Book Review: Wishing on Willows

Wishing on Willows by Katie Ganshert

Does a second chance at life and love always involve surrender?

A three-year-old son, a struggling cafe, and fading memories are all Robin Price has left of her late husband. As the proud owner of Willow Tree Cafe in small town Peaks, Iowa, she pours her heart into every muffin she bakes and espresso she pulls, thankful for the sense of purpose and community the work provides.
So when developer Ian McKay shows up in Peaks with plans to build condos where her cafe and a vital town ministry are located, she isn't about to let go without a fight.

As stubborn as he is handsome, Ian won't give up easily. His family's business depends on his success in Peaks. But as Ian pushes to seal the deal, he wonders if he has met his match. Robin's gracious spirit threatens to undo his resolve, especially when he discovers the beautiful widow harbors a grief that resonates with his own.
With polarized opinions forming all over town, business becomes unavoidably personal, and Robin and Ian must decide whether to cling to the familiar or surrender their plans to the God of second chances.

I can't exactly say I loved this book, but neither did I hate it. Basically it was just average as far as books go, not great but not bad either. It was kind of a cute story and was definitely a simple, laid back read. It did have some good stuff in it but I also found it to be a little cliche and the story predictable. Typical romance, you know. I would say it definitely got better toward the end and it's sweet (though maybe a bit unrealistic) what Ian does for Robin. If a guy did all that for me I think I'd have no choice but to love him! Haha. Anyway, it was a cute little story.

I received this book for free from the publisher in exchange for my honest review.

Tea

So whilst I was considering writing a new blog post I asked on my Facebook page what I should write about and my sister suggested tea. So here I am, writing a blog post dedicated entirely to tea.

Tea is definitely a huge part of my life and I will admit I am a tea addict. Well, more than likely a caffeine addict, but still, most of my caffeine consumption is in the form of tea.Every morning I enjoy a nice cup of black tea, enriched with cream and sugar. Sometimes I'll enjoy a couple more cups of tea later on in the day, but it's a sure thing that I'll be consuming at least one cup of tea everyday. Not only do I love the stuff, but I'm also a bit of a tea nerd (insert nerd emoticon here). I happen to know that there is black tea, green tea, white tea, red tea, blue tea, gold tea, and herbal tea, and I also know which of these contain caffeine and how much caffeine the caffeinated ones contain. I also know which teas cream or milk will curdle in. So if you're interested, here's some tea information.
The three teas that contain caffeine are black, green and white. Black tea has the most caffeine but still not nearly as much as coffee. Green is next and white has the least amount. As far as cream curdling, this will result in any citrus or berry herbal tea, but not in black tea that is citrus or berry flavored. Curdleization (made that up) will result in some green teas. Usually if the tea is pink or red in color it will curdle, but if it's the usual greenish yellow color of green tea it won't curdle.
What is my favorite tea, you might ask? Well, my favorite is definitely black tea, but what flavors? Irish Breakfast is one of my favorites as well as peach flavored black tea. (which sadly is hard to find.) I also love a raspberry flavored black tea called Raspberry Royal. Today my morning cup of tea was called Black Pearl. Now while there are several "plain" black teas, they all have a slightly different flavor. These flavor differences are kind of hard to describe, but they are most certainly noticeable! Okay... I'm done being a nerd. :B (and there may be some other kinds of tea that I don't know about, so I don't know EVERYTHING about tea. :P)

Book Review: Echoes

Echoes by Robin Jones Gunn

Will Lauren learn to trust her heart before she loses her chance at love?

Crazy things always seem to happen to Lauren Phillips, but even she wasn't expecting her fiance to break their engegement. Hoping to lift her spirits, her brother Brad gives her a new computer---along with a few suggestions for how she can improve her social life online. Soon Lauren connects with a mysterious man who identifies himself as a fellow God-lover...someone she knows only as K.C.

As she takes tentative steps into a new life, Lauren increasingly enjoys her new online friendship with K.C. But she can't bring herself to hope for something more and risk relinquishing the safety that distance provides her bruised heart.

After a year of corresponding, Lauren finally has an opportunity to meet K.C. Is she willing to risk everything, including more heartache?

This was a lovely book! It was well written and easy to read. I breezed through it in less than a week. It was a very cute little story, a nice light read. I believe I liked it better than "Secrets", the first book in this series. This one was the third, and while there are some of the same characters in this book, it's not a series that has to be read in order. The end nearly brought a tear to my eye. This is a book I'd recommend to anyone who's in the mood for a light and fairly happy read!

I received this book for free from the publisher in exchange for my honest review.

Book Review: The Note

I just finished this book this afternoon.

The Note by Angela Hunt

En route from New York's LaGuardia Airport to Tampa International, Flight 848 bursts into flames and crashes into Tampa Bay. All 261 passengers and crew are killed. For one week, newspaper columnist Peyton MacGruder and her fellow reporters cover one of the nation's worst air disasters in years with overwhelming and numbed emotions.
Then a woman Peyton's never met gives her a plastic bag that has washed up behind her house. The bag contains a note, almost certainly from the doomed flight, with a simple yet wrenching message:

                                                     T-

                                                        I love you. All is forgiven. 

                                                                                              -Dad

Combing through the passenger list to find the victims whose children's names begin with T, Peyton is determined to deliver the note to its proper owner. A quest which will prove as important to Peyton's own life as to the mysterious T.

This book was very good and an easy read. I had read one other book by this author which ended up to be a bit on the weird side, but this book was quite different from that one. The outcome is surprising and a few parts nearly moistened my eyes. A very good read that I would recommend to others.

Book Review: A Sound Among the Trees

A Sound Among the Trees by Susan Meissner

As a young bride, Susannah Page was rumored to be a Civil War spy for the North, a traitor to her Virginian roots. Her great-granddaughter Adelaide, the current matriarch of Holly Oak, doesn't believe that Susannah's ghost haunts the antebellum mansion looking for a pardon, but rather that the house itself bears a grudge toward its tragic past.
When Marielle Bishop marries into the family and is transplanted from the arid west to her husband's home, she is soon led to believe that the house she's just settled into brings misfortune to the women who live there.
With Adelaide's richly peppered superstitions and deep family roots at stake, Marielle must sort out the truth about Susannah Page and Holly Oak---and make peace with the sacrifices she has made for love.

I thought this to be a fairly intriguing read. One that kept me interested from beginning to end and scarcely had any boring parts. It was well written and the imagery quite colorful. I could very nearly imagine myself there at Holly Oak, in the parlor or the garden. The author had a nice way of describing the scenery.
The part I liked the best and found myself most swept up in was the letters Susannah wrote to her cousin. It was most intriguing learning of her life and the struggles she, her aunt, mother and grandmother faced amidst the terrors of war. All in all it was an enjoyable read, though it was supposed to be a Christian book yet it scarcely even mentioned God or brought out that the Characters were Christians and even had some language in it. But still a very interesting book and one that I would recommend to others.

I received this book for free from the publisher in exchange for this honest review.

Happy New Year

I know it's been quite some time since I've posted an actual "post" post, so I guess now that it's a new year I'll try and whip something up!
Firstly, happy 2013 to all those reading this! I pray this year will be even better than the last! My new years resolution is to mature more both as a person and in the Lord! And... to read more books than I did last year! Haha. Oh, and write more! Both in this blog and in the many books that I've started writing. Hopefully I'll finish at least one of them this year!
*Sigh* Oh how I can't wait until Spring! Green grass and beautifully blossomed trees, wild flowers growing in abundance, warm air containing a gentle breeze... Spring showers... Perhaps I'll write a poem about Spring! Who would like to hear a poem about Spring? I suppose I'll write one if enough people request it. And then I'll post it on my blog!
Bleh, I shouldn't have drank that coffee! Now I'm all jittery! Well, my band (WOAH, WOAH, WOAH!! How on EARTH did I write BAND when I meant mind??!! O.o Sooo weird...) seems to be drawing a blank, so I suppose that's all for this post! Until next time, i miei amici!

Review for Secrets

Secrets by Robin Jones Gunn

Jessica ran from her past... but can she hide from love?

Jessica Morgan wants desperately to forget the past and begin a new life. She chooses a small, peaceful town tucked away in Oregon's Willamette Valley as the place to start over---Glenbrooke. Once there, Jessica conceals her identity from everyone she meets---including the compassionate paramedic who wants to protect her and the jealous woman who wants nothing more than to destroy her.

Will Jessica's deceit ruin all hope for the future? Or will she find a deeper peace that allows her to stop hiding the truth from those who love her most of all?

All in all this book proved to be an enjoyable read. At first there were a few things that bugged me, such as the overuse of Jessica's name when "she" or "her" could have been used instead, and the fact that the second sentence in the book reads "The summer breeze whipped through her open window and danced with the ends of her shoulder-length, honey-blond hair." yet on the cover of the book is a woman with dark brown, if not black hair! Things like that tend to bug me, but it was really only irritating through the first little bit of the book. After a while I got swept into the story and didn't notice them. This book was fairly well written, and I would read more from this author.


I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review.