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Peace and Plenty

Author: Sarah Ban Breathnach
Hardcover: 448 pages
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
(December 29, 2010)
ISBN-10: 0446561746

Book Description:

"When money is plentiful, this is a man's world. When money is scarce, it is a woman's world." Unearthed in a 1932 Ladies Home Journal, this quote is the call to arms that begins PEACE AND PLENTY, Sarah Ban Breathnach's answer to the world's-- and her own personal-- financial crisis.

As only Ban Breathnach can, she culls together this compendium of advice, deeply personal anecdotes, and excerpts from magazines, books, and newspapers-- particularly those of the Great Depression-- to inspire readers who are mired in today's financial difficulties. Focusing on her own personal path, Sarah Ban Breathnach will relate never-before revealed details about how she fell from the financial top to the bottom.

Readers will immediately see how deeply she understands the plight of those trying to maintain a happy and comfortable home, while at the same time not even knowing if they will be able to make the mortgage to keep that home.

Sarah has proved to be the voice of comfort for years to women who are spiritually bankrupt, and now she will reach to those who are financially strapped, showing them how to pull themselves out of their psychic and fiscal crises while providing deep comfort and reassurance throughout.

My Review:

I came to be a devotee of author Sarah Ban Breathnach several year ago after reading Simple Abundance. In fact, I gave it to many of my friends. Now Sarah once again shares, with women, her vast store of wisdom and knowledge-- this time it's about money and how to gain financial peace. As she tells us about her own personal struggles, we relate to how important financial security is to our future happiness.

Well-written and down-to-earth, this book is a lesson from the pen of one who has been there. It gives sound advice on how to get out of financial hell, and maintain a life free of money worries.

(Thank you to Hachette BookGroup for my review copy.)

The Homestyle Amish Kitchen Cookbook

Author: Georgia Varozza

Spiral-bound: 272 pages
Publisher: Harvest House Publishers

(March 1, 2010)
ISBN-10: 0736928588

Book Description:

Just about everyone is fascinated by the Amish—their simple, family-centered lifestyle, colorful quilts, and hearty, homemade meals. Straight from the heart of Amish country, this celebration of hearth and home will delight readers with the pleasures of the family table as they take a peek at the Amish way of life—a life filled with the self-reliance and peace of mind that many of us long for.

Readers will appreciate the scores of tasty, easy-to-prepare recipes such as Scrapple, Graham “Nuts” Cereal, Potato Rivvell Soup, Amish Dressing, and Snitz Pie. At the same time they’ll learn a bit about the Amish, savor interesting tidbits from the “Amish Kitchen Wisdom” sections, find out just how much food it takes to feed the large number of folks attending preaching services, barn raisings, weddings, and work frolics, and much more.

The Homestyle Amish Kitchen Cookbook is filled with good, old-fashioned family meal ideas to help bring the simple life home!

My Review:

I am absolutely delighted to have received this beautiful Amish cookbook for review! Immediately after opening it, I found it to have, not only delicious recipes, but also inspirational prayers, scriptures, and tips on both cooking and gardening. It also gives insight into the simple Amish way of life.

Coming from a background of homemaking and cooking for a large family, I at once identified with the spirit of home and family that The Amish Kitchen Cookbook encompasses. It is beautiful not only in format, but in Amish wisdom as well. It surpassed my expectations and will have a special place in my cookbook collection. Definitely 5 stars *****for this one!

(Thank you to Harvest House Publishers for my review copy!)

Christmas Mourning / Review

Author: Margaret Maron
Hardcover: 304 pages
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
(November 5, 2010)
ISBN-10: 0446555800

Book Description...
It's Christmas in rural North Carolina's Colleton County and Judge Deborah Knott is looking forward to a family celebration when a tragedy clouds the holiday season. A beautiful young cheerleader dies in a car crash and the community is devastated by her death. Sheriff's Deputy Dwight Bryant soon learns that her death was not a simple accident, and more lives may be lost unless he and Deborah can discover why she died.

About the Author...
Margaret Maron grew up on a farm near Raleigh and lived in Brooklyn for many years. Returning to her North Carolina roots prompted Margaret to write a series based on her own background, the first of which, BOOTLEGGER'S DAUGHTER, was a Washington Post bestseller and swept the major mystery awards for 1993. CHRISTMAS MOURNING is the sixteenth book in the acclaimed Deborah Knott series. Visit her website at http://www.margaretmaron.com/.

(Thank you to Hachette Book Group for my review copy.)

Old Border Road / Review

Author: Susan Froderberg
Hardcover: 304 pages
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
(December 9, 2010)
ISBN-10: 0316098779

Book Description:
Katherine is 17, living alone in the beautiful, desolate landscape of southern Arizona. Her mother is feckless, her father busy with his new family. Meeting Son, the scion of a local rancher, seems like deliverance. They marry and live as a family in his parents' venerable adobe house, but it soon becomes clear that Son is a man who, as his father says, has a "young heart near withered beneath the breastbone."

Katherine must find her own way during a dangerous months-long drought, when everything seems to be disintegrating around her. Susan Froderberg's incantatory language--and her deep knowledge of both the complexities of a small, deeply-rooted place and the human heart--make OLD BORDER ROAD soar.

My Review:
Ms. Froderberg's poetic writing style makes this a worthwhile read.

(Thank you to Hachette Book Group for my review copy.)

More Make It Fast, Cook It Slow / Review

Author: Stephanie O'Dea
Paperback: 320 pages
Publisher: Hyperion
(December 28, 2010)
ISBN-10: 1401310389

Book Description:

The New York Times bestselling author of slow-cooker cookbook Make It Fast, Cook It Slow returns with budget (and gluten-free!) meals that will satisfy the entire family.

Stephanie O'Dea's 200 delicious recipes include:
* Baked Herbed Feta * Smoky Bean and Corn Soup * Maple-Glazed Pork Chops * Moroccan Chicken with Lentils * Apple-Pecan Bread Pudding * Orange and Honey Tilapia * Chocolate Pot de Crème with Ganache
--and many more. More Make It Fast, Cook It Slow is the perfect cookbook for easy-to-prepare meals that don't take a toll on the family budget.

My Review:

I loved Make It Fast, Cook It Slow and find More Make It Fast, Cook It Slow to be even better than the last. My daughter looked through it last night and now wants a copy of her own! The recipes seem simple to make, with a down-home quality. I look forward to many good dishes from the recipes in this great cookbook. Certainly 5 stars*****

(Thank you to the author for my review copy!!)

Power to Reinvent Yourself / Review

Author: Jason Frenn
Hardcover: 288 pages
Publisher: FaithWords
(October 13, 2010)
ISBN-10: 0446546224

Book Description:
Evangelist and author Jason Frenn details five steps accessing Christ's power to break the chains of destructive patterns that afflict generation after generation. Many families suffer from dysfunction and conflict handed down from one generation to the next, and the cycle repeats itself with greater and greater severity. Parents struggle to keep their families from eroding as they helplessly watch their kids, teenagers, and adult children fall into overwhelming patterns of self-destruction. But there is a power that can set these families free and change their future.

In this book, readers experience the story of the author and his family, and how he was rescued from destruction. Each reader can find the POWER TO REINVENT YOURSELF and obtain a life of significance, success, and victory!

My Review:
Power to Reinvent Yourself is a book that helps the reader understand the power of Christ in their everyday life and shows us how to break the habit of self-destruction.

Chapters include: Discover You Why; Change Your Perceptions; Break the Cycle of Destructive Behavior; Form Godly Habits; Choose to Forgive; Overcome with the Help of Others; Unleash Real Power in Your Life; and questions for reflection and group discussion.

(Thank you to Hachette Book Group for my review copy.)

Sweetie / Review

Author: Kathryn Magendie
Paperback: 216 pages
Publisher: Bell Bridge Books
(November 1, 2010)
ISBN-10: 1935661914

Book Description:
For shy, stuttering Melissa, the wild mountain girl named Sweetie is a symbol of pride and strength. But to many in their Appalachian town Sweetie is an outcast, a sinister influence, or worse. This poignant and haunting story takes readers deep inside the bittersweet heart of childhood loyalties.

My Review:
First let me say, author Kathryn Magendie is one of the best new writers around today. She makes the characters come alive on the written page! Now about her newest book, Sweetie: it is the best in southern fiction; emotionally charged; lyrical; charming; unforgettable. I love everything Magendie writes! 5 stars*****

(Thank you to Bellebooks for my review copy!!)

Growing More Beautiful (An Artful Approach To Personal Style) / Review

Author: Jennifer Robin

Perfect Paperback: 224 pages
Publisher: Arteful Press

(February 1, 2008)
ISBN-10: 0981732208

Book Description:

Growing More Beautiful is a lively, buoyant resource for projecting your essence with creativity and flair. Jennifer Robin's paint box of practical tips, inspiring illustrations, helpful worksheets, and fresh personal insights will open your senses to the beauty of both your inner life and outward appearance, and help make getting dressed a daily act of creation. Image consultant, artist, and author, Jennifer Robin ties it all together in this stunning new book that will help you look and feel more beautiful as you grow into the person you were always meant to be. And, the elements of making art touched on in the book, including principles of design, will help with any creative endeavor, whether it's painting or creating an outfit.

With her new book, Growing More Beautiful, artist and image consultant Jennifer Robin has given women a generous, much-needed gift. This is not your basic how-to beauty book. This is a celebration of you. And if you haven't felt much like celebrating when it comes to your own unique beauty, you're in for a wonderful surprise, to say the least. By the time you finish reading, you are likely to feel nothing less than transformed.

Women everywhere can now breathe a sigh of relief: Growing More Beautiful doesn't focus on How to Look Younger. It encourages women to explore and illuminate their unique beauty and style at any age. Artist and Image Consultant Jennifer Robin takes a refreshing approach with expert advice that's both reassuring and generous; her enthusiasm for playing with color, clothing, make-up, and jewelry is downright contagious. Readers will find shopping more accessible, less confusing, and a lot more fun. She has filled her book with gorgeous images, including her own paintings, so that each page is as inspiring to look at as it is to read.

My Review:

The cover of this book compels one to open and enjoy! Filled with gorgeous artwork and photos, Growing More Beautiful inspires even the most plain among us. Every woman who reads it will want to start immediately to become more attractive and captivating, not only on the outside but the inside as well.

Growing More Beautiful is an amazing book that is pure joy to read. It is truly inspirational with lots of ideas on how to dress...

being true to your own personality.

(Thank you to the author for my review copy.)

Blessed Beyond Measure Devotional Journal / Review

Author: Gloria Copeland

Hardcover: 192 pages
Publisher: FaithWords

(October 27, 2010)
ISBN-10: 0446539074

Book Description:

In this BLESSED BEYOND MEASURE Devotional Journal, Gloria Copeland shows readers how to embrace God's goodness and learn to trust Him with every area of their lives. She confirms, "Only by placing our lives in His hands can we open the way for Him to save us, and bless us, and work through us," generating lives of faith, hope, and confidence. Reflective and personal application questions will guide the user of the devotional journal in their personal growth. Space to record thoughts and insights are also provided. This lively journal offers all of that and more, with the expectation that God will use it to help the reader experience all the blessings of the Lord.

My Review:

I found Gloria Copeland's Blessed Beyond Measure Devotional Journal to be an excellent place to record my daily thoughts and Christian walk.

It gives thoughts to ponder, lined blank spaces for writing one's thoughts; suggestions for application; and appropriate scripture verses. As you write your thoughts and prayers in the journal you can look back and review how far you have come on your Christian journey.

Blessed Beyond Measure Devotional Journal is a lovely book which would make a perfect gift.

(Thank you to Hachette Book Group for my review copy.)

The Brave / Review

Author: Nicholas Evans

Hardcover: 368 pages
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company

(October 12, 2010)
ISBN-10: 0316033782

Book Description:

There's little love in eight-year-old Tom Bedford's life. His parents are old and remote and the boarding school they've sent him to bristles with bullies and sadistic staff. The only comfort he gets is from his fantasy world of Cowboys and Indians. But when his sister Diane, a rising star of stage and screen, falls in love with one of his idols, the suave TV cowboy Ray Montane, Tom's life is transformed. They move to Hollywood and all his dreams seem to have come true. Soon, however, the sinister side of Tinseltown casts its shadow and a shocking act of violence changes their lives forever. What happened all those years ago remains a secret that corrodes Tom's life and wrecks his marriage. Only when his estranged son, a US Marine, is charged with murder do the events resurface, forcing him to confront his demons. As he struggles to save his son's life, he will learn the true meaning of bravery.

Powerfully written and intensely moving, The Brave traces the legacy of violence behind the myth of the American West and explores our quest for love and identity, the fallibility of heroes and the devastating effects of family secrets.

My Review:

Many will remember the author's best-selling book "The Horse Whisperer," with fondness. Nicholas Evans fans will find "The Brave" fascinating, as well.

The book starts with young Tom visiting his mother before she is to go to the gas chamber, then moves back and forth with ease, giving us bits of his life and the relationships he struggles with. In the end, Tom, fighting to save the life of his son, Danny, finds courage and reconciliation.

The story is told with skill by a master novelist--bold, complex, engrossing, larger-than-life. I highly recommend "The Brave."

(Thank you to Hachette Book Group for my review copy.)

City of Tranquil Light / Review

Author: Bo Caldwell

Hardcover: 304 pages
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.

(September 28, 2010)
ISBN-10: 0805092285

Book Description:

Will Kiehn is seemingly destined for life as a humble farmer in the Midwest when, having felt a call from God, he travels to the vast North China Plain in the early twentieth-century. There he is surprised by love and weds a strong and determined fellow missionary, Katherine. They soon find themselves witnesses to the crumbling of a more than two-thousand-year-old dynasty that plunges the country into decades of civil war. As the couple works to improve the lives of the people of Kuang P'ing Ch'eng— City of Tranquil Light, a place they come to love—and face incredible hardship, will their faith and relationship be enough to sustain them?
Told through Will and Katherine's alternating viewpoints—and inspired by the lives of the author's maternal grandparents—City of Tranquil Light is a tender and elegiac portrait of a young marriage set against the backdrop of the shifting face of a beautiful but torn nation.

A deeply spiritual book, it shows how those who work to teach others often have the most to learn.

My Review:

This historical novel, inspired by the author's grandparents, takes us on a spiritual journey-- into the lives of two lovers and their experiences within China. Great hardships threaten to destroy a faith that seems unshakable. The story in electric, beautiful, passionate, and tender. Will faith and love survive? 5 stars*****

(Thank you to Henry Holt and Company for my review copy.)

At Witt's End / Review

Author: Beth Solheim
Paperback: 282 pages
Publisher: Echelon Press
(March 1, 2010)
ISBN-10: 159080662X

Book Description:

Things are really bustling at the Witt's End resort in Northern Minnesota. Clients are vying for one of the few remaining rentals, except Cabin 14 thing is no--one gets out of Cabin 14 alive. Sadie isn't your typical sixty-four year old senior citizen. She has things she wants to do and shouldn't be expected to solve a murder while trying to prevent an unscrupulous sheriff's deputy from shutting down the lakeside resort she owns with her straight arrow sister. But that's exactly what Sadie Witt must do. When five guests with hidden agendas arrive at Cabin 14, they're stunned to learn that the flamboyant Sadie is their conduit to the hereafter. Clad in the latest fashion trends--fads typically reserved for those without sagging body parts--and sporting hairdos that make bystanders want to look away but can't, Sadie realizes one of the guests has been murdered and must work against the clock to untangle the web and prevent further mayhem.

My Review:

At Witt's End by Beth Solheim is one of those easy reading, fasting moving, enjoyable books you can't put down. The characters are well-developed, a little quirky, and completely memorable. Definitely a page-turner. 4 stars.

(thank you to the author for my review copy.)

The Confident Woman Devotional / Review

Author: Joyce Meyer
Hardcover: 384 pages
Publisher: FaithWords
(November 22, 2010)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0446568880

Book Description:
THE CONFIDENT WOMAN has sold over 400,000 copies since its publication in 2006 and remains Joyce Meyer's only #1 New York Times bestselling book. It continues to sell an average of over 100,000 copies a year; clearly, she tapped into the concerns and issues that trouble women most. In this devotional, Meyer provides encouragement and tools to help address and resolve problems in an area of life that women struggle with.It is easy to get caught up in what the coming weeks, months or years might hold and forget to slow down and live in the present. This powerful daily devotional will help women on their journey towards a confident life filled with love, laughter and God's acceptance, one day at time.

My Review:
This 365 day devotional for women is another example of Joyce Meyers outstanding ministry. It is scripturally sound, easy to read, and uplifting. Each page includes a scripture, message, and prayer. Devotions are short and to the point--a quick way to start the day in a positive way.

Topics address areas of interest to women: self-confidence and building strong relationships.

This is a beautiful volume that would fit into a tote/purse and would also make a lovely gift.

(thank you to Hachette Book Group for my review copy)

The Clinton St. Baking Company / Review

Author: DeDe Lahman & Neil Kleinberg
Hardcover: 224 pages

Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
(November 8, 2010)

ISBN-10: 0316083372

Description:
The Clinton St. Baking Company is one of the hottest brunch spots in a city obsessed with brunch. A tiny thirty-two-seat eatery on Manhattan's trendy Lower East Side, the restaurant draws long lines of customers who come from far and wide to sample fresh-baked goods, hearty omelets, sugar-cured bacon, and light-as-air pancakes with maple butter.

In the Clinton St. Baking Company Cookbook, owners DeDe Lahman and Neil Kleinberg share more than 100 treasured recipes that have made their restaurant a sensation. Learn the secret to their house-made buttermilk biscuits and tomato jam, irresistible muffins and scones, delicious soups and sandwiches, and their decadent, eye-catching desserts. Helpful techniques, like Neil's patented omelet "flip and tuck," and gorgeous color photographs throughout will have readers cooking like pros in no time, and sharing the delicious results.

My Review:
This cookbook is fabulous! It has all the foods you would expect from your local bakery/coffee shop. The recipes are not complicated and look delicious in the colorful full-page photos.I can't wait to try Smoked Salmon Scramble and the Scones!

This is one of those cookbooks we take off the shelf and use often for a simple and delicious breakfast or lunch. It will also make a great gift for the baker/cook. Definitely 5 stars *****

(Thank you to Hachette Book Group for my review copy.)