Not so Hidden Affection for this novel!

This review is for the Historical Fiction novel, “Hidden Affections” by Delia Parr.

I’m not sure I could have loved this book any more than I did. It is truly an excellent novel! I had never read anything by Delia Parr before this book but I know I will for sure be looking for more titles by this offer in the very near future.

Annabelle Tyler is on the run from a very heartbreaking past. In her old hometown she is whispered about, openly shunned and humiliated at every turn. There was nothing left for her to do but move on and seek a new life in a new place. Her mother has passed away and she is all alone in the world.

Unforeseen circumstances land her in the same stagecoach as the infamous playboy and Philadelphia’s most eligible bachelor, Harrison Graymoor. His private coach had broken down thus he was forced into more common transportation. This turn of events is what lands him in trouble with one Ms. Annabelle Tyler.
Their stagecoach ends up being robbed and they are handcuffed together. Unfortunately that means that they end up spending the night in the robbed coach together and un-chaperoned.

A disgruntled man and others in the search party discover them curled up together and naturally assume the worst, since the worst is what Harrison is known for. They are forced to marry at gun point against both their wishes.

Annabelle carries a dark secret of her own; she has already been wed once and divorced by the cad that she sadly used to call her husband for a very short time. She ends up deciding not to tell Harrison about her previous marriage as their ultimate plan is to get a quickie annulment once they reach his home in Philadelphia.
Harrison promises Annabelle that this should prove no problem for his lawyer and that they will simply hide away from society until it happens so that they need not explain themselves when the annulment comes through.

That, of course, is not to be the case, as his cousin has a houseful of people in the house when they arrive and the newspaper had already caught wind of the marriage. Not that it was forced, but just that the notorious bachelor was wed.
Annabelle has deep issues and feelings of not being wanted as her previous husband dumped her. She is a Christian and holds onto the hope of a better life once she and Harrison are free of each other’s company.
When it becomes clear, however, that an annulment will be impossible given the man’s reputation, she realizes that as a twice divorced woman, in that day and age, that there is all likelihood that she will not be able to have the happy marriage and family that she so desires.

Harrison also holds deep hurts within his heart and mind and seems far removed from emotions and from having any thoughts of a loving God. He truly believes if he doesn’t allow himself to love someone then he cannot be hurt.

Come along on their journey of faith and finding themselves while they are tied to someone they might rather wish to be rid of at times.

Once again, I loved this book and I think you will too!

Happy Monday All!
Jenny 



*Note* I received this book for free from Bethany House Publishers in exchange for a review about it. I am not required to post a positive review. Any opinions expressed are my own and they are sincere.

Wild Ride with Charlotte Beck! Check this novel out!

This book review is for “The Inconvenient Marriage of Charlotte Beck” by Kathleen Y’Barbo

Not sure I can say enough about this book! I loved it! I started reading it late last night and finished it before lunchtime today. It is one of those books that you just don’t want to put down once you start reading it.

This novel follows Charlotte Beck as she struggles to enter adulthood while doing many childish things that embarrass her family to no end. She is head strong and mostly well-intentioned but this is not always the case.


She talks her stepmother into pushing up her coming out and ends up making a huge mess of things and insulting a very prominent family in London’s society.

Even after apologizing for her stunt, she then proceeds to do something even more embarrassing and disgraceful which leads to her family being shunned from the same prominent society they should be a part of, as they are titled and quite wealthy themselves.

Never underestimate Charlotte Beck, however, she schemes up a plan and ends up turning her mortifying display into a very popular trick for the London set.
Nonetheless her father insists that her coming out be cut short and no New York balls and gatherings for her. Instead she is forced to return to Colorado where her father runs a business and owns a ranch out in the middle of nowhere.

She longs to go to college and be educated so that she can join her father’s business but after her shenanigans she has only proved to her father that she is still a child and not the grown woman she claims left and right to be, so he refuses to allow her to attend school.

The man that she previously wronged in London, Viscount Alex Hambly, the very well-bred Englishman, happens to be in the same city as her for business in America. He and his Solicitor are there trying to buy one of her father’s properties. And as he is most unfortunate when it comes to Charlotte, he continuously runs into her throughout the entire book. Her father seeing them together and seeing that Alex has enough gumption to handle his wayward daughter, proposes that they become betrothed.

Both Alex and Charlotte are dead set against this idea as they loathe the sight of each other, but hard pressing money woes for Alex and Charlottes desperate longing for schooling, leads them to end up eventually accepting the terms her father lays out which include a four year engagement while Charlotte finishes her education. After which time she and Alex will marry and she will take a place in her father’s company as she so desires. For the moment it solves both their problems.
No matter how reluctantly they agree to this arrangement, agree they do. Charlotte goes off to school for four years and Alex is given the money needed to successfully rebuild his families’ fortune.
But neither are quite prepared for how fast four years fly past and that her father will insist they honor the agreement that was made at the end of the four years even though neither one wishes to.

The only hope they see for it is to privately plot to annul the marriage as soon as possible. But you just watch what happens after they get married and one of them might begin to change their minds about that. Emotions explode while plans are derailed but one of them isn’t giving up the idea without a fight.

Their story is the main focus of the book but I love all the side stories to this book as well. The mystery surrounding Charlottes departed mother and the feud that is age old between her family and Alex’s. There was one mystery of a letter that was never quite cleared up and I so wish we would have been told what was in it!

Be sure to have a cup of coffee handy before beginning this book and have a large amount of time carved out for quiet reading time cause I think like me, you won’t want to put this book down!

If you have read this too, what are your thoughts? Did anyone else like it as much as I did?

As a side note, please take just a moment and rank my review for me at the bottom under my name! Thanks so much! <3 Happy Wednesday All! Jenny




*Note* I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group in exchange for posting a review about it. I am not required to post a positive review. Any opinions expressed are my own and they are sincere.

Loving A Vision Of Lucy

This review is for the book, “A Vision Of Lucy” by Margaret Brownley.

It is apparently the third book in A Rocky Creek Romance series.
I have been reading a ton of historical fiction lately since that has been what I have been getting from the book programs I am a member of. I can’t say that I have ever read that much of it but I am finding myself becoming a fan of it. I have enjoyed every single one so far and recommend them! Some have been better than others but still all of them good and a product of someone’s hard work.

A Vision Of Lucy focuses on, well, Lucy and various different town people. She is obsessed with taking photographs and has her own camera. This is back in the day when a camera was a box and you had to use plates to take the photos and then develop them in a dark room. It is quite interesting to read the explanation of how photos used to be taken and how long it had to be exposed to properly capture the image. Photography has vastly improved since then!

Lucy lives with her dad and younger brother. Her dad owns a mercantile in their tiny Texas town and her brother works there but longs to be a doctor. Her dad has a pile of secrets of his own and for reasons unknown has a huge problem with the only doctor in town, whom her brother would need to work with in order to fulfill his dream. Their mother died many years ago by being thrown from her horse in the middle of the night. She was a painter and one painting in particular that she left behind for them seems to bring the father great pain. He refuses to allow it to be hung in the house so it sits in a dark closet.
Lucy has studied it trying to figure out what bothers her father about it so much but it is simply a landscape and nothing of his secrets make any sense to her whatsoever.

She is constantly getting into one form of trouble or another and is in great danger of becoming an old maid as she refuses any offer of marriage presented to her father. She staunchly refuses to marry if she is not in love. Which she is not in love with any of the suitors who might seek her hand. One in particular is actually almost a little sinister seeming.

Lucy’s heart is in the right place but she has not yet fully focused on what God’s goal is for her life. She wants to take pictures for the newspaper desperately but that job ends up landing her and someone else in bad straits.

Enter David Wolf, the half breed, as he is referred to. He is half white and half Indian. Left on the doorstep of a mission as a baby, he has never been accepted in society. He is neither white nor Indian so neither party welcomes his presence. He too holds a dark and painful secret, one that will bring him back, many years after the incident, to Rocky Creek Texas. The returning of which also lands him in sticky situations with one Ms. Lucy Fairbanks.

This tale has it all. A deeply rooted mystery, a fire, hurt feelings, almost tragic pasts and passion for what is right.
Follow along with Lucy as she struggles to get her future into picture perfect focus.


Hope you are all having an awesome week! I definitely loved this book! :o)
Jenny




*Note* I received this book for free through the Booksneeze book review bloggers program in exchange for writing a review about it. I am not required to write a positive review. Any opinions expressed are my own and they are sincere.

"Spring For Susannah"

This review is for the novel "Spring For Susannah" by Catherine Richmond.

Susannah is a young woman who is left alone in the world when both of her parents pass on. She is left with virtually no money to her name and a heavy ton of emotional baggage.

She is like a shy little bird that has never been able to break free of her shell. She has never had any suitors call on her and she was taught to never voice her opinions and was not given any affection as a child. Her mother and father chose to sleep in separate bedrooms and she was, of course, an only child. None of this exactly led to a chatty, trusting and loving person by adulthood.

Susannah had been writing to her pastor's brother, who lives out in the Dakota Territory, before her parents died. He was lonely and needed a bride, so the natural course of action for him was to write to his brother and see if he knew of a marriageable women, who would be suitable for him as his new bride. Even though she only wrote to him because she figured he was writing to several women and would never actually choose her, Susannah turns out to be just what Jesse needs. And unbeknownst to her, he is exactly what she happens to need.

When she is left alone with no family in the world to call her own and only just enough money to buy her train tickets, with a tiny bit left over, she makes the very long journey to join Jesse in Dakota.

Before she departs the city for the Dakota Territory, Jesse's brother marries them using a stand-in for Jesse, as there are no pastors where she is heading.

Becoming a mail order bride is not exactly what Susannah would have chosen, had she been able to do something different, but it is the lot that has befallen her.

She is, however, blessed with a husband who is very understanding of her needs. He allows her to take her time in coming out of her shell, even though it is frustrating for him. He is quite the talker and doesn't understand why she won't talk to him the way he talks to her. He doesn't understand the fact of having grown up in such a strict household and not being shown love or affection. He has grown up in a large family and is happy and exuberant most of the time.

Living in a dirt house and trying to fight grasshoppers and harsh winters is not an easy task but Susannah manages better than one might expect.

As Susannah begins to allow herself to have opinions, to feel love for another person and let herself confide in Jesse about the painful attack she endured before leaving the city, she comes into her own and begins to blossom and become the women that Jesse loves and knows she can be.

I think she even ends up surprising herself a little bit toward the end.

Her husband is more than a little glad when he realizes that his new wife knows about doctoring animals since her father was a veterinarian. He taught her the things he knew even though her mother didn't approve of it. It turns out to be a wonderful thing considering the fact that she and her new husband only have one neighbor and no doctors or vets anywhere close to them. Jesse realizes just how skilled his new wife is when his ox goes into labor with twins and is having a difficult birth. If not for the blessing of his new wife, the ox and both babies would most likely not have made it.

Working with animals like that was much frowned upon where she came from and not something that would have earned her praise back in the city, but Jesse could just about bust the buttons off his shirt he is so proud of her. He encourages her to be herself and come into her own. No one has ever done that for her before and I think it is one of the things that eventually softens Susannah toward him.

I can't say to much more without giving away major story plots. I did enjoy the book and it certainly has its twist and turns but a few things bothered me about it. There were a couple of story points that didn't have the ends tied up at the ending of the book so I can only assume that there is a sequel? Either that or it was a poor planning for the ending in my opinion.

I think you will enjoy watching Susannah blossom into a strong and capable woman and the book is entertaining and interesting.

Has anyone else read this? What are your thoughts?

Happy Monday!
Jenny



*Note* I received this book for free through the Booksneeze book review bloggers program in exchange for writing a review about it. I am not required to write a positive review. Any opinions expressed are my own and they are sincere.

Bring A Surfboard For Making Waves

This review is for the novel "Making Waves by Lorna Seilstad.


So this book has the distinction of being the very first book that I read on my kindle app for my IPhone. I was skeptical about reading a book on my IPhone but found it comes in really handy if I want to read in bed and the light would bother hubs, but let's get back to the review! :o)

Right off the bat, the cover of the book caught my attention. I adore the beach and loved the bright colors that were displayed in the cover choice.

Marguerite Westing is our title character and she is definitely fun to read about. A lot of books that I have read in my life have been predictable. Pretty much you almost know what's going to happen before it does and who is going to end up together in the end.

While this novel did have its somewhat predictable side, cause who are we kidding, that's just the way it is with romance novels, it was a truly interesting read.

Parts of it kept me on the edge of my seat and definitely kept me flicking to the next page ;)

It is a historical novel set in 1895 and most of their time is spent at Lake Manawa "camping out". Which means, feather beds and hired help for them.

Marguerite pushes the bounds of convention at every chance she gets. She bicycles wearing her special cycling outfits, she longs to learn to sail around the lake, which is considered highly improper for a lady, and she is a member of the suffrage movement.
Add into this mix an indulgent father, an ominous suitor, who has a most annoying mustache, and a harsh mother who pushes said unwanted suitor on Marguerite and you have the makings of a great story.

It's all there in this book, adventure, sorrow and disappointment, intrigue and very interesting characters.

You thrill with Marguerite as she experiences sailing on the lake for the first time, you cringe when she tells a lie, you're sad when she is bitterly disappointed by her favorite person in the world, and triumphant when it all turns out in the end.

This book will remind you that everyone has sorrows and not everything is always as it seems in the end.



Hope your Monday is going swimmingly :O)
Jenny



Thought for the day~ Real and True Friends will be there no matter what. Kind of like mail delivery...neither rain, nor sleet, nor snow ;)

~Too Rich For A Bride~

This review is for the novel "To Rich For A Bride" by Mona Hodgson.


This appears to be the second book in a series, the first book is called "Two Brides Too Many".
I honestly felt a little lost and behind because I did not read that book before this one. I can see where this book can be a standalone book but I would have connected better with the sisters and this novel if I had read the first one beforehand.


This novel follows Ida Sinclair, who is more than a little ambitious in her career plans. Especially given the fact that the time she lives in is clearly dominated by men. Women are not exactly welcomed into the career world but that is not something that will deter Ida. She has grown up with ambition and wanting to make money, as well as a name for herself and no one, especially a narrow minded man at that, will stand in her way. Pave way for feminism, Ida wants to be the spokeswoman!


After finishing her business schooling two weeks early, due to...well...you'll see, Ida heads off to join her two sisters Kat and Nell in a mining town in Colorado.


Things are a bit more rustic than where she comes from but she easily adapts, especially with her new job under a woman who has already proven herself to be a success in the business world. Not an easy feat in that day and age.


Business, money and success are Ida's primary concerns, never mind the fact that two men seem to take an instant interest in her the same day she arrives in this rough and tumble town.
She has no time for men and the distraction of it all when there is a world to conquer.


Ida, however, has a few things to learn about what's right, when to be still and listen and how exactly she is supposed to guard her heart, when unknowingly to her, God happens to be at work in her future and life.




I like that the author included bits about Ida's sisters, such as one sister writing articles for Harper's Bazaar, but I also wish she had included a bit of back story on each one of them for us readers who did not read their tale in the first book. They are both married and from the hints given it seems their story is an interesting one as to how they came to be married to the men that share their lives.



I did enjoy this book somewhat, however I felt the story was a little rushed when it comes to Ida and one of the men as well as her career. To me it just seemed like it all fit into a tidy package far to quickly. Odd feeling I know but that was my main feeling toward the end of the book...rushed.
While I applaud the author in the writing of this book and the story was interesting, it just wasn't my favorite read.



Have any of you read this book? What are your thoughts?

Here's wishing you a lovely day!
Jenny



P.S. If you wouldn't mind, please take a moment and rank my review. I love to write them and enjoy getting your reaction as well. Thanks so much!








*Note* I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group in exchange for posting a review about it. I am not required to post a positive review. Any opinions expressed are my own and they are sincere.

Beyond All Measure

This review is for "Beyond All Measure" by Dorothy Love.



This is the first book that I have read by Dorothy Love and I actually greatly enjoyed reading it.

Ada Wentworth is a young lady that comes from a well-to-do family in Boston. Tragic circumstances have taken her from the top of society in Boston down to the hills of Hickory Ridge Tennessee to be an older ladies companion. She has secured the position through an advertisement in the paper and has no idea what awaits her down in Tennessee. All she knows is that she is penniless, heartbroken and alone.

She is in for quite a shock when instead of the current ladies companion picking her up at the train station, a handsome, strapping young man arrives to cart her off to her destination.

Desperation is what drove her choices but hope and faith will be what sustains her.


I wasn't sure what to expect as I don't read historical fiction that much but this book was a delight. It kept me up far to late one night because I couldn't seem to put it down.

Be sure to check out Beyond All Measure. I look forward to reading other things by Dorothy Love and encourage you to do the same.



What are you reading lately?
Jenny





*Note* I received this book for free through the Booksneeze book review bloggers program in exchange for writing a review about it. I am not required to write a positive review. Any opinions expressed are my own and they are sincere.