specific score are announced as finalist, which is unusual—most contests have a set number of finalists (usually three or five), and the top-scoring novels qualify. The RITA® approach caused problems one year, when one category had more than ten finalists and two others (Inspirational and Erotic) had only two each.

I’ll be back next week with the finalists for the Grace and RITA® Awards, and we can talk about our picks for each.

27 April 2016

What Are You Reading?

My picks of the top Christian fiction for April 2016

What Christian fiction have you been reading over the last month? And what are you planning to read in May? Here are my top Christian fiction picks for April 2016, and a quick look at some of the books I’m planning to read and review in May.

The best novels I’ve read over the last month were:

Close to You by Kara Isaac (click here to read my review. My extremely biased because it’s set in New Zealand review)

On the Edge by Theresa Santy (click here to read my review)

Sit Stay Love by Dana Mentink (click here to read my review)

Like Never Before by Melissa Tagg (click here to read my review)

I’m looking forward to my May reads: I’ve got Dressed for Death, the latest in Julianna Deering’s 1930’s-era detective series (a must-read for fans of Agatha Christie), Someone Like You by Victoria Bylin (one of my new favourite authors), and Her One and Only (contemporary Christian romance from Becky Wade).

What were the best novels you read in April? And what are you planning to read in May?

23 April 2016

Book Review: The Bridesmaid’s Hero by Narelle Atkins

Amazon Description

Serena Blaxland’s job at her parents’ B&B in Snowgum Creek, Australia, is only temporary. Sparks fly when hire car driver Harry Westmore saves the beautiful pastry chef from disrupting her sister’s wedding day, but the opportunity of a lifetime threatens to push them apart. Can Harry and Serena’s love and faith overcome the obstacles in their path?

My Review

Okay, I’m slow. I’d wondered why Bridesmaid’s Hero was part of a box set was called Love Blossoms. There was the obvious: that each of the seven stories had a flower or garden theme. But I’ve only just realised that it’s also around spring blossoms, because was published as the Northern Hemisphere was coming into spring. Duh. It’s high summer here. Spring is almost a year away.

Anyway . . .

The Bridesmaid’s Hero is a standalone story which is part of a series (although after reading it, you might just want to check out more in the series).

It was a fun Aussie story featuring two characters who have to decide if their attraction and common faith is enough to overcome the obstacles in their way. I did have to question the sanity and intelligence of one of the characters: surely no normal person would call a snake ‘pretty’! (However, it did provide the hero with an early opportunity to be a hero.

It’s a short story, but a fun easy read for a bright summer day (or a long winter night).

Thanks to Narelle Atkins for providing a free ebook for review. Disclosure: I edited Bridesmaid’s Hero, so there might be a slight element of bias in my review . . . This review previously appeared at Iola’s Christian Reads.

30 March 2016

What Are You Reading?

What were you reading in March?

What Christian fiction have you been reading over the last month? And what are you planning to read in April? Here are my recommended reads from March, and what I’ll be reading in April.

The best novels I’ve read over the last month were:

Step by Step by Candace Calvert (click here to read my review at Suspense Sisters Reviews)
The Hearts we Mend by Kathryn Springer (click here to read my review)
The Pounamu Prophecy by Cindy Williams (click here to read my review)
Hidden by Vannetta Chapman (click here to read my review at Reality Calling)

I’m looking forward to my April reads: I’ve got Close to You, the debut novel from Kiwi author Kara Isaac (great to see something set in my part of the world!), as well as some mysteries and a family drama, Breaking Free by Jennifer Slattery.

What were the best novels you read in March? And what are you planning to read in April?

27 March 2016

Book Review: I Always Cry at Weddings by Sara Goff

If you’ve signed up for my monthly Newsletter, you’ll already have receive my entirely biased list of 50 novels from my favourite Christian authors. If you haven’t . . . sign up on the right! Today I’m reviewing I Always Cry at Weddings, the debut novel from New York author Sara Goff.

I Always Cry at Weddings by Sara Goff

Ava Larson is a lapsed Christian who’s about to marry her long-term boyfriend in what his family hope will be the New York wedding of the year when she realises the relationship is over. That you can’t marry someone “for the guests and the gifts”. Or for his mother. But disestablishing an over-the-top wedding is expensive, and Ava is left with bills even her high-end fashion job can’t pay for.

Now alone, Ava has to decide what she wants out of life, which leads to her making new choices, some good and some bad. It’s an edgier plot—Ava hasn’t lived the perfect Christian life—but that’s what makes it real. She’s an excellent character because she doesn’t make all the best choices and she doesn’t know all the answers. It isn’t “typical” Christian fiction. There are no Amish, no almost-perfect characters, no people living in happy-happy land, and the only church is the home base of a soup kitchen ministering to Manhattan’s down-and-out, not more pot-luck dinner in a small-town family fellowship.

But it’s real. Excellent characters with plenty of growth, a strong plot from an author who brings the location and the people alive, and an understated Christian message. Excellent reading, recommended for fans of Sally Bradley, Beth Moran and other authors of atypical Christian fiction. I’ll be watching for Sara’s next novel.

You can find out more about Sara Goff at her website (www.saragoff.com), and you can read the beginning of I Always Cry at Weddings here:

19 March 2016

Book Review: Kept by Sally Bradley

Kept by Sally Bradley

If you’ve signed up for my monthly Newsletter, you’ll already have receive my entirely biased list of 50 novels from my favourite Christian authors. Today I’m reviewing Kept by Sally Bradley, another edgy contemporary Christian romance novel, set in Chicago. This review previously appeared on my personal review blog, Iola’s Christian Reads.

I first saw Kept reviewed by Rel Mollet of Relz Reviews. Like me, Rel is tired of reading Christian novels which have the same feel as every other Christian novel. We’re looking for something real, something different, but something which still affirms our Christian faith. Rel raved about Kept, and while I bought it immediately, it’s taken me a while to get around to reading it. I kept (ha ha) hearing good things about it from people whose opinions I respected, and I started to wonder … could it really be that good? Or was I setting myself up for disappointment?

Well, Kept really is that good.

Kept isn’t perfect. There was one amusing typo (a segue is a change of topic in conversation; the two-wheeled ride-on has the same pronunciation, but it’s a Segway. Silly name, if you ask me). There was one scene from the point of view of a minor character that didn’t seem to add anything to the plot (and in hindsight, could have been eliminated), and there were a couple of minor plot points that didn’t make sense (maybe they’ll make more sense on the re-read). And there were times when I would have liked to better understand what was going on inside Dillan’s head. He plain didn’t make sense at times.

Of course, he’s a man, so that could explain things.

Those details aside, Kept clocks up a number of achievements that rate highly with me. She’s managed something completely original—a story about a kept woman, a euphemism for a high-class prostitute—yet it’s unashamedly a Christian novel, a story of forgiveness and redemption that reminded me of Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers. The writing is excellent, and manages to cover some gritty ground without ever spelling out the ugly details.

Sally Bradley has created a cast of likeable characters who feel true to live, even in their failings. Dillan, at “six foot thirteen”, is a complete klutz, which perhaps forces him to cultivate a friendship with Miska even when he’d rather avoid her. His brother, Garrett, is a loveable lawyer with a past he’s still trying to get over.

Miska is complex. At first she comes across as the sweet girl-next-door—until we begin to get to know a bit more about her, and realise she’s caught up in the oldest profession, and telling herself the biggest lie: that he’ll leave his wife for her. One day. It’s never exactly explained how she became a kept woman, but we see enough of her background to realise it’s a logical progression, and that she feels no qualms for taking the men in her life for everything she can get. After all, that’s all men have ever done to her.

Miska’s scenes showed how good the writing was, because I was completely engaged in her character. She’s an intelligent woman who does dumb, DUMB, things when it comes to men, and there were times I wanted to give her a good shake. Dillan and Garrett were similar, and even at the end I was thinking that Dillan needs to get over himself, while Garrett just needs to get his head examined. They were frustrating, but in a good way—like a teenage daughter.

Their actions might be annoying, but you love them anyway.

Yes, that pretty much sums up Kept. Recommended for those who want something real in their Christian fiction.

You can find out more about Sally Bradley at her website.

12 March 2016

Book Review: Jaded by Varina Denman

If you’ve signed up for my monthly Newsletter, you’ll already have receive my entirely biased list of 50 novels from my favourite Christian authors. Today I’m reviewing Jaded by Varina Denman, a debut contemporary Christian romance novel with a difference, this one set in small-town Texas. This review previously appeared on my personal review blog, Iola’s Christian Reads.

Jaded by Varina Demnan

I passed on this book when I first saw it available for review. The cover looked boring, as though it was about the Amish, or perhaps their Mennonite cousins. The blurb didn’t attract me, although it did make it clear that the book was set in small-town Texas, with no Amish or Mennonites in sight.

It looked boring.

But then reviews started coming through, specifically a review from Andrea Grigg. She raved about Jaded … which convinced me that maybe I’d misjudged Jaded, and persuaded me I had to read it (and I’d missed the opportunity to get a review copy, so I actually had to BUY this one!)

I admit that at first I wondered what Andrea was so excited by. Ruthie Turner hates church and works two jobs to support herself and her depressed mother and desperately wants to escape the tiny Texas town of Trapp (although I didn’t pick up on that obvious pun while I was reading). Dodd Turner is the new high school maths teacher, and the new town preacher. The teaching job puts him in regular contact with Ruthie, who he is attracted to but who will barely give him the time of day.

It all seemed a bit mundane and annoying. Ruthie annoyed me because I couldn’t see why she didn’t just up and leave (if she can get two jobs in a town as small as Trapp, surely she can get a job anywhere). The people of the town of Trapp annoyed me because of their small-minded attitudes. And the people of the Trapp church especially annoyed me, for their judgemental and ignorant attitudes (they probably believe King James wrote the Bible).

Excellent contemporary CHristian Romance

But I persevered because the writing was excellent. It mixed first person (Ruthie) and third person (Dodd), which is something I’ve seen more novels fail at than succeed at. Once I got past the initial glitch that Jaded was written in both first and third person, both points of view flowed well. Ruthie was a particularly strong viewpoint character: I didn’t necessarily like her, but she had an engaging way with words:

“My uncle was pushing seventy and moved slower than a horned lizard on a cold day.”

Great image.

“I thought how nice it would be to keep inching back, crawling to a place where memories couldn’t meet me.”

That evokes an emotional response, a feeling of recognition. It’s strong writing.

“Loneliness floated over me like a snowdrift. Loneliness so thick I could smell it. Taste it. Hear it. Not even why my daddy left had I felt anything like it. Not even when the church shunned us. Not even when Momma became a ghost.”

Wow. One paragraph manages to pack in Ruthie’s entire backstory as well as several rounds of emotional punches. If only every novel I read had such good lines.

But it’s one thing to say the writing was strong. Great writing is nothing without a good story and engaging characters. And it took a while, but I did eventually connect with Ruthie and the other characters, perhaps a quarter of the way through. After that, I didn’t want to put the book down. It was that good. The writing may have pulled me in, but it was the characters who kept me there. I’ve since read the sequel, Justified, and it was just as good. Now I’m waiting for the third book in the trilogy.

Thanks, Andrea. I really needed more books on my to-read pile.

5 March 2016

Book Recommendation: Making Marion by Beth Moran

Making Marion by Beth Moran

An Outstanding Contemporary Christian Romance Novel

If you’ve signed up for my monthly Newsletter, you’ll already have receive my entirely biased list of 50 novels from my favourite Christian authors. Today I’m reviewing Making Marion by Beth Moran, a contemporary Christian romance novel I enjoyed for the characters, the writing, and the memories of living in England. This review previously appeared on my reviewing blog, Iola’s Christian Reads.

Book Description

(from the back cover, as there doesn’t seem to be a description on Amazon)

Where’s Robin Hood when you need him?

Marion Miller comes to Sherwood Forest to uncover her father’s mysterious past. She is looking for somewhere to stay, but instead finds herself on the wrong side of the reception desk at the Peace and Pigs campsite. Despite her horrible shyness, she promptly lands herself a job working for the big-hearted and irrepressible Scarlett.

It takes all of Marion’s determination to come out of her shell and get to grips with life on a busy campsite, where even the chickens seem determined to thwart her. Then an unfortunate incident with a runaway bike throws her into the arms of the beautiful, but deeply unimpressed, Reuben.

Can Marion discover her father’s secret? And will she find peace, and perhaps even love, among the pigs?

My Review

Making Marion isn’t a novel for the ultra-conservative Christian reader. It has a distinctly British flavour in terms of language, content, and plot. Marion has a lot of issues in her past, and these are addressed through humour (like Bridget Jones) rather than angst (as used by, say, Karen Kingsbury). I found the sometimes irreverent humour made the hard parts easier to read, but some readers might find that same humour to be disrespectful or offensive.

The plot was good, and the characters, especially Marion and Scarlett were excellent, and the writing was probably the best I’ve come across from a British author, with a subtle theme of love and forgiveness. The present story was regularly interspersed with flashbacks to Marion’s past, which showed us something of the events which had shaped her, and how much she had to forgive.

Recommended for those looking for the depth of Sally Bradley and Varina Denman with the humour of Bridget Jones.