Tag: Women’s Fiction

First Line Friday

First Line Friday | Week #236 | Under the Magnolias by T I Lowe

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 Magnolias by T I Lowe, a new-to-me author.

Here’s the first line from the Chapter One:

At eighty feet tall with a spread of forty feet, the southern magnolia was known to get out of hand in our part of South Carolina.

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

About Under the Magnolias

Austin Foster is barely a teenager when her mama dies giving birth to twins, leaving her to pick up the pieces while holding her six siblings together and doing her best to stop her daddy from retreating into his personal darkness.

Scratching out a living on the family’s tobacco farm is as tough as it gets. When a few random acts of kindness help to ease the Fosters’ hardships, Austin finds herself relying upon some of Magnolia’s most colorful citizens for friendship and more. But it’s next to impossible to hide the truth about the goings-on at Nolia Farms, and Austin’s desperate attempts to save face all but break her.

Just when it seems she might have something more waiting for her—with the son of a wealthy local family who she’s crushed on for years—her father makes a choice that will crack wide-open the family’s secrets and lead to a public reckoning. There are consequences for loving a boy like Vance Cumberland, but there is also freedom in the truth.

T. I. Lowe’s gritty yet tender and uplifting tale reminds us that a great story can break your heart . . . then heal it in the best possible way.

You can find Under the Magnolias online at:

Amazon | BookBub | ChristianBook | Goodreads | Koorong

Click here to check out what my fabulous fellow FirstLineFriday bloggers are sharing today.

And you can click here to check out my previous FirstLineFriday posts.

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

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

Book Review | Feathers of Hope by Sharon Garlough Brown

Feathers of Hope is the story of three women: Katherine Rhodes, the preacher who is about to retire from her role as director of the New Hope Retreat Center, Wren Crawford, her great-niece, an artist and social worker turned cleaner, and Sarah, Katherine’s daughter and the mother of two teenage girls. It’s a novel about relationships: the relationships between the characters, and their relationships with God.

This is the first book I’ve read by Sharon Garlough Brown, although I’ve often seen her novels recommended as novels with solid Christian content and spiritual depth, and I have to agree with that assessment.

Brown’s characters follow Biblical Christianity, not the me-me-me self-help variety often portrayed in the media. It’s both challenging and refreshing.

I especially liked the way feathers of Hope addressed some difficult issues that aren’t often addressed in Christian fiction, issues like mental health, women preachers, and racism inside and outside the church. They are all big issues with no easy answer, ant it was refreshing to see them tackled fairly, but without trying to find an answer for the unanswerable.

Feathers of Hope by Sharon Garlough Brown is a refreshing yet challenging novel, Christian fiction with depth and truth. #BookReview #ChristianFiction Share on X

Feathers of Hope is the third book in the Shades of Light series, following Shades of light and Remember Me. I do recommend reading the series in order. I didn’t – I haven’t read either of the other books, and I found the early part of the story difficult because I didn’t know the characters or understand the relationships between them.

(I’ve just found Shades of Light on my Kindle. Oops. But guess what’ I’ll be reading next?)

Recommended for Christians who want to read Christian fiction with depth and truth.

Thanks to InterVarsity Press and NetGalley for providing a  free ebook for review.

About Sharon Garlough Brown

Sharon Garlough BrownSharon Garlough Brown is an author, spiritual director, and retreat leader who is passionate about shepherding others deep into the love of God. She and her husband, Jack, have served congregations in Scotland, Oklahoma, England, and West Michigan, and currently direct Abiding Way Ministries, providing spiritual formation retreats and resources. Sharon enjoys all things British–especially tea–and loves when her son says, “Mom, would you like me to put the kettle on?”

Find Sharon Garlough Brown online at:

Website | Facebook | Instagram

About Feathers of Hope

In a season of loss and change, Wren Crawford and her great-aunt, Katherine Rhodes, share the journey as companions in sorrow and hope. As Katherine prepares to retire as the director of the New Hope Retreat Center, she faces both personal and professional challenges―especially after the arrival of the board’s candidate to replace her. Not only must she confront more unresolved grief from her past, but she’s invited to embrace painful and unsettling insights about her own blind spots. How might disruption become a gift that opens the way to new growth?

Wren’s world is shifting and expanding as she presses forward in recovery from a period of deep depression. Still processing open questions around the death of her best friend, Casey, Wren stewards her grief by offering compassionate care to the residents of the nursing home where she now works. But the shedding of her old life is exhausting―especially as she doesn’t yet see what new life will emerge. How might art continue to provide a pathway for deepening her awareness of God’s presence with her?

In this sequel to Shades of Light and Remember Me, fans of the Sensible Shoes series will not only be able to attend Katherine’s final retreat sessions at New Hope but also encounter old and new friends along the way.

You can find Feathers of Hope online at:

Amazon | BookBub | ChristianBook | Goodreads | Koorong

First Line Friday

First Line Friday | Week 232 | Feathers of Hope by Sharon Garlough Brown

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 Feathers of Hope by Sharon Garlough Brown, the third book in the Shades of Light series. Here’s the first line from the Chapter One:

When the cardinal landed at their bird feeder early that morning, its eyes bulging, its head stripped of red crest feathers, leaving it black and bald, Wren Crawford was sure the poor creature was either sick or wounded.

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

About Feathers of Hope

In a season of loss and change, Wren Crawford and her great-aunt, Katherine Rhodes, share the journey as companions in sorrow and hope. As Katherine prepares to retire as the director of the New Hope Retreat Center, she faces both personal and professional challenges―especially after the arrival of the board’s candidate to replace her. Not only must she confront more unresolved grief from her past, but she’s invited to embrace painful and unsettling insights about her own blind spots. How might disruption become a gift that opens the way to new growth?

Wren’s world is shifting and expanding as she presses forward in recovery from a period of deep depression. Still processing open questions around the death of her best friend, Casey, Wren stewards her grief by offering compassionate care to the residents of the nursing home where she now works. But the shedding of her old life is exhausting―especially as she doesn’t yet see what new life will emerge. How might art continue to provide a pathway for deepening her awareness of God’s presence with her?

In this sequel to Shades of Light and Remember Me, fans of the Sensible Shoes series will not only be able to attend Katherine’s final retreat sessions at New Hope but also encounter old and new friends along the way.

You can find Feathers of Hope online at:

Amazon | BookBub | ChristianBook | Goodreads | Koorong

Click here to check out what my fabulous fellow FirstLineFriday bloggers are sharing today.

And you can click here to check out my previous FirstLineFriday posts.

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

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

If God is real, then he's in this with me and it'll all work out. I can feel it.

Book Review | My Heart Went Walking by Sally Hanan

Una Gallagher is seventeen and pregnant, the result of a single drunken night with the best friend she’s fancied forever. But she can’t tell Cullen he’s going to be a father. They’re in their final year of school, and he’ll feel honour-bound to do the right thing and marry her and work two jobs to keep them, and that will be the end of his dreams.

Una knows she wants to keep her baby.

So when Mam says she has to go and live with the nuns then give her baby up for adoption, she runs away from her tiny home town of Donegal and heads to Dublin, the big city. There she meets an Anglican minister who helps her find a home and a job, and is able to create a new life. But that leaves her family and best friend back in Donegal, trying to work out why she left and where she’s gone.

My Heart Went Walking starts in 1983, and is set entirely in Ireland.

I loved the setting, and I especially loved the way the Irish accents came through in the character’s vocabulary and even the way they talk and think. (There is an extensive glossary for those who aren’t familiar with Irish colloqualisms.)

I loved the realism of the story, the way Una compounds one bad decision (to get drunk) with another (to sleep with Cullen) and another (to run away rather than be forever seen as “that girl” in her small town home). As the oldest daughter in a large Irish family, she knew more than most first-time mothers do about childrearing, even if she was only a teenager.

The story was told in first person from three points of view: Una, Cullen, and Ellie (Una’s next-youngest sister, only eighteen months younger). Una and Cullen both have strong and unique character voices, and that’s much of the strength of the novel. If I had one complaint, it was that Ellie’s voice was too similar to Una’s, and I sometimes confused the two.

Sally Hanan is a Christian writer, but I wouldn’t classify My Heart Went Walking as Christian fiction.

The strength—that’s the novel is authentically Irish—means the language is a little too raw for the more conservative ends of the Christian market. And while the tagline is “An Irish tale of love, loss, and redemption”, the redemption isn’t a come-to-Jesus type of redemption. It’s more subtle, which fits with the characters, the setting, and the time. It feels all the more authentic for not being obvious.

Finally, despite the fact the main character is a teenager, I wouldn’t class this as Young Adult fiction. Sure, teenagers could read it and may well enjoy it. But I think the true fans are going to be women who remember being teenagers in the eighties (or perhaps nineties), in a time before Facebook and mobile phones, a time when running away to the big city so your family wouldn’t find you was entirely possible and believable.

Writers …

If you’ve ever wondered how to use vocabulary and sentence structure to construct realistic dialogue without resorting to nonstandard spelling to show accents, read this book as a text.

Readers …

If you’re a fan of Irish authors such as Maeve Binchy or you’re looking for fiction with underlying Christian values but which steps outside the boundaries of most modern Christian fiction, I think you might enjoy When My Heart Went Walking.

Thanks to Fire Drinkers Publishing and NetGalley for providing a free ebook for review.

About Sally Hanan

Sally Hanan grew up in Ireland and became a nurse, but she left all the big family dinners, rain, and cups of tea when she and her husband won a green card lottery and moved to Texas. Her family now raised, she works as a book editor and occasional lay counselor and life coach. Sally lives near Austin, Texas, in a gorgeous 1930s home with her hunk of burning love husband and their spoiled-rotten doggie.Also a writer of flash fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, she has won numerous awards for her writing from publishers like iParenting magazine and Faithwriters.

Find Sally Hanan online at:

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About My Heart Went Walking

“I can’t bear to keep walking. But you can’t keep a secret in this town unless you leave with it.”

Kept apart by their love for one man, two sisters embark on their own paths towards survival, love, and understanding, until they finally meet again in the worst of circumstances. And the reality might break them all.

My Heart Went Walking is a heartbreakingly beautiful novel that sweeps from the small Irish town of Donegal to the “big smoke” of Dublin City; a book that celebrates the pull of family and the chance of redemption. It is a novel for everyone who feels connected to the Irish approach to life—that of grit and laughter—and also for everyone who loves an overriding message of hope and restoration in all things.

Find My Heart Went Walking online at:

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

Read the introduction to My Heart Went Walking below:

Novels are about looking through someone else's eyes,seeing what someone else sees when they look at the world.

Book Review | The Girl Who Could Breathe Under Water by Erin Bartells

I am not a fan of novels about novelists. It feels a little self-serving … and do we trust them to tell the truth? Is being a writer really like writers portray their profession in fiction? I think not.

But I am a fan of Erin Bartels. I thought The Words Between Us was absolutely brilliant, so when I saw The Girl Who Could Breathe Under Water available as a review copy, I immediately clicked. With that title and that cover image, wouldn’t you?

Then I read the book description and I wasn’t so sure:

The best fiction simply tells the truth.
But the truth is never simple.

When novelist Kendra Brennan moves into her grandfather’s old cabin on Hidden Lake, she has a problem and a plan. The problem? An inflammatory letter from A Very Disappointed Reader. The plan? To confront Tyler, her childhood best friend’s brother–and the man who inspired the antagonist in her first book. If she can prove that she told the truth about what happened during those long-ago summers, perhaps she can put the letter’s claims to rest and meet the swiftly approaching deadline for her next book.

But what she discovers as she delves into the murky past is not what she expected. While facing Tyler isn’t easy, facing the consequences of her failed friendship with his sister, Cami, may be the hardest thing she’s ever had to do.

Plumb the depths of the human heart with this emotional exploration of how a friendship dies, how we can face the unforgivable, and how even those who have been hurt can learn to love with abandon.

But I gave it a go because, well, Erin Bartels. And that cover. And the title.

And I’m glad I did.

The Girl Who Could Breathe Under Water was brilliant. It’s a compelling story about a wounded character who doesn’t give up her secrets easily, or the secrets she knows about other people. It’s a multi-layered story that is good on the outside and even better underneath. It’s a (mostly) made-up story that rings true because it’s anchored in truth, in the way real people think and feel and act.

It’s a story that reminds us that our truth is not the only truth, and reminds us that our past makes our present, and sometimes we have o to overcome that past in order to have a future.

What it isn’t is “classic” Christian fiction with nice Christian characters who pray and read their Bibles and go to church. But it is a powerful examination of truth, and it’s a story you won’t soon forget.

Thanks to Revell and NetGalley for providing a free ebook for review.

About Erin Bartels

Erin BartelsErin Bartels is the award-winning author of We Hope for Better Things, The Words between Us, All That We Carried, and The Girl Who Could Breathe Under Water (coming January 2022). Her short story “This Elegant Ruin” was a finalist in The Saturday Evening Post 2014 Great American Fiction Contest and her poetry has been published by The Lyric. She lives in the capital city of a state that is 40% water, nestled somewhere between angry protesters on the Capitol lawn and couch-burning frat boys at Michigan State University. And yet, she claims it is really quite peaceful.

You can find The Girl Who Could Breathe Under Water online at:

Amazon | BookBub | ChristianBook | Goodreads | Koorong

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

First Line Friday

First Line Friday #211 | A Promise to Remember by Kathryn Cushman

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 A Promise to Remember by Kathryn Cushman, another new-to-me author. Here’s the first line from the Chapter One:

Andie Phelps could not put the brush to the canvas. The blue paint seemed wrong against the sable bristles.

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

 

About A Promise to Remember

When a car accident kills two teens from opposite sides of the tracks, the aftermath threatens to tear a community apart. On one side, Melanie Johnston–a grieving single mother–is convinced her son will be forgotten. On the other is Andie Phelps, a reserved woman who retreats even further into herself with grief.

Readers’ emotions are torn between these two sympathetic characters as each fights her way through grief and pain–sometimes wisely and sometimes with choices that have the power to divide family, church, and even their small, sea-side town.

You can find A Promise to Remember online at:

Amazon | BookBub | ChristianBook | Goodreads | Koorong

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

First Line Fridays hosted by Hoarding Books

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!

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

Bookish Question #197 | What’s Your Favourite Christian Fiction Genre?

What’s your favourite Christian fiction genre?

In the past, I would have said romance – specifically, contemporary romance. I may have backed that up with a fondness for historical romance (especially Regency romance), with a few romantic suspense novels thrown in for variety.

But my reading habits have changed somewhat.

I find myself veering towards women’s fiction, and towards historical romance where the romance isn’t the major plot point. (I don’t know if that means it’s still historical romance, or whether it’s then historical fiction with a romance subplot).

Perhaps it’s my reaction to this strange and politicised world we live in, but I’m becoming more interested in novels where characters explore deep and difficult issues. Don’t get me wrong: there is definitely a place for light and fluffy romances which are pure entertainment. But we (I) sometimes want to read something with a little more depth. And that can be harder to find.

So I’m reading historical fiction from authors like Elizabeth Camden, Fiona Veitch Smith, and Sarah Sundin. Novels that teach us something about history and how we got to where we are.

I’m also reading women’s fiction (and some contemporary romance) that shows a deeper kind of faith, one that focuses on love for the unbeliever and showing that love through acceptance and positive action – helping them, not berating them. Fiction that shows the church as it should be …

What about you? What’s your favourite Christian fiction genre? Why?

First Line Friday

First Line Friday | Week 204 | Straight Up by Lisa Samson

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 Straight Up by Lisa Samson, a book that’s been on my physical to-read pile for a while. Here’s the first line from the Chapter One:

Why are wine velvet curtains, soft carpets, and mellow lighting reserved for the dead?
Well, that’s going to keep me reading!

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

About Straight Up

They are living lives they were never meant to live.

Georgia Bishop, a could-be jazz great, has thrown away her life, her marriage, and her talent for her drinking habit. Her cousin, Fairly Godfrey, is living the good life in New York but wonders if deeper meaning exists beyond the superficial world in which she finds herself.

It takes a Congo refugee, a soul food chef, a persistent husband, and one desperate night on the brink of freedom for Georgia and Fairly to realize how far they have come from their God-given purposes. When they face the most difficult choices of their lives, only the power of grace can bring them to true healing.

You can find Straight Up online at:

This was originally published in 2011, so you’re probably not going to be able to find a paper copy unless you’re in a second-hand bookstore or visiting a charity book sale (which is where I found my paper copy).

Amazon | BookBub | ChristianBook | Goodreads | Koorong

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

 

First Line Fridays hosted by Hoarding Books



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!

First Line Friday

First Line Friday | Week 157 | The Promised Land by Elizabeth Musser

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 Promised Land by Elizabeth Musser. Here’s the first line from the Chapter One:

I have spent twenty years carefully stitching my family's life together, so when it suddenly starts to unravel I find myself in a tangled knot of anxiety.

Elizabeth Musser is a must-read author for me, and the fact this novel features the Camino brought it to the top of my to-read pile!

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

 

About The Promised Land

With her oldest son taking a gap year in Europe, her aging father losing his sight and his memory, and her husband of twenty years announcing that he’s leaving her, Abbie Bartholomew Jowett is surrounded by overwhelming loss.

Desperate to mend her marriage and herself, she follows her son, Bobby, to walk the famed Camino pilgrimage. During their journey they encounter Rasa, an Iranian woman working in secret helping other refugees, and Caroline, a journalist who is studying pilgrims on the Camino while searching for answers from her broken past.

Each individual has their own reasons for the pilgrimage, but together they learn that the Camino strips you bare and calls you into deep soul-searching that can threaten all your best laid plans.

You can find The Promised Land online at:

Amazon | BookBub | ChristianBook | Goodreads | Koorong

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

First Line Fridays hosted by Hoarding Books

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!

Who is your favourite Christian women's fiction author?

Bookish Question #132 | Who is your favourite Christian women’s fiction author?

Who is your favourite Christian women’s fiction author? What do you like most about his/her books?

This is a tough question to answer, as I swing between loving romance and loving women’s fiction the most. I love romance—especially Christian romance—because romance is the literature of hope (so says Damon Suede) and as Christians, our hope is in Jesus.

And whether general market romance readers and writers believe it or not, genuine romance is an allegory of our Christian faith, with us as Jesus’s bride.

But I also love women’s fiction, perhaps because a lot of the romances I read (even those from Christian publishers) have plenty of romance but don’t explicitly mention God … which seems like they’re missing a big chunk of that threefold cord Ecclesiastes speaks of.

While women’s fiction can and often does have romantic elements, the focus is more on the main character’s growth as a person.

That growth is often their spiritual growth, or their observations about the spiritual growth of those around them. As a result, women’s fiction often has more obvious Christian themes, and more direct observations about faith and Christian life.

My favourite Christian women’s fiction author is Elizabeth Musser, author of titles such as The Long Highway Home (click here to read my review) and When I Close My Eyes (which I’ve just finished—my review will post soon).

But she’s only my current favourite.

Last week, my favourite was Catherine West (who is a 2019 Carol Award winner and Christy Award finalist for Where Hope Begins). Last month, my favourite was Christine Dillon, author of the Grace series (and book two in the series, Grace in the Shadows, won the 2019 CALEB Award from Omega Writers).

Why do I like these authors?

I think the main reason is that they are not afraid to shy away from the hard questions in life and faith. When I Close My Eyes by Elizabeth Musser deals with mental illness, and with how far a parent will go to save their child. Where Hope Begins by Catherine West covered marital infidelity and the death of a child. Grace in Strange Disguise by Christine Dillon challenges readers to have full faith and trust in Jesus, not just a Sunday faith.

I enjoy their stories because they are good stories that are well-written and encouraging, but they are also stories which challenge me to think. In a world where so much entertainment is surface-level only, it’s important to think.

What about you? Who is your favourite Christian women’s fiction author?