Not If I Save You First by Ally Carter I have to admit, I haven’t read any YA in a while, but the storyline of this book reminded me so much of the movie and TV series Hannah that I just had to read it. And I was so glad I did! It sucked me in from the very first page and wouldn’t spit me out until hours later when it was time for me to cook dinner. This is a wonderful romantic suspense YA with a strong heroine with a smart mouth. She’s funny and sassy and very cute. And she can throw a hatchet like it’s nobody’s business. The boy she grew up with has changed because of what happened to them both in the prologue, but he really grew on me and showed his passion and earnestness as the story went on. This is not a Christian book, but it’s clean. It’s incredibly compelling and entertaining, and it made me go look for more Ally Carter books to read. I can’t recommend this one enough!

I have two books in these two Christian fiction ebook sales. Click on each of the graphics for some new cheap ebooks and maybe a few new-to-you authors! My Christian Regency romantic suspense novel, The Spinster’s Christmas , is included in this sale at only $0.99. All the books in this sale have a Christmas theme and are under $3! My Christian romantic suspense, Necessary Proof , is included in this sale and it’s FREE! All the books in this sale are suspense, romantic suspense, mystery, or thriller, and they’re either free or only 99 cents each.

I wanted to update my old post on Grace Livingston Hill romances because now there are tons more options for you to be able to read her books for free online! I’m a huge Grace Livingston Hill fan. Granted, not all her books resonate with me, but there are a few that I absolutely love, like The Enchanted Barn and Crimson Roses . And the best part is that she wrote over 100 books and I haven’t yet read them all! When I have time, I like to dive into a new GLH novel. I like the fact that most of them are romances, and I especially appreciate that they all have strong Christian themes. Occasionally the Christian content is a little heavy-handed for my taste, but it’s so interesting to see what the Christian faith was like in the early part of the 20th century. These books are often Cinderella-type stories or A Little Princess (Frances Hodgson Burnett) type stories, which I love. And the best part is that they’re all set in the early 1900s, so the time period is absolutely fasci...

I’ve been realizing lately how I don’t read enough books. For a while it was because I was so busy that my book reading fell by the wayside, but now that I’ve been doing my daily writing diary blog , I’ve been able to solidify my schedule more and I’ve been able to schedule my book reading into my day a little more easily. So on Goodreads, I committed to 50 books for the rest of 2020! However, I admit I picked that number because I had already read several short nonfiction books in July that I had recorded in Goodreads, so I suppose it’s not a huge stretch goal. But just the act of committing to this goal has made me start reading more. I’ve actually read more in the past couple weeks than I think I would have without the goal, so that’s good, right? Did you do a Goodreads book challenge for 2020? Are there any books you recommend for me to read? Let me know! If you’re on Goodreads, be friends with me! (When requesting to be friends with me, let me know you saw my blog post a...

Miss Fanshawe's Fortune: Clean and Sweet Regency Romance (The Brides of Mayfair Book 2) My rating: 4 of 5 stars I was hooked by the very first line, literally, and the first chapter where Miss Fanshawe is nearly run down by the hero’s younger brother in a stolen curricle is quite cute. She later meets his respectable older brother, and that’s when the sparks start to fly. This book absolutely immerses the reader in Regency England. The author is wonderfully adept at the language of the times, and the settings in London and in a countryside manor are drawn as if she visited England during the time period. The dialogue reminds me of Georgette Heyer, humorous and sparkling as if the author was laughing as she wrote it. The characters are vividly drawn so that you would know who is speaking even without dialogue tags. The hero’s mother especially is adorable and hilarious! I also liked Catherine, who was sweet and a little audacious and who was a voice of reason in the midst of...

If you’re following my daily writing diary blog , you know that lately I’ve had a TON of health issues, mostly revolving around my IBS, which has made it difficult for me to write regularly, especially once I finished outlining my Lady Wynwood’s Spies series . Apart from the discomfort and pain, I’ve also been struggling with real feelings of guilt and shame because I haven’t been able to be productive at my work for days at a time. I personally think a lot of the health issues might be spiritual warfare since they only popped up so persistently once I was about to start writing volume 2 in the series, but only recently did I realize that the guilt and shame could also be spiritual warfare. If I need to take care of myself, then I need to take care of myself. There’s no point in trying to struggle through and write when I’m not feeling well, because the writing will definitely reflect that. So I’m learning to forgive myself for not being super-productive and efficient. I’m also l...

I’ve been studying the book of Acts lately, using Search the Scriptures: A Three-Year Daily Devotional Guide to the Whole Bible for my daily quiet time. I like Search the Scriptures because each day’s passage is usually pretty short and manageable, and there are only 2-3 questions to answer, so it doesn’t take a huge amount of time. The questions and sometimes the additional reference verses are usually targeted really well for study and application, so I get a lot out of it. I’m almost at the end of Acts, and Paul has finally gotten to Rome. He’d been talking about it before he even went to Jerusalem for the last time, and God had even appeared in a vision and spoken to him to tell him that he would testify about Christ in Rome. Search the Scriptures also gave some good reference verses from Paul’s letter to the Romans, and for the first time I was able to match the letter to the time Paul wrote it. What was curious was that Paul originally intended simply to stop in Rome on hi...