Tending Roses
By Lisa Wingate
When Kate Bowman temporarily moves to her grandmother’s Missouri farm with her husband and baby son, she learns that the lessons that most enrich our lives often come unexpectedly. The family has given Kate the job of convincing Grandma Rose, who’s become increasingly stubborn and forgetful, to move off her beloved land and into a nursing home. But Kate knows such a change would break her grandmother’s heart.
Just when Kate despairs of finding answers, she discovers her grandma’s journal. A beautiful handmade notebook, it is full of stories that celebrate the importance of family, friendship, and faith. Stories that make Kate see her life—and her grandmother—in a completely new way...
The Time Between
by Karen White
Eleanor Murray will always remember her childhood on Edisto Island, where her late father, a local shrimper, shared her passion for music. Now her memories of him are all that tempers the guilt she feels over the accident that put her sister in a wheelchair.
To help support her sister, Eleanor works at a Charleston investment firm during the day, but she escapes into her music, playing piano at a neighborhood bar. Until the night her enigmatic boss walks in and offers her a part-time job caring for his elderly aunt, Helena, back on Edisto. For Eleanor, it’s a chance to revisit the place where she was her happiest—and to share her love of music with grieving Helena, whose sister recently died under mysterious circumstances.
Eleanor will finally learn the truth about their past: secrets that will help heal her relationship with her own sister—and set Eleanor free....
The time between is a book about letting go and forgiving. It is about forgiving others, as well as, ourselves, before we waste the time between. Beautiful story that touched me deeply.
To Purchase: Amazon Barnes and Noble
Arthur Truluv
by Elizabeth Berg
For the past six months, Arthur Moses’s days have looked the same: He tends to his rose garden and to Gordon, his cat, then rides the bus to the cemetery to visit his beloved late wife for lunch. The last thing Arthur would imagine is for one unlikely encounter to utterly transform his life.
Eighteen-year-old Maddy Harris is an introspective girl who visits the cemetery to escape the other kids at school. One afternoon she joins Arthur—a gesture that begins a surprising friendship between two lonely souls. Moved by Arthur’s kindness and devotion, Maddy gives him the nickname “Truluv.” As Arthur’s neighbor Lucille moves into their orbit, the unlikely trio band together and, through heartache and hardships, help one another rediscover their own potential to start anew.
I love this book and Arthur touched my heart! I've read most of Elizabeth Berg's books and her writing gets better and better!! Here are a few of the books by Elizabeth Berg that I've enjoyed: Dream When You're Feeling Blue, Never Change, The Last Time I Saw You, The Pull of the Moon, The Art of Mending, and Home Safe.
To Purchase: Amazon Barnes & Noble
I'll Be Your Blue Sky
by Marisa de Los Santos
On the weekend of her wedding, Clare Hobbes meets an elderly woman named Edith Herron. During the course of a single conversation, Edith gives Clare the courage to do what she should have done months earlier: break off her engagement to her charming—yet overly possessive—fiancé.
Three weeks later, Clare learns that Edith has died—and has given her another gift. Nestled in crepe myrtle and hydrangea and perched at the marshy edge of a bay in a small seaside town in Delaware, Blue Sky House now belongs to Clare. Though the former guest house has been empty for years, Clare feels a deep connection to Edith inside its walls, which are decorated with old photographs taken by Edith and her beloved husband, Joseph.
Shifting between the 1950s and the present and told in the alternating voices of Edith and Clare, I’ll Be Your Blue Sky is vintage Marisa de los Santos—an emotionally evocative novel that probes the deepest recesses of the human heart and illuminates the tender connections that bind our lives.
I loved this book! I'll Be Your Blue Sky is filled with twists and turns that surprise and delight!
To Purchase: Amazon Barnes & Noble
Why the Sky is Blue
by Susan Meissner
What options does a Christian woman have after she’s brutally assaulted by a stranger...and becomes pregnant? That’s the heartrending situation Claire Holland faces. Happily married and the mother of two when she is attacked, Claire begins an incredible journey on the painful pathway to trusting God “in all things.”
When Claire’s husband, Dan, confesses he can’t be a father to the expected child, Claire’s decision to put the baby up for adoption creates a sense of tremendous loss for Claire. Later, unexpected circumstances turn this seeming loss into victory.
This wonderful first novel isn’t a love story....but a life story, presenting the twin themes trusting God in tragic circumstances and reaping the rewards that eventually come with sacrificial loving.
Why the Sky is Blue is about grace. And, as I read each page, I wondered how I would handle the situation, knowing the only why would be through His grace. Here is a list of some of the titles by Susan Meissner that I recommend: The Girl in the Glass, Lady in Waiting, The Shape of Mercy, As Bright as Heaven, and A Fall of Marigolds.
To Purchase: Amazon
The Beach Trees
by Karen White
From the time she was twelve, Julie Holt knew what a random tragedy can do to a family. At that tender age, her little sister disappeared--never to be found. It was a loss that slowly eroded the family bonds she once relied on. As an adult with a prestigious job in the arts, Julie meets a struggling artist who reminds her so much of her sister, she can't help feeling protective. It is a friendship that begins a long and painful process of healing for Julie, leading her to a house on the Gulf Coast, ravaged by Hurricane Katrina, and to stories of family that take her deep into the past.
The Beach Trees is filled with yearning, loss, and intrigue. I highly recommend this book! Also, another great book by Karen White is: The Sound of Glass.
To Purchase: Amazon Barnes & Noble
Our Souls at Night
by Kent Haruf
In the familiar setting of Holt, Colorado, home to all of Kent Haruf's inimitable fiction, Addie Moore pays an unexpected visit to a neighbor, Louis Waters. Her husband died years ago, as did his wife, and in such a small town they naturally have known of each other for decades; in fact, Addie was quite fond of Louis's wife. His daughter lives hours away, her son even farther, and Addie and Louis have long been living alone in empty houses, the nights so terribly lonely, especially with no one to talk with. But maybe that could change? As Addie and Louis come to know each other better--their pleasures and their difficulties--a beautiful story of second chances unfolds, making Our Souls at Night the perfect final installment to this beloved writer's enduring contribution to American literature.
This was Kent Haruf's last book. He seemed to be saying good-bye through this story. I found this book touching as it deals with the subjects of aging and loneliness. I also highly recommend his book, Eventide.
To Purchase: Amazon Barnes & Noble
A Tree Grows In Brooklyn
by Betty Smith
From the moment she entered the world, Francie needed to be made of stern stuff, for the often harsh life of Williamsburg demanded fortitude, precocity, and strength of spirit. Often scorned by neighbors for her family’s erratic and eccentric behavior—such as her father Johnny’s taste for alcohol and Aunt Sissy’s habit of marrying serially without the formality of divorce—no one, least of all Francie, could say that the Nolans’ life lacked drama. By turns overwhelming, sublime, heartbreaking, and uplifting, the Nolans’ daily experiences are tenderly threaded with family connectedness and raw with honesty. Betty Smith has, in the pages of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, captured the joys of humble Williamsburg life-from “junk day” on Saturdays, when the children of Francie’s neighborhood traded their weekly take for pennies, to the special excitement of holidays, bringing cause for celebration and revelry. Betty Smith has artfully caught this sense of exciting life in a novel of childhood, replete with incredibly rich moments of universal experiences—a truly remarkable achievement for any writer.
One of my all-time favorites books. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn stays with you long after you finish it. Other books that I've enjoyed by Betty Smith are: Joy in the Morning and Maggie Now.
To Purchase: Amazon Barnes & Noble
Ann of Green Gables
by L.M. Montgomery
As soon as Anne Shirley arrives at the snug white farmhouse called Green Gables, she is sure she wants to stay forever . . . but will the Cuthberts send her back to to the orphanage? Anne knows she's not what they expected—a skinny girl with fiery red hair and a temper to match. If only she can convince them to let her stay, she'll try very hard not to keep rushing headlong into scrapes and blurting out the first thing that comes to her mind. Anne is not like anyone else, the Cuthberts agree; she is special—a girl with an enormous imagination. This orphan girl dreams of the day when she can call herself Anne of Green Gables.
When the movie series, Ann of Green Gables was produced, I bought all of them. Every year, I begin with disc one and watch all six discs. It takes hours and I look forward to it!
To Purchase: Amazon Barnes & Noble
The Five People You Meet in Heaven
by Mitch Albom
Eddie is a grizzled war veteran who feels trapped in a meaningless life of fixing rides at a seaside amusement park. His days are a dull routine of work, loneliness, and regret.
Then, on his 83rd birthday, Eddie dies in a tragic accident, trying to save a little girl from a falling cart. He awakens in the afterlife, where he learns that heaven is not a lush Garden of Eden, but a place where your earthly life is explained to you by five people. These people may have been loved ones or distant strangers. Yet each of them changed your path forever.
One by one, Eddie's five people illuminate the unseen connections of his earthly life. As the story builds to its stunning conclusion, Eddie desperately seeks redemption in the still-unknown last act of his life: Was it a heroic success or a devastating failure The answer, which comes from the most unlikely of sources, is as inspirational as a glimpse of heaven itself.
In The Five People You Meet in Heaven, Mitch Albom gives us an astoundingly original story that will change everything you've ever thought about the afterlife--and the meaning of our lives here on earth.
I found myself thinking about the five people I might meet one day in heaven. It makes you look at people and how you interact with them more meaningful.
Some of the other books by Mitch Albom that I've enjoyed are: The First Phone Call From Heaven, Have a Llittle Faith, For One More Day, and Tuesdays With Morrie.
To Purchase: Amazon Barnes & Noble