I give you fair warning that this is going to be a long post, so if you don’t care to stay, you can move on. I won’t be offended. I cannot remember a time when I didn’t love to read or be read to. My mama took me to the library when I was 3 years old, but she’d been reading to me way before then. Some of my most cherished memories are of her reading Bible stories and fairy tales to my little brother and me nearly every night, Jeff on her lap with me tucked into her side. I can almost feel it now. She bought us a Little Golden Book each week at the grocery store, and got me a subscription to the Weekly Reader and then the Weekly Reader Book Club. A new book every month!!! I was in heaven! And when I learned to read my first Dick and Jane book, I thought I was the absolute stuff! I read that book over and over, loving how I could fashion those letters into words all by myself! An amazing new world opened up for me! Mama used to say all the time, ‘If you’re looking for Susie, she’s somewhere with her nose stuck in a book.’ It still is, too.
In fourth grade, I discovered biographies of famous people and dashed through Abraham Lincoln, Daniel Boone (my favorite), Clara Barton, Florence Nightingale, Molly Pitcher, and many others. The library at school was my favorite place. And my dream at that time was to be locked in the town library overnight. All those treasures at my disposal! I was giddy! My grandpa (Pop) once bought me, at an auction, the entire set of Hardy Boy mysteries in hardcover! How I treasured those books.
Mama introduced me to Christian fiction with Janette Oke’s ‘Love Comes Softly’ and I was hooked on CF. I read it so many times and still have her original copy, as well as the others in the series. By the way, they are much better than the movies.
I don’t remember exactly how I got started influencing for Christian fiction, but I’m so happy that I did. I extend heartfelt thanks to all the wonderful authors who trust me with their hard work. It is the most wonderful blessing for someone like me, who loves to read, and a blessing I will never take for granted.
So, here we are at picking favorites. Most folks do a top ten. I cannot limit myself to only ten books. I read 259 books in 2019 and it is impossible to pick ten. I picked 15 and that was a huge struggle. I pared my list down numerous times. So here is my list, along with the synopsis for each book and the link to my goodreads review if you’re interested. These books are amazing and I highly recommend each one.
About The Book
Though Magnus MacLeish and Lark MacDougall grew up on the same castle grounds, Magnus is now laird of the great house and the Isle of Kerrera. Lark is but the keeper of his bees and the woman he is hoping will provide a tincture that might help his ailing wife conceive and bear him an heir. But when his wife dies suddenly, Magnus and Lark find themselves caught up in a whirlwind of accusations, expelled from their beloved island, and sold as indentured servants across the Atlantic. Yet even when all hope seems dashed against the rocky coastline of the Virginia colony, it may be that in this New World the two of them could make a new beginning–together.
Laura Frantz’s prose sparkles with authenticity and deep feeling as she digs into her own family history to share this breathless tale of love, exile, and courage in Colonial America.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2450260153
About The Book
Tragedy sent Holden Armstrong to the bottom of a liquor bottle. He spent a year there before coming to his senses and has been fighting the addiction since. But giving up alcohol is easier than forgiving the man who took his family away from him. And then there’s Izzy. She calls him every time she needs a designated driver. He’s happy to pick her up any time she needs a ride, but the alcohol causes her to cross the line every time. It’s obvious that she needs help, but he can’t be her solution. God is the only one who can fix Izzy Tanner, if only she’d let him.
Izzy Tanner does whatever she wants, says whatever she thinks, dates whomever she wishes. There is nothing wrong with her casual way of living—at least, that’s what she tries to convince herself and others. Only one man could tempt her into something more serious, but nothing will ever come of it. Holden Armstrong is too good for the likes of her. When a date goes terribly wrong, it changes everything. Unwanted memories from the past resurface, leaving her broken and ashamed. She begins to question her life and the choices she has made.
What will it take for Izzy to accept God’s calling?
About The Book
Tragedy sent Holden Armstrong to the bottom of a liquor bottle. He spent a year there before coming to his senses and has been fighting the addiction since. But giving up alcohol is easier than forgiving the man who took his family away from him. And then there’s Izzy. She calls him every time she needs a designated driver. He’s happy to pick her up any time she needs a ride, but the alcohol causes her to cross the line every time. It’s obvious that she needs help, but he can’t be her solution. God is the only one who can fix Izzy Tanner, if only she’d let him.
Izzy Tanner does whatever she wants, says whatever she thinks, dates whomever she wishes. There is nothing wrong with her casual way of living—at least, that’s what she tries to convince herself and others. Only one man could tempt her into something more serious, but nothing will ever come of it. Holden Armstrong is too good for the likes of her. When a date goes terribly wrong, it changes everything. Unwanted memories from the past resurface, leaving her broken and ashamed. She begins to question her life and the choices she has made.
What will it take for Izzy to accept God’s calling?
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2697292566
About The Book
Left at an orphanage as a child, Thea Reed vowed to find her mother someday. Now grown, her search takes her to Pleasant Valley, Wisconsin, in 1908. When clues lead her to a mental asylum, Thea uses her experience as a post-mortem photographer to gain access and assist groundskeeper Simeon Coyle in photographing the patients and uncovering the secrets within. However, she never expected her personal quest would reawaken the legend of Misty Wayfair, a murdered woman who allegedly haunts the area and whose appearance portends death.
A century later, Heidi Lane receives a troubling letter from her mother–who is battling dementia–compelling her to travel to Pleasant Valley for answers to her own questions of identity. When she catches sight of a ghostly woman who haunts the asylum ruins in the woods, the long-standing story of Misty Wayfair returns–and with it, Heidi’s fear for her own life.
As two women across time seek answers about their identities and heritage, can they overcome the threat of the mysterious curse that has them inextricably intertwined?
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2652744153
About The Book
From the RITA Award–winning author of Five Days in Skye comes a sweet, romantic treat that will leave you hungry for more.
Baker and pastry chef Melody Johansson has always believed in finding the positive in every situation, but seven years after she moved to Denver, she can’t deny that she’s stuck in a rut. One relationship after another has ended in disaster, and her classical French training is being wasted on her night job in a mediocre chain bakery. Then the charming and handsome private pilot Justin Keller lands on the doorstep of her workplace in a snowstorm, and Melody feels like it’s a sign that her luck is finally turning around.
Justin is intrigued by the lively bohemian baker, but the last thing he’s looking for is a relationship. His own romantic failures have proven that the demands of his job are incompatible with meaningful connections, and he’s already pledged his life savings to a new business venture across the country—an island air charter in Florida with his sister and brother-in-law.
Against their better judgment, Melody and Justin find themselves drawn together by their unconventional career choices and shared love of adventure. But when an unexpected windfall provides Melody with the chance to open her dream bakery-café in Denver with her best friend, chef Rachel Bishop, she’s faced with an impossible choice: stay and put down roots with the people and place she’s come to call home . . . or give it all up for the man she loves.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2691704930
About the Book
A Cross-Country Trip through Regency England Brings Intrigue, Rogues, and High Adventure
The must-read conclusion to Michelle Griep’s Bow Street Runners Trilogy: Life couldn’t be better for Abigail Gilbert—but it’s been a long time coming. Having lived with a family who hated her, love is finally within reach. Abby sets off on a journey across England to marry one of the most prestigious gentleman bachelors in the land—until highwaymen upset her plans and threaten her life.
Horse patrol captain Samuel Thatcher arrives just in time to save Abby. But to him she’s simply another victim in a job he’s come to despise. Tired of the dark side of humanity, he intends to buy land and retire.
Abby pleads with him to escort her on the rest of her journey. He refuses until she offers him the thing he desperately needs to achieve his goal: money. Delivering her safely will earn him more than enough to settle into a quiet life.
So begins an impossible trek for the cynical lawman and the proper lady. Each will be indelibly changed by the time they reach her betrothed, if they don’t kill one another first—or fall in love.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2710502520
About The Book
When cybercriminals hack into the US Marshals’ Witness Protection database and auction off witnesses’ personal details to the highest bidders, the RED Team led by FBI Agent Sean Nichols begins a high-stakes chase to find the hacker. But before he can even get started, the first witness is targeted and barely escapes with her life. Sean believes Phantom, an obsessed hacker who previously outwitted the top minds in the field, is behind the attack, and Sean needs this witness’s help, as she’s the person who has come closest to discovering Phantom’s identity.
Trouble is, she’s a witness under the care of US Marshal Taylor Mills, and Sean is reluctant to work with the captivating marshal who knows his deepest secrets. But Phantom claims he knows where the witness is hiding and will kill her, so to stop the hacker, Sean and Taylor must work through their personal pain and learn to trust each other. . . . The seconds are ticking down before someone dies.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2779157332
About The Book
To save her family from financial ruin, Miss Poppy Garrison accepts an unusual proposition to participate in the New York social season in exchange for her grandmother settling a family loan that has unexpectedly come due. Ill-equipped to handle the intricacies of mingling within the New York Four Hundred, Poppy becomes embroiled in one hilarious fiasco after another, doomed to suffer a grand societal failure instead of being deemed the diamond of the first water her grandmother longs for her to become.
Reginald Blackburn, second son of a duke, has been forced to travel to America to help his cousin, Charles Wynn, Earl of Lonsdale, find an American heiress to wed in order to shore up his family estate that is in desperate need of funds. Reginald himself has no interest in finding an heiress to marry, but when Poppy’s grandmother asks him to give etiquette lessons to Poppy, he swiftly discovers he may be in for much more than he bargained for.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2710500983
About The Book
When captured rebel Scotsman Alex MacKinnon is granted the king’s mercy–exile to the Colony of North Carolina–he’s indentured to Englishman Edmund Carey as a blacksmith. Against his will Alex is drawn into the struggles of Carey’s slaves–and those of his stepdaughter, Joanna Carey. A mistress with a servant’s heart, Joanna is expected to wed her father’s overseer, Phineas Reeves, but finds herself drawn instead to the new blacksmith. As their unlikely relationship deepens, successive tragedies strike the Careys. When blame falls unfairly upon Alex he flees to the distant mountains where he encounters Reverend Pauling, itinerate preacher and friend of the Careys, now a prisoner of the Cherokees. Haunted by his abandoning of Joanna, Alex tries to settle into life with the Cherokees, until circumstances thwart yet another attempt to forge his freedom and he’s faced with the choice that’s long hounded him: continue down his rebellious path or embrace the faith of a man like Pauling, whose freedom in Christ no man can steal. But the price of such mercy is total surrender, and perhaps Alex’s very life.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2710502611
About The Book
“It was just a house. Just a weathered old house in a hidden grove, shuttered and still . . . ”
Last year, after traumatic circumstances forced her from her job as a nanny, Mara Bristol finally found a place to belong—the winsome Everwood Bed & Breakfast at the edge of Maple Valley, Iowa. For months, she’s helped its owner, Lenora, maintain the ramshackle property despite their shortage of guests. But when Lenora fails to return from a month-long trip and the bank threatens foreclosure, Mara worries she’s once again alone . . . abandoned . . . about to lose the only true home she’s ever known.
Detective Marshall Hawkins is no closer to whole today than he was two years ago . . . the day his daughter died. Between his divorce, debilitating migraines, and a dependence on medication, his life is falling apart. And when a reckless decision on the job propels him into administrative leave, he has no other plan but to get in his truck and drive. A one-night stay at the Everwood was supposed to be just that. But there’s something about the old house—or maybe its intriguing caretaker—that pulls him in.
Together, Mara and Marshall set out to save the Everwood. But its secrets run deeper than they could’ve imagined. As they renovate the house and search for its missing owner, they’ll each confront the pain that brought them to the Everwood in the first place . . . and just maybe discover a faith and love to help them carry on.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2827754234
About The Book
From Christy Award–winning author Joanne Bischof comes the sequel to her beautiful novel Sons of Blackbird Mountain.
Aven Norgaard understands courage. Orphaned within an Irish workhouse, then widowed at just nineteen, she voyaged to America where she was wooed and wed by Thor Norgaard, a Deaf man in rural Appalachia. That the Lord saw her along the winding journey and that Aven now carries Thor’s child are blessings beyond measure. Yet while Thor holds her heart, it is his younger brother and rival who haunts her memories. Haakon—whose selfish choices shattered her trust in him.
Having fled the Norgaard orchard after trying to take Aven as his own, Haakon sails on the North Atlantic ice trade, where his soul is plagued with regrets that distance cannot heal. Not even the beautiful Norwegian woman he’s pursued can ease the torment. When the winds bear him home after four years away, Haakon finds the family on the brink of tragedy. A decades-old feud with the neighboring farm has wrenched them into the fiercest confrontation on Blackbird Mountain since the Civil War. Haakon’s cunning and strength hold the power to seal many fates, including Thor’s—which is already imperiled due to a grave illness brought to him at the first prick of warfare.
Now Haakon faces the hardest choice of his life. One that shapes a battlefield where pride must be broken enough to be restored, and where a prodigal son may finally know the healing peace of surrender and the boundless gift of forgiveness. And when it comes to the woman he left behind in Norway, he just might discover that while his heart belongs to a daughter of the north, she’s been awaiting him on shores more distant than the land he’s fighting for.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2450260282
About The Book
Journey into the Blue Ridge Mountains of 1918 where Laurel McAdams endures the challenges of a hard life while dreaming things can eventually improve. But trouble arrives in the form of an outsider. Having failed his British father again, Jonathan Taylor joins is uncle’s missionary endeavors as a teacher in a two-room schoolhouse. Laurel feels compelled to protect the tenderhearted teacher from the harsh realities of Appalachian life, even while his stories of life outside the mountains pull at Laurel’s imagination. Faced with angry parents over teaching methods, Laurel’s father’s drunken rages, and bad news from England, will Jonathan leave and never return, or will he stay and let love bhttps://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2609989439loom?
About The Book
Unraveling secrets is their mission…
But the truth can be fatal.
After his last CIA assignment ended in betrayal, the covert operative known only as Ned holes up for Christmas in his remote mountain cabin, preparing to trap the men hunting him. But journalist Mary Grace Ramsey reaches Ned first, injured and determined to uncover why someone is after her and her CIA agent brother. Together, can they unravel a conspiracy that goes higher than they ever imagined?
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3036245124
Mission: rescue his fellow agent
The next exciting FBI: Special Crimes Unit story
FBI agent Radley Tumberg must rescue his fellow agent, Honor Remington, from a spiritual sanctuary where she’s being held against her will. But when he reaches her, posing as her estranged husband, he discovers the motives for her capture are deadlier than he expected. Can they escape the sanctuary and find evidence that its leader isn’t what he’s pretending to be?
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2757015762
About The Book
A blank memory. A new life.
But her borrowed time just ran out
Two years after Grace Thackery washed up on a small-town Mississippi riverbank, she has the first clue about the life she doesn’t remember: someone wants her dead. And while search-and-rescue director Hollis Montgomery’s determined to protect her, the secrets of her past are darker than they expected. Can the bond between Grace and Hollis survive her true identity…and an assassin?
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2888130040
The next choice is a series by Susan May Warren called The Montana Marshalls. I’m counting it as one choice because each story bleeds into the next one as the story arc continues. My list, my rules.
About The Book
His voice threaded through her, as if it might be made of rawhide, designed not to break, to weather time and elements, as sturdy as the land he probably worked. Because yes, he wore cowboy like a second skin, the no-nonsense aura of hard work and get ’er done.
“Do I need to go back there and put some hurt on anyone?”
He wasn’t smiling, and she couldn’t tell if he was serious—maybe. Which sort of unrooted her for a moment. Um…
A woman in danger. A man who can’t help but save her. But, at what cost?
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2698502773
About The Book
He was sent here to kill you, wasn’t he?” Glo’s voice emerged in a whisper of horror.
Tate drew in a breath, and even Knox looked away as Tate nodded.
Oh, she knew it. Apparently, she had a type.
The kind of men who didn’t care what trouble—or death—might be waiting for them. Who turned their face to it and charged ahead.
The kind of men who died for what they believed in.
The kind of men who would break her heart.
What will it cost this bodyguard to save the woman he loves?
*Susie writes a delightful story! – NYT bestselling author Dee Henderson.*
Susan May Warren is the USA Today best-selling, Christy and RITA award-winning novelist of over 65 novels, including the best-selling Montana Rescue and Montana Fire series.
Bodyguard Tate Marshall, has always been the family troublemaker…
Maybe it’s his propensity to get entangled in other people’s problems. Now, he’s in over his head because he’s desperately in love with the woman he’s tasked to protect, the beautiful Gloria, “Glo” Jackson, daughter of US Senator and presidential hopeful Reba Jackson. A member of the country band, the Yankee Belles, Glo was targeted in a recent terrorist attack designed to deter her mother from running, and Tate will do anything to keep her safe. Even if it means letting her go.
Country music artist Glo Jackson isn’t afraid of trouble…
Stubborn and brave, Glo isn’t about to hide from threats, at least the kind that won’t cost her heart. She’s already paid a terrible price for the war on terror, and she refuses to fall for a man who might die, especially because of her. Better to keep him away, even if it means sacrificing her heart.
But when danger threatens them both, what will they sacrifice to keep each other safe?
As the presidential campaign heats up and the threats deepen, so does the attraction between Tate and Glo. But what will it cost Tate to keep her alive? And what will Glo do to keep from losing another man she loves?
The gripping second installment of the Montana Marshalls series.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2698502282
A Family…country…or the woman he loves…
Navy Seal Ford Marshall isn’t the kind to stand by and let a woman get hurt—especially when it involves his twin sister, RJ. So, when she makes the news, accused of sparking an international incident, he doesn’t care what it takes—he’s going to find her and bring her home.
But he might need a little help, so he calls on the woman who has had his back during the last three years—Petty Officer Scarlett Hathaway, former communications expert-turned Rescue Swimmer candidate. She’ll help him get into the country, watch his back, and…well, they might be able to have one last mission together before she leaves for a new life, a life he very much wants to be a part of now that she is off his team. Maybe he can convince her to give them a chance to kindle the spark that’s simmered between them for years.
Scarlett Hathaway isn’t sure what future she wants—not when she suddenly has to care for her little brother. Maybe she should quit the Navy and start a life with the man she can’t seem to get out of her heart. So yes, she’ll help Ford find his sister. And maybe, along the way, figure out if they have a future.
But finding RJ somewhere in the vastness of Russia with the FSB chasing them will push Scarlett beyond even her courage and make her question everything she thought she wanted…including Ford. What will it cost her to love a man who saves the world?
And when Ford is asked to choose between saving his sister, saving the world from a war, and rescuing the woman he loves…can he live with his decision?
The third book in the Montana Marshalls series will leave you breathless!https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2930737668
About The Book
He’s lost her twice…he’s not going to lose her again…
NHL Hockey Goalie Wyatt Marshall has everything–fame, money and a thriving career. But he’s hiding the two things that matter most…a career-ending injury, and his broken heart. He’s been in love with Coco Stanley since she walked into his life at age fourteen, a foster child for the Marshall family. She stole his heart years later, when, after a secret tryst, she returned to her home country of Russia. But she won’t let him back into her life—and he can’t figure out why.
She’s harboring a secret that could cost lives…
Coco Stanley is tired of living her life undercover. Or at least, with an assumed name, always pretending to be someone she’s not. And that’s not the only secret she’s harboring. If Wyatt discovers the real reason she left him, it might just destroy him. She’s resigned herself to loving him from afar…
But when he discovers she’s in danger…
Wyatt is horrified when he learns Coco has been shot and left in Russia, her fate unknown. There is nothing—nothing—that will stop him from finding her. So what if he’s not one of his super-heroic brothers, not a Ranger, not a SEAL…Wyatt is a hockey goalie, a special kind of crazy brave. Except, is he brave enough to face the secret Coco is keeping, or will it destroy everything he’s hoped for?
What will it cost them to save her?
What Wyatt and Coco don’t know is that revenge is stalking her and bringing her home just might cost them their long-awaited happy ending.
Continue the breath-taking Montana Marshalls series!
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2988817167
About The Book
She loved…and lost.
Ruby Jane never thought she’d meet the man of her dreams while running from the police in Russia. That he’d steal her heart on a train to Siberia. But loving a former CIA officer comes with a price…a life of danger. A life of high stakes.
A life where he simply disappears…
He has no memory of the man he was.
Mack Jones has no memory of his past…just the dark sense that he is hiding. And, he wants to stay that way. Mack likes the life he’s built in a small tourist town, tucked away beyond the mountains, and has no desire to dig around in the gray areas of his memory.
When his place of business catches fire and Mack rescues the owner, he makes the news, which of course alerts the past he’s hoping to outrun.
The only person who can help him is a mysterious woman he doesn’t remember.
But a woman he desperately needs.
The surprising, thrilling conclusion to the Montana Marshalls series.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2989017873
The next five books very honorable mentions:
About The Book
She has the whole world fooled. But the one man who just may see through her holds not only the key to her success, but also her heart…
Rachel Somers is America’s #1 relationship coach—America just doesn’t know it. Rachel writes the books, but her Aunt Donna plays the face of the operation. Living in fear of their secret being exposed, Rachel has no choice but to keep up the charade or lose the big money required to care for her father. With the deadline for their next book closing in, Rachel finds herself out of inspiration and running out of time. The last thing she needs is her aunt and publicist concocting a harebrained scheme to join forces with some radio star in the hope it will help deliver the elusive next book idea.
Lucas Grant is a star of late night radio—though it’s come with an unexpected price of hordes of women who keep calling his sports show to ask him for relationship advice. They make his ratings look great, but they also mean he has to waste hours talking to people like Dr. Donna Somerville about feelings instead of his first love: football. When a big-time producer calls, it looks like his hard work is about to pay off. But the offer comes with a catch—the producer is convinced Dr. Donna is not what she seems and he wants Lucas to discover her secret. To do that, he needs to win over her tight-lipped assistant who holds the key to his success and—he begins to suspect—his heart. Can love find a way through the lies that force them apart?
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2670401033
About The Book
He broke her heart. Now, he’s back, and he’s determined to show her what they had isn’t over. . . and he can prove it with just one kiss.
Single mother Carly Collins likes predictability. However, when her son Jaden’s health is threatened, her neatly controlled world is tossed into a tailspin. Nothing is certain anymore, especially her feelings for Josh Dixon, Jaden’s father, her first love and the man responsible for shattering her heart sixteen years ago.
When Josh Dixon walked out of Harbor Pointe, he left behind his only shot at a real family. Now a successful tech mogul, the town rebel has found a cause—ensure his son’s recovery and prove to Carly and Jaden that he’s not the same guy he was back then.
Carly and Josh are forced to wade through messy emotions and questions that have gone unanswered for years, which would be easier if not for the pesky feelings, every bit as strong and impossible to ignore as they ever were.
Will forgiveness win, giving Carly and Josh a second chance at love . . . or will the past prove too much to overcome?
A small town romance about first love second chances and how our most beautiful life might look nothing like we planned.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2873398633
Diamond in the Rough
About The Book
To save her family from financial ruin, Miss Poppy Garrison accepts an unusual proposition to participate in the New York social season in exchange for her grandmother settling a family loan that has unexpectedly come due. Ill-equipped to handle the intricacies of mingling within the New York Four Hundred, Poppy becomes embroiled in one hilarious fiasco after another, doomed to suffer a grand societal failure instead of being deemed the diamond of the first water her grandmother longs for her to become.
Reginald Blackburn, second son of a duke, has been forced to travel to America to help his cousin, Charles Wynn, Earl of Lonsdale, find an American heiress to wed in order to shore up his family estate that is in desperate need of funds. Reginald himself has no interest in finding an heiress to marry, but when Poppy’s grandmother asks him to give etiquette lessons to Poppy, he swiftly discovers he may be in for much more than he bargained for.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2710500983
About The Book
Britt Bradford and Zander Ford have been the best of friends since they met thirteen years ago. Unbeknown to Britt, Zander has been in love with her for just as long.
Independent and adventurous Britt channels her talent into creating chocolates at her hometown shop. Zander is a bestselling author who’s spent the past 18 months traveling the world. He’s achieved a great deal but still lacks the only thing that ever truly mattered to him–Britt’s heart.
When Zander’s uncle dies of mysterious causes, he returns to Merryweather, Washington, to investigate, and Britt is immediately there to help. Although this throws them into close proximity, both understand that an attempt at romance could jeopardize their once-in-a-lifetime friendship. But while Britt is determined to resist any change in their relationship, Zander finds it increasingly difficult to keep his feelings hidden.
As they work together to uncover his uncle’s tangled past, will the truth of what lies between them also, finally, come to light?
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2710501987
About The Book
From the pages of history and accounts of those who endured the Battle of Franklin, Tamera Alexander weaves real-life love letters into a story of unlikely romance first kindled amid the shadows of the Civil War.
Elizabeth “Lizzie” Clouston’s quietly held principles oppose those of the Southern Cause–but when forty thousand soldiers converge on the fields of Franklin, Tennessee, the war demands an answer. The Carnton home where she is governess is converted into a Confederate field hospital, and Lizzie is called upon to assist the military doctor with surgeries that determine life or death. Faced with the unimaginable, she must summon fortitude, even as she fears for the life of Towny, her fiancé and lifelong friend.
As a young soldier lies dying in Lizzie’s arms, she vows to relay his final words to his mother, but knows little more than the boy’s first name. That same night, decorated Mississippi sharpshooter Captain Roland Ward Jones extracts a different promise from Lizzie: that she intervene should the surgeon decide to amputate his leg.
Lizzie is nothing if not a woman of her word, earning the soldiers’ respect as she tends to the wounded within Carnton’s walls. None is more admiring than Captain Jones, who doesn’t realize she is pledged to another. But as Lizzie’s heart softens toward the Confederate captain, she discovers that his moral ground is at odds with her own. Now torn between love, principles, and promises made, she struggles to be true to her heart while standing for what she knows is right–no matter the cost.
From the pages of history and the personal accounts of those who endured the Battle of Franklin, Tamera Alexander weaves the real-life love letters between Captain Roland Ward Jones and Miss Elizabeth Clouston into a story of unlikely romance first kindled amid the shadows of war.
This historical novel is a standalone, though it can be read as part of Tamera Alexander’s series, the Carnton Novels.
Prequel novella: Christmas at Carnton
Book one: With This Pledge
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2613097936
About The Book
In this sweet romance, the power of love and the miracle of faith promise hope and healing in the beautiful Victorian known affectionately as The Memory House.
When Beck Holiday lost her father in the North Tower on 9/11, she also lost her memories of him. Eighteen years later, she’s a tough New York City cop burdened with a damaging secret, suspended for misconduct, and struggling to get her life in order. Meanwhile a mysterious letter arrives informing her she’s inherited a house along Florida’s northern coast, and what she discovers there will change her life forever. Matters of the heart only become more complicated when she runs into handsome Bruno Endicott, a driven sports agent who fondly recalls the connection they shared as teenagers. But Beck doesn’t remember that either.
Decades earlier, widow Everleigh Applegate lives a steady, uneventful life with her widowed mother after a tornado ripped through Waco, Texas, and destroyed her new, young married life. When she runs into old high school friend Don Callahan, she begins to yearn for change. Yet no matter how much she longs to love again, she is hindered by a secret she can never share.https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2450260376
And I can’t leave out two great cozy mysteries.
Exotic pet-sitter Belinda Blake is nervous about her new job at the White Pine Wolf Preserve, but it turns out that the care and feeding of wild carnivores may be the least dangerous part of the gig . . .
Pet-sitter Belinda Blake is no stranger to dealing with wild animals, but she’s wary when the owner of the Greenwich, Connecticut, preserve asks her to help out with her “fluffy darlings.” Her caution seems justified on her very first day, when she discovers a tour guide—dead, bloodied, and surrounded by wolves in the enclosure.
Was it death by predator or something more sinister? The body count rises, but something’s not adding up. As she gets to know the rescued wolves and wolf-dog hybrids better, Belinda realizes that her human colleagues are not above suspicion. With help from her own “pack”—her pregnant sister, Red the chauffeur/bodyguard, and hunky farmer Jonas—Belinda is hot on the killer’s tail, but if she doesn’t find him soon, he’ll do more than muzzle her to keep the truth from escaping.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2903006332
Can a couple of baristas chase down a car thief without spilling a drop of their favorite drink?
Plans for a Valentine’s Day grand opening of a small town coffee shop go awry when the first customer is killed. Evidence points toward the victim being mixed up in a car theft ring, but shop owners Tandy and Marissa have reason to believe he was framed. An assortment of suspects–from a pink-haired heir to Tandy’s charming ex–all seem to know a little too much about grand theft auto.
Without approval from either their boyfriends or the gum-chewing FBI agent in charge, the shop owners go on stakeouts, plan stings, and pursue justice in a high-speed car chase. If they don’t find the killer soon, it might be more than their love lives in trouble.Can a couple of baristas chase down a car thief without spilling a drop of their favorite drink?
Plans for a Valentine’s Day grand opening of a small town coffee shop go awry when the first customer is killed. Evidence points toward the victim being mixed up in a car theft ring, but shop owners Tandy and Marissa have reason to believe he was framed. An assortment of suspects–from a pink-haired heir to Tandy’s charming ex–all seem to know a little too much about grand theft auto.
Without approval from either their boyfriends or the gum-chewing FBI agent in charge, the shop owners go on stakeouts, plan stings, and pursue justice in a high-speed car chase. If they don’t find the killer soon, it might be more than their love lives in trouble.
Can a couple of baristas chase down a car thief without spilling a drop of their favorite drink?
Plans for a Valentine’s Day grand opening of a small town coffee shop go awry when the first customer is killed. Evidence points toward the victim being mixed up in a car theft ring, but shop owners Tandy and Marissa have reason to believe he was framed. An assortment of suspects–from a pink-haired heir to Tandy’s charming ex–all seem to know a little too much about grand theft auto.
Without approval from either their boyfriends or the gum-chewing FBI agent in charge, the shop owners go on stakeouts, plan stings, and pursue justice in a high-speed car chase. If they don’t find the killer soon, it might be more than their love lives in trouble. Can a couple of baristas chase down a car thief without spilling a drop of their favorite drink?
Plans for a Valentine’s Day grand opening of a small town coffee shop go awry when the first customer is killed. Evidence points toward the victim being mixed up in a car theft ring, but shop owners Tandy and Marissa have reason to believe he was framed. An assortment of suspects–from a pink-haired heir to Tandy’s charming ex–all seem to know a little too much about grand theft auto.
Without approval from either their boyfriends or the gum-chewing FBI agent in charge, the shop owners go on stakeouts, plan stings, and pursue justice in a high-speed car chase. If they don’t find the killer soon, it might be more than their love lives in trouble. Can a couple of baristas chase down a car thief without spilling a drop of their favorite drink?
Plans for a Valentine’s Day grand opening of a small town coffee shop go awry when the first customer is killed. Evidence points toward the victim being mixed up in a car theft ring, but shop owners Tandy and Marissa have reason to believe he was framed. An assortment of suspects–from a pink-haired heir to Tandy’s charming ex–all seem to know a little too much about grand theft auto.
Without approval from either their boyfriends or the gum-chewing FBI agent in charge, the shop owners go on stakeouts, plan stings, and pursue justice in a high-speed car chase. If they don’t find the killer soon, it might be more than their love lives in trouble.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/shde
Debut Novel
Small-town realtor Hannah Thornton has many talents–unfortunately, selling houses isn’t one of them. When a developer sets his sights on the historic homes in Heritage, Hannah turns to her best friend Luke for help. Will Luke risk his future and confront his past to help her succeed?
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2s
So there you have it. My Top 15 Reads in 2019, along with a few other categories. I highly recommend each one, so why not grab a few, or all, and enjoy them!
Simply Susan 