Non-Fiction
Parenting and Self-Help
The Mom I Want to Be: Rising Above Your Past To Give Your Kids a Great Future by T. Suzanne Eller. Eller and mom share their mother/daughter story. It is a story of abuse and neglect, mental illness and healing, and courageous love and forgiveness. In Eller’s words, “I hope that this book will help all of us to scrape away ‘churchianity’ to discover answers to questions [like] ‘Do I know how to trust God when life is unfair?’”
Harvest House, 2006.
The Latest in Inspirational Fiction
Literary Fiction
The Spirit of Sweetgrass by Nicole Seitz. Reminiscent of Eudora Welty’s voice and characterization in The Worn Path, and Why I live at the P.O., Seitz’s first novel, The Spirit of Sweetgrass, is delightful.
Thomas Nelson, 2007.
Historical Fiction
Lightning and Lace by DiAnn Mills. This is a thriller/romance novel set in the late 1890s. Lace concludes Mills Texas Legacy series. A young pastor fresh from losing his last parish over a scandal relocates to a small Texas town to replace the retiring pastor. His introduction begins with breaking up a fistfight between two grade-school boys, one of whom is the troubled grandson of the retiring pastor and the manipulative son of a young widow.
Barbour, 2007.
The Scarlet Trefoil by L. A. Kelly. Best known to her historical fiction fans as Leisha Kelly, Trefoil concludes the Tahn Dorn series in a beautifully written love story set in the middle ages.
Revell, 2007.
Contemporary Fiction
Wishing On Dandelions by Mary E. DeMuth. This is a beautifully written novel about the taboo subject of childhood sexual abuse. DeMuth draws on her own experience of childhood abuse to demonstrate the victim’s internalized sense of shame and need for penance, and that if it is not dealt with in love and by God’s grace, it can lead to a life of endless, self-inflicted abuse. Wishing on Dandelions follows Watching the Tree Limbs, the novel that introduces nine-year-old Mara, who is afraid to tell about “the biggest criminal of all.” In Dandelions, Mara is now 17-years-old and has changed her name to Maranatha to leave behind bitter childhood memories.
Navpress, 2006.
Sunrise by Karen Kingsbury. This is the first novel in her new Sunrise Series. It is a story of secrecy, alcoholism, and new beginnings and takes place in a present day, exotic beach setting. Kingsbury is a New York Times bestselling author of Inspirational Fiction. Summer Sunrise, the second novel in this series, will be released July 2007.
Tyndale House, 2007.
Remember to Forget by Deborah Raney. This is based on the question “What if you could leave the past behind and begin your life all over again?” Maggie Anderson’s car has been hijacked with her in it. She is left alive and unharmed. She takes the opportunity to leave behind her unhappy life in an abusive relationship to begin again.
Howard, 2007.
Article comments
1 - relevantgirl
Thanks so much for the kind review of Wishing on Dandelions. It's not often I happen upon reviews, so this was a treat.