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Review: Reluctant Smuggler, by Jill Elizabeth Nelson

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Reluctant Smuggler, by Jill Elizabeth Nelson (Multnomah, 2008)

Desiree Jacobs, art security expert and successful breaker of her competitors’ security systems, is back in the third and final novel in Jill Elizabeth Nelson’s “To Catch a Thief” series.

This time we join Desi in Mexico, where she’s negotiating for a contract with a world-famous Mexico City art museum. Instead, she finds art thieves, a dangerous gang, and personal attack. She’s still grieving her father’s death (book one: Reluctant Burglar) and struggling to find time for a relationship with handsome FBI agent Tony Lucano amidst their busy schedules.

Back in Boston, Tony’s high-profile case is about to intersect with Desi’s own. And I won’t tell you more—except that this is perhaps the fastest-paced novel of the three. I loved it. Desi and Tony are two of my favourite characters. Readers can count on plenty of action, fast quips, and a story that will make it hard to stop reading at bedtime.

Reluctant Smuggler is an older title now, and I don’t know why I waited so long for this final instalment. Maybe I didn’t want to finish the ride with these characters. But it’s a fun read.

I bought the epub version from Kobobooks and although I’m usually happy with the product quality, I’d recommend getting a paper copy of Reluctant Smuggler. The file conversion didn’t work well and there are plenty of mangled words.

Here’s a link to an excerpt from Reluctant Smuggler. If you’re new to the series, I’d strongly suggest starting at the beginning. (See my review of Reluctant Burglar here.)

Jill Elizabeth Nelson is an American author of Christian romantic suspense, and she’s published four novels with Steeple Hill since the “To Catch a Thief” books (her most recent is Legacy of Lies). I’ve enjoyed those too, but I hope someday she’ll move back into longer novels where she has more room to manoeuvre. You can learn more about Jill Elizabeth Nelson and her books at her website, or check out the Jill Elizabeth Nelson page on Facebook.

Review: Dark Clouds of the Morning, by Janet C. Burrill

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Dark Clouds of the Morning, by Janet C. Burrill (Word Alive Press, 2011)

It’s 1917, and World War 1 is raging. The residents of the port city of Halifax, Nova Scotia, on Canada’s east coast, fear for the lives of their loved ones serving overseas. They never dream they’re about to experience a disaster that will level part of their city and be felt in tremors hundreds of miles away.

On a clear December morning, two ships collide in the bustling harbour. One, the Mont Blanc, is loaded with explosives. The Halifax Explosion will be “the largest man-made disaster until the atomic age.” [From the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic site.]

Sadly, the explosion is fact. Dark Clouds of the Morning is fiction, the story of Jennie Grayson, and her extended family, as the disaster overthrows their regular lives—and as they struggle to cope with the tragedy.

Jennie is a young woman working a factory job during the war, hoping to resume nursing studies when the soldiers come home. Her father, two brothers and fiancé Carl are all serving in Europe. Jennie’s mother, Helen, disapproves of Carl, and this causes strife at home.

Bert Powell is a young Boston physician who eagerly joins the disaster relief train to bring medical support to the survivors—and who is desperate for news of his grandmother, who lives in the shattered city. His grandmother, Pearl, is alive and well, and Bert is delighted to meet the young woman who’s staying with her after her own home was flattened: Jennie.

Plenty of books have been written about the Halifax Explosion, but this may be the first novel from a Christian perspective. Meticulously researched, it brings out tidbits I hadn’t known despite living in the area all my life.

The novel is written in a gentle, older style than is common today, and it lends a realistic feel for the time period. Terms like nappy (diaper), shirtwaist and middy (types of ladies’ tops) are used, but their meaning is always clear by their context.

Lovers of early 1900-s era history will appreciate this novel, and I think older seniors will especially enjoy it. Readers of any age who like heart-warming dramatic stories with a touch of romance will be satisfied.

The one flaw in the reading experience is the editing. Ordinarily with a self-published book, this suggests an author who hasn’t purchased the publisher’s editing service. In this case, the acknowledgements clearly thank the Word Alive editor for his work.

Most of the issues are simple copy-editing mistakes: punctuation errors or the occasional wrong word (eg. cherry instead of cheery). Good editing would have also addressed the author’s occasional re-telling of details readers have already learned.

The story still flows well, and it’s an inviting read. Canadian author Janet C. Burrill writes with sensitivity and grace, and with compassion for her suffering characters. She also paints detailed word pictures of the era’s decor and customs. Two of her descriptions that struck me most were “smokestacks snapped like carrots (p. 48)” and a pastor’s prayer for the sorrowing that ends with “In the name of your Son who understood grief (p. 123).”

Dark Clouds of the Morning is Janet C. Burrill’s debut novel, and she’s now at work on a sequel. Copies are available on Amazon.ca. Signed copies are available through the Dark Clouds of the Morning website for $20 Canadian plus shipping.

[Review copy from my personal library. Disclosure: The author is a personal friend.]


Review: False Pretenses, by Kathy Herman

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False Pretenses, by Kathy Herman (David C. Cook, 2011)

“I know what you did.”

The anonymous note jeopardizes all Zoe Broussard has so carefully built: a new life, a thriving Cajun eatery in a small Louisiana town, and a happy marriage.

Because it’s all built on lies.

As Zoe tries to keep her personal life from exploding, a murder rocks the town and ignites racial tension. If the killer isn’t found fast, will the police be able to stop race riots?

Zoe’s new friend and tenant, Vanessa, will be familiar to fans of Kathy Herman’s Sophie Trace series: she’s Police Chief Brill Jessup’s daughter, and we met her in The Last Word. If you’re planning to read book 3 in that series, The Right Call, read it before False Pretenses or you’ll learn how things work out.

False Pretenses offers the good things I expect from a Kathy Herman novel: believable characters and relationships, danger and suspense. Zoe’s lies, theft, cover-up and abusive past make her who she is. And they’ve caused the crisis she’s now desperate to solve.

The novel is a good, fast read. I enjoyed the Cajun setting, and would love the chance to sample the cuisine at Zoe B’s. And it was fun to discover the secret of the historic home Vanessa is renovating. The only thing I wasn’t sure about was the swiftness and accuracy of DNA test results.

False Pretenses is the first in Kathy Herman’s new series, Secrets of Roux River Bayou. I’m glad there’ll be more stories, because I’d like to spend more time with these characters. Book two is called A Dangerous Mercy and will release in October 2011.

There’s a book trailer for False Pretenses, and you can learn more about Kathy Herman at her website or find her on Facebook.

[review copy source: public library]

Review: LEAP for Faith, by Gary Cox

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LEAP for Faith, by Gary Cox (Bryler Publications, 2011)

The Christian life is a journey, which Eugene Peterson has dubbed “a long obedience in the same direction.” Believers need to grow spiritually. We also need to respectfully and responsibly share our faith with family, friends and co-workers. In-their-face agendas build walls, not relationships.

So how do we grow? And how to we encourage those who are spiritually interested but not ready to make a full commitment to a God they’re only beginning to suspect may exist?

Part Bible study, part spiritual workbook and part novel, LEAP for Faith takes a fresh look at these perennial questions.

Canadian author Gary Cox addresses spiritual growth in the form of LEAP: Look and Listen, Explore and Examine, Acknowledge and Accept, Practice and Pray. And as Nick, one of the book’s main characters, says, it’s not a one-time sequence:

“P is both the last and the first step. With prayer you go back to looking and listening for God at work in your life. Seeking to discover what he wants to teach you. It’s a cycle, and each cycle expands your understanding and deepens your relationship with the Lord.” (p. 246)

The book contains 27 short chapters that follow the fictional case study of Troy, a man beginning to wonder about God, and Nick, his Christian friend. Each chapter ends with personal-application discussion questions and with Scripture passages to consider.

For new Christians or those considering the faith, there’s a helpful section at the beginning called “My Bible” that demystifies the process of looking up Scriptural references and offers suggestions on Bible reading and accessible translations.

Older-in-the-faith Christians will find Nick’s gentle model of teaching an encouragement, and the simple but logical LEAP system is easy not only to share but to apply in our personal devotions.

I found it a helpful book, easy to read and to follow. Troy and Nick are fictional examples illustrating how the LEAP process might play out in real life. It would dilute the focus of the book to bring a fully-featured novel into play with subplots, detailed characterization and the traditional conflict and plot arc. Allowing their journey to follow a straight path makes an easier teaching tool.

The only negative I found in the book was the need for more copyediting. My husband and I bought four Bryler Publications books at the same time, and the three we’ve read to date all had editing/formatting errors (one was missing an entire chapter) so I’m thinking this is a publisher issue.

LEAP for Faith can be used in private study or in a six-week group setting. Additional resources and videos for groups and group leaders are available on the LEAP for Faith website. The first two chapters are available for preview here.

[Review copy from my personal library. Disclosure: the author is a personal friend.]

Review: The Watcher, by Sara Davison

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The Watcher, by Sara Davison (Word Alive Press, 2011)

One traumatic night changed Kathryn Ellison’s life. Now, 20 years later, she has a chance at love and she’s ready to take it.

But first, she must confront a shoebox of memories.

Each item deserves a final look before she burns it. Each look takes readers into Kathryn’s past, to pain but also to glimpses of hope and healing.

Kathryn has raised her daughter, Lexi, with the help of her supportive family. Lexi is a young woman now, determined to find the father she never knew—and unaware that he’s a rapist.

I’m leery of reading about sexual violence, but I made it through the novel unscathed. The details come out in gradual doses, with nothing gratuitous or graphic. Kathryn’s pain is real, but so is her love for her daughter and for others in her life. After 20 years, she lives a normal, if solitary, life. She’s accepted what happened—though she’d never  have chosen it—and so found healing.

Because it’s been so long since the events of that night, Kathryn—and readers—have a bit of emotional distance. Extensive flashbacks aren’t widely favoured, but this novel wouldn’t work in straight time. There would be too many superfluous details to wade through.

We experience key moments from her past that reveal the progress she’s made, and that’s enough. We also trace her growing attraction to Nick, the man who’s calling her to leave the past behind.

The Watcher would have been a compelling read on these terms alone, but Sara Davison gives it a fresh twist. In a time when novels are mostly first- or third-person as told by strong, key players, this one is narrated by Kathryn’s invisible companion, a being who can watch and wait but not physically interfere. The watcher and companions like Grace, Faith and Love, operate under the Creator’s own watchful eye.

The watcher adds humour and compassion to what might otherwise be a difficult read. She’ll occasionally turn from the narrative to address the reader directly. Again, it’s not usually done these days, but it works really well. She had me on page one and kept me through the story.

Have a look at one of her pithier observations:

Although it’s almost always better when Truth shows up, he is a bit of a showman and I often wonder if it’s as necessary as he seems to think to burst onto the scene like Liza Minnelli sweeping onto the stage, arms spread, and singing at the top of her lungs. [p. 142]

The watcher’s brief comments to readers are clearly set apart from the regular text with italics and with small images. It works really well. The flashbacks are separated from Kathryn’s present time by a few blank lines, and this has its limitations. If the blanks fall at the end of a page, it’s not immediately clear that there’s been a break. I think inserting a mark of some kind would have made it clearer.

There are three main timelines woven through the novel: Kathryn’s present, events of 20 years ago, and significant developments bridging from then to now. Since all involve the same characters, at times I had trouble discovering which time I was in.

Two things I’d have liked to see cleared up were what happened to the man who planned Kathryn’s abduction (and why he never seemed to do anything else towards his intended victim) and why her boyfriend Ty didn’t rush to her side in the hospital. Despite that, and despite a key copyediting oops where the watcher clings to the inverted promise that “the darkness always overcomes the light” [p. 186], I highly recommend reading The Watcher.

Sara Davison’s (or is it the watcher’s?) voice is fresh and vivid, with strong descriptive skills. This debut Canadian author is worth checking out.

Read an excerpt from The Watcher here, and find discussion questions here. The unpublished manuscript won Word Alive Press’ 2010 publishing contest in the fiction category, and was published in March 2011. Sara Davison blogs at Choose to Press On. You can also find her on her website and on Facebook, as well as at the Great Canadian Authors site.

[Book has been provided courtesy of Word Alive Press and Graf-Martin Communications, Inc. Available now from your favourite bookseller.]


Review: Promises You Can Count On, by Natalie Gidney

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Promises You Can Count On, by Natalie Gidney (Word Alive Press, 2009)

Bible promise books, complete with a helpful index, are great resources, and every Christian’s bookshelf should have one. But you only need one.

That’s why Promises You Can Count On takes a different approach. Natalie Gidney focuses on ten essential promises, including peace, salvation, grace and joy, and invites readers to “claim them and watch and see what He can do.” (p. 6)

This slender book is ideal for new believers or for those considering faith in Jesus Christ. It’s also a good refresher for more seasoned Christians. Each chapter draws on a number of Scriptures to explore one of God’s promises. With an easy conversational style, Natalie looks at what this promise can mean in our lives, and she offers candid examples of what it’s meant in her own.

Naturally, salvation is one of the early topics. It may surprise some readers, then, to see forgiveness rounding out the number ten spot as the final chapter. But as Natalie explains, forgiveness is something that’s required of us as well as something we need from God. That can be a hard truth to hear, and I think she’s wise to build up to it.

In some ways, forgiving others—or ourselves—isn’t possible until we’re sure we can trust God’s promises. So it makes sense to immerse ourselves in them first and grow our faith.

Promises You Can Count On was a finalist in the Relationships category of The Word Guild’s 2010 Canadian Christian Writing Awards (for books published in 2009).

Canadian author and speaker Natalie Gidney blogs at Promises for All. You can watch her interview on 100 Huntley Street: part 1 and part 2.

[book source: my personal library]

Review: One Thousand Gifts, by Ann Voskamp

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One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully, Right Where You Are, by Ann Voskamp (Zondervan, 2011)

One Thousand Gifts is a rare book: at once a very personal story of one woman’s journey, and yet it’s everywoman and everyman’s story. It’s a journey we can all join.

Which of us hasn’t struggled with ingratitude? It is, after all, Satan’s oldest lie. It can root so deeply that we don’t even see it anymore.

Listen to how Ann Voskamp describes it, describes the too-familiar wretched state and the haunting questions that lured her out of it:

“If I’m ruthlessly honest, I may have said yes to God, yes to Christianity, but really, I have lived the no. I have. Infected by the Eden mouthful, the retina of my soul develops macular holes of blackness…. One life-loss can infect the whole of a life…. Now everywhere we look, we only see all that isn’t: holes, lack, deficiency.” (p. 16)

“How do we choose to allow the holes to become seeing-through-to-God places? To more-God places?

“How do I give up resentment for gratitude, gnawing anger for spilling joy? Self-focus for God-communion.” (p. 22)

For Ann, the answer started with a Greek word, eucharisteo [yoo-khar-is-teh’-o], which means ‘thanksgiving’ and which contains the root words of ‘grace’ and ‘joy’. From reading her Bible, she discovered “Eucharisteo—thanksgiving—always precedes the miracle” (p. 35). And that’s what God proved in Ann’s own life as she kept her friend’s challenge to list 1,000 blessings—gifts—from God.

She came to this point in her life with more pain than some of us have: the most significant cluster in the form of losing her younger sister as a child. But whether you’ve lost more or less, whether it’s been taken from you or you’ve given it away, you can find healing in these pages.

Read the book slowly, let it encourage your spirit by its message and by the poetry that is Ann Voskamp’s prose. Walk with her as she learns to thank God for the sweet blessings—graces—in her day. Keep walking as she learns to see His grace in the painful moments, to practice what she calls the “hard eucharisteo” by giving thanks even when what He gives doesn’t look like grace to our eyes.

If you like simple, plain language and straightforward sentences, this may not be the book for you. I’ve included some excerpts to give a feel for the flowing language. And be aware that poetic language often uses imagery for a soul’s intimacy with God that strictly-literal thinkers may find difficult.

But if you’re one of the many who choose to read this book, you will be challenged and changed by the example of an ordinary Canadian woman who dares to have a heart like King David’s and to offer the sacrifice of thanksgiving to God in the good and in the bad—not denying the pain, but trusting the Master Designer not to waste it.

This is how Ann describes what she discovered in her list of now well over 1,000 gifts:

“In eucharisteo, I count, count, count, keeping the beat of His song, the love song He can’t stop singing, this long song of longing. That He sings love over me?

“What else can all these gifts mean?” (p. 204)

One Thousand Gifts is a book to read contemplatively, and to keep near to read again. My friends are buying extra copies for their friends rather than lending a copy they might not get back. I can see why. Click here to read an excerpt from One Thousand Gifts. And here’s a link to the book trailer, which is a gift in itself.

Canadian author Ann Voskamp writes a daily encouragement blog at A Holy Experience. She’s also a regular contributor at the DaySpring blog, (in)courage.

Oh… my list? I’m at #33 today. And loving it.

[Review copy source: my personal library]

Review: A Red Herring Without Mustard, by Alan Bradley

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A Red Herring Without Mustard, by Alan Bradley (Doubleday, 2011)

Adult books with child protagonists are rare—or good ones are. Thankfully, eleven-year-old Flavia deLuce is back, in the third instalment of Alan Bradley’s mysteries series set in 1950’s England.

Flavia’s elder sisters treat her miserably at times, and she dishes it right back at them. They live in sprawling Buckshaw Manor with their inattentive father. Flavia, especially, feels the lack of her mother, who died when Flavia was a baby.

This time the mystery centres around the attack on a gypsy woman who was camping on the Buckshaw grounds at Flavia’s invitation. Flavia feels responsible, and sets out to assist the local constabulary in their investigation. Naturally she manages to get in the way, to use her prodigious knowledge of chemistry, and to discover clues that help solve the case.

Finances are not good for the deLuces, and Father is selling off the family silver. We see the developing relationship between Flavia and her father as they learn to support one another without breaching the “stiff upper lip” exterior. He often seems to view his daughters as creatures outside his comprehension, but by the end of A Red Herring Without Mustard Flavia begins to suspect he may actually be somewhat proud of her.

To me, this novel had more of the feel of the first one, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie: intriguing, and a bit playful, much like Flavia herself. I found book two, The Weed that Strings the Hangman’s Bag, a bit more sombre.

For more about Alan Bradley and his novels, visit the official Flavia deLuce website. According to the website, the next novel will be called Seeds of Antiquity.

Review: Yesterday’s Tomorrow, by Catherine West

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Yesterday’s Tomorrow, by Catherine West (OakTara, 2011)

It’s 1967. Journalist Kristin Taylor defies convention and flies to Vietnam to take up her father’s legacy of reporting from the war zone. She lands an assignment with a US-based paper and begins producing a string of high-quality articles. Her editor pairs her with Luke Maddox, a photographer with a painful past—and whom she suspects of working for the CIA.

Sparks fly between Kristin and Luke from their first meeting (he nearly shoots her) but so does an attraction that’s hard to ignore. Problem is, Luke’s still grieving for his wife and daughter. And Kristin’s on a mission that leaves no time for personal flings.

Luke’s driver and best friend is a Black soldier named Jonno, who developed asthma after he reached Vietnam but refuses to accept a discharge to go home. The banter between Luke, Kristin and Jonno is fast, funny and sometimes poignant. Jonno gives us a peek into the level of racial oppression going on in the US in the late 60’s.

Catherine West has written a strong debut novel, rich in the sights and sounds of the exotic Vietnam locales. She does a superb job of conveying Kristin and friends’ reaction to the horrors of the war without overloading the reader. And she provides places of respite, like the Saigon orphanage run by a missionary couple who befriend both Kristin and Luke.

The characters are real, and readers can feel their hurts. Yesterday’s Tomorrow is a compelling read that kept pulling me back when I needed to put it down. There’s a strong romantic element, but there’s also a lot of action. With point of view roles shared by Kristin and Luke, I think this is a novel both women and men will enjoy.

Bermuda-based Catherine West is a member of Romance Writers of America and American Christian Fiction Writers, and is a founding member of International Christian Fiction Writers. You can learn more about her at her website, or check out her blog about writing and life. Click here for my interview with Catherine West.

Review: More Questions than Answers, by Eleanor Shepherd

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More Questions than Answers: Sharing Faith by Listening, by Eleanor Shepherd (Resource Publications (a division of Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2010)

No matter  how secure our faith, we all have questions, issues, things we don’t fully understand.

In More Questions than Answers, Eleanor Shepherd reminds us that honesty about these very things is the beginning of a journey that benefits us as well as the friends with whom we walk.

“When walking with our friends, we encourage them to explore faith with us. We admit that our knowledge of faith is incomplete, but it is growing. We want them to join us as together we test our spirituality and meet for ourselves the ultimate truth, Jesus Christ. We call our journey together spiritual accompaniment.” p. xvii

Spiritual accompaniment is unconditional friendship. Our non-Christian friend is not a project to be discarded if she doesn’t come to believe as we do. Nor is our Christian friend to be set aside if he doesn’t grow as fast as we’d like.

We benefit personally from accompanying others. We learn not to be threatened by questions we can’t answer—God doesn’t vanish in a puff of smoke if we can’t explain Him. Our faith doesn’t vanish either. By honestly and prayerfully facing them, we grow deeper in our faith.

More Questions than Answers is divided into three sections:

The Listening Process addresses the art of listening. It includes basics of psychology, counselling etc, but always at lay-person’s level.

Discovering and Sharing Faith teaches how to go about spiritual accompaniment, illustrated by personal examples. It warns of the obstacles we may face.

Finally, The Source reminds us to listen to and rely on God. There is a short Bible study to develop our spiritual listening skills, and a shorter “Gospel in a nutshell” to help us answer when a friend asks how to become a Christian.

This is a book for Christians who want to be more valuable spiritually in the lives of those around them. It isn’t evangelism-by-the-numbers; it’s investment in the lives of those God gives us.

I appreciate books like this that emphasize faith conversations rather than confrontation, and that teach us to value the whole person.

Canadian author Eleanor Shepherd is a retired Salvation Army Officer now serving with Opportunity International Canada in Quebec. You can catch up with Eleanor at her blog. She also contributes to the Canadian Authors Who are Christian blog.

[Book source: my personal library. A version of this review first appeared in Faith Today Magazine, Jan/Feb 2011.]