Against the Grain by Nancy Cain

Against the Grain by Nancy Cain is a gluten-free cookbook like no other.  Nancy started cooking gluten free when her son was diagnosed with celiac disease.  She started out by buying the gluten free mixes and like me found them rubbery and tasteless.  She started making her own recipes from the family favorites that her family  already loved.  She didn't use xanthan or guar gums that most mixes use in them.  She also didn't use any mystery chemical additives.  There are more than 200 recipes and most of them include pictures of the finished product.  This is a cookbook not just focusing on breads but also includes casseroles, desserts, cakes, pies, ect.  It is stated that this cookbook includes only ingredients which are natural and found in you cabinet or easily purchased at your local grocery store. 
I loved this book and what I like the most is not so much the recipes but that she includes the science behind what works and why.  Ms. Cain writes of all this science evidence in an easy to read format that anyone could understand.  The reader of this review may not think that this is important until you want to adapt your own family favorites.  By including the science the reader can easily transform those formerly uneatable items into delicious adaptations that can be eaten and most of all enjoyed by everyone in the family and isn't that what every family cook wants to do?  Make just one meal for the whole family instead of making special foods for that one lone person.  Who wants to be singled out anyway eating tasteless food when everyone else is eating the good?
I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review.

The Beekeeper's Son by Kelly Irvin

The Beekeeper's Son by Kelly Irvin is what I hope is the beginning of a long series called the Amish of Bee County.  In this installment the Lantz family is moving from their beloved recently sold farm in Tennessee to a place in south Texas  where it is hot and dry but they would not even have  home to call their own.  They would be living with other families until their mother could decide when to remarry.  Deborah couldn't figure out why her mother was in such a hurry since she was still grieving the loss of her father and she knew that her mother, Abigail was also.  Their Amish faith dictated that widows were encouraged to remarry as soon as possible but no one could expect her to marry without love, could they?  Abigail had courted Stephen before their father and had chosen their father over Stephen and felt great guilt over the fact that Stephen had never married and had moved from his family upon Abigail's marriage.  As soon as the family arrives, Stephen starts to take over and wants to manage the family's life as if they were already married and of course that rubs the 5 children who range in age from 19 year old Deborah down to little Hazel the wrong way.  Deborah has left her own love interest, Aaron in Tennessee and as soon as her mother marries plans to return to him.  Deborah faithfully writes to both her best friend Josie and her fiancé, Aaron.   Josie writes back but for whatever reason she waits and waits for Aaron to write her and he does not.  Deborah though she continues to hate the weather and Stephen she starts developing interest in her uncle and his family especially Fannie her cousin who is closest to her in age.  She watches her mother who seems to bristle as the takeover attitude in Stephen and is growing closer to the more carefree and caring attitude of her neighbor, Mordecai the beekeeper.  Mordecai is a widower of 12 years and was left with his own 2 children to raise.  Mordecai's wife was killed in a terrible car accident that left son, Phineas with facial scars that disfigured his face horribly.  Phineas as a young adult had learned over the years to accept that others found him terrifying and had become used to the loneliness.  Deborah finds Phineas fascinating and easily overlooks the scars but cannot fathom why he is so disagreeable to her.  Phineas is also drawn to Deborah but is scared to declare his interest in fear that she will reject him as everyone else has done.  What will happen next?  Will Abigail fall for Mordecai or will she follow expectations and marry Stephen?  Will Phineas and Deborah ever get past their insecurities and develop at least a friendship?

I loved this book and hope that this series is a good selling one so I can read more.  It is well written and the author writes in a way that easily holds the interest of the reader.  Any age girl or woman could read and enjoy this book and I hope that they do.
I received this book from Booksneeze for this review.

Prayers for the Stolen by Jennifer Clement

Prayers for the Stolen by Jennifer Clement is a novel about living in Guerrero, Mexico as a girl.  Ladydi is a girl coming of age in a mountain village where no girl is safe from the Mexican drug cartel.  Ladydi's alcoholic mother has done the best she can without a husband to raise her daughter to be strong, safe and smart.  In fact if a girl child is born the mother turned it into a boy and Ladydi's mother was no diffeent.  She dressed the baby like a boy and treated the baby just like a boy right until the little boy started to grow breasts then the mom would turn the girl into an ugly girl.  She would blacken her teeth and make scars on them with charcoal.  The big black Escalades with their tinted windows and luxury BMWs would drive into the poorest little village in all of Mexico and the girls all disappeared into little holes their mothers had dug for them to hide in until the men drove away sometimes with a girl who had not made it into the hole in time.  Everyone in the village still talked about Paula--the most beautiful girl in the world.  A tan BMW had snuck into town and not a dog had barked.  Paula's mother had all kinds of dogs to bark a warning for her but this time the big nasty men had shot all her dogs.  Paula was taken and they had not heard from her again that is until one day her came Paula walking down the road back into her mother's arms.  Paula was never the same. Ladydi wants better and she knows that her father lives in Florida working but he has quit sending her mother money.  Ladydi's friend Maria is the only person she knows who has a brother, a real brother not just a girl dressed like a boy.  Maria's father is Ladydi's father.  Ladydi cannot understand how her father could quit sending money for her family but the illegitimate family he still supports.  Why? Why did all the men leave and go to the United States and send money for awhile but soon made new families in the states.   Ladydi can't help it she still loves Maria, she looks just like her dad.  Maria's brother offers her a way out.  She can work for a rich family he says but does he take her to the rich family?  Not first oh no first he goes to a shack where he kills someone.  Ladydi sees the blood on his fancy pants.  What happens then?  Life goes from bad to worse.  Read this heart stopping book to find out.

I enjoyed reading this book on life trying to avoid being taken advantage by the drug cartel.  It tells of life just trying to make it in the mountains of Mexico where drug lords are king.  Where the only education offered to children is from the teachers who must do a year of charity and so they teach in the village.  Some cared some didn't.  The women raise the girls in the village do the best they can. Sometimes they make mistakes but it is done with love.  This book however should be read with the idea that this is a mature theme and not for the young.  The reader should be of high school age or older.
I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review.

Bunny's First Spring by Sally Lloyd-Jones

Bunny's First Spring by Sally Lloyd-Jones is a delightful read-to-me children's book on the renewal of spring.  Bunny is born in the spring when the earth is warming and grows and plays in the summer.  The earth is growing and green and all is good.  Everything around is growing and lush.  Then something begins to happen.  The days turn cool and the green turns drab and brown.  Things start leaving.  First the leaves fall off the trees and there are no more frogs in the pond.  Bunny grows fearful and thinks that his beautiful earth must be dying.  Bunny is getting colder and more afraid so he does what he has always done.  He runs into his hole to his mama. He gets sleepy and falls to sleep with his family.  And he sleeps and sleeps until once again the world renews into Spring.

This is a great delightful book on the way of the world and how the seasons change and how the animals react to the change.  It would be a good book to read to children of a young age.  It has many colorful pictures for them to enjoy and not many sentences on each page which with my children anyway that was important to them that the pages are turned fairly quickly during the reading of the story.  I would recommend this book for toddler through school age children.
I received this book from Booksneeze for this review.

When Mercy Rains by Kim Vogel Sawyer

When Mercy Rains by Kim Vogel Sawyer is the first installment in the Zimmerman Restoration Trilogy so I expect that we can expect to have 2 more novels from this great Amish/Mennonite romance author.  The book begins by giving the background of Suzanne Zimmerman's teenage years.  Back to her mother sending her off to an unwed mothers home to have her baby and then give it away.  Now 20 years later as Suzanne is raising her only child as a single parent.  She has done well.  She has friends, she went to college to become a nurse, her daughter, Alexa, is a 19 year old to be proud of but she still misses her family and home.  That is until her brother, Clete writes her a letter and begs her to come home and take care of her mother.  Can she return to care for the woman who sent her away as a pregnant seventeen year old?  And what about her old boyfriend who presumably still lives there with his new family?  Can she forgive the family who discarded her when she most needed them and help them when they most need her?  Will the community forgive her indiscretions and treat her well or at least understand that she was young?  So many questions and to find them out read this book.

As a lover of Amish/Mennonite romances I quickly read this novel in a little over a day.  It is well written and easily carries the interest of the reader.  Ms Sawyer is as always a good author and it is a pleasure to read her work.  Thank-you for this newest beginnings a the series.
This book was provided by Blogging for Books for this review.

A Woodland Miracle by Ruth Reid

A Woodland Miracle by Ruth Reid is the newest book in the Amish Wonders series. 
What do a good looking trained shoemaker with pretty girls hanging off of him from sunny Florida have in common with a crippled woman with a chip on her shoulder from the cold timberland of Badger Creek, Michigan?  Almost nothing but a common love of Christ and being raised in a loving Amish home. 
Good-looking Ben and his best friend Toby have just been caught trespassing in a hotel swimming pool cooling off after a hot day working for Toby's dad.  Ben's dad has had enough.  So it is off to work in a timber camp in Michigan for his uncle.  Ben has heard that there is 3 girls for every boy so how hard can it be?  Well for one thing he has never felt it this cold.  And the girl who the boys ran into at the station, could she be any more unfriendly?  Then Ben and Toby end up at her house because of the horrible cold rain and a washed out road.  Finding out the her name is Grace and there is only her aunt and little sister living there doesn't help except that Grace seems to be the only unfriendly one there.  They find themselves sleeping in the dark, cold, smelly barn's loft under a pile of covers while they wait for a ride to the bishop's house.  When they finally get to the bishop's home they find out that he is one of the few men still in the community as the rest are in the timber camp.  Ben and Toby find themselves helping the bishop with some of the community needs and getting to know the neighbors.  Everyone it seems is friendly enough except for Grace.  So who is Ben drawn to---Grace of course.  Then things start disappearing and they hear in town that there are dangerous men on the loose.  Can Ben and Grace solve this mystery of who these men are before they do something terrible to Grace?  Do Grace and Ben find love in this cold cold community?   Read this book to find out.
I immediately liked this book and even though I had not read the first book of the series easily understood the plot and met the characters of the novel.  Ms Reid knows how to draw in the Amish romance reader.  I would recommend this novel for Amish romance reader of any age.
I received this book from Booksneeze for this review.

Wildwood Creek by Lisa Wingate

Wildwood Creek by Lisa Wingate is a novel once again set at Moses Lake of, "If you're lucky enough to be at the lake, you're lucky enough" fame.  There are 4 books in this series but these are definitely stand alone books.  In this book particularly the people who live at Moses Lake are only slightly mentioned as they drive through the community on the way to Wildwood Creek settlement.  This book is told in the present day--there is a casting call for a docudrama reenactment movie being filmed of the settling of Wildwood Creek in 1861 and Allie Kirkland and her best friend, Kim get parts for the show.  In addition, the novel tells the story of 1861 when Bonnie Rose and her 9 year old sister Maggie Mae come to Wildwood Creek with a group of settlers to start a school for the community children.  Bonnie Rose O'Brien is a soiled woman by the day's standard because she and her sister had been captured in a raid by the Comanche and taken into the lodge as little better than a slave woman and she carried the scars on her neck of the rope they tied her with to make her run behind them. Maggie had fared a little better by being adopted by a woman who had just lost her baby.  They had been rescued and then educated but still Bonnie carried the shame of first being Irish and 2nd being a soiled woman.  The man who offered her the job made her drop the last name and she became only Bonnie Rose.  The history is vague and requires much research so in the reenactment Allie and Kim rely on Stewart from the library to help research the times.  The only thing that they know is that in the settlement people start to disappear and there is a ballad that the locals sing which seems to blame Bonnie. As young women they are looking for excitement and they certainly find it in this summer adventure/job.
I really liked this book.  It is a love story but that is just in the background of the true nature of the mystery of the settlement of Wildwood Creek.  Anyone could read this but I think it is mostly a women's novel for those of at least middle school age.  There is no sexual content nor language problems for the young.  There is some of the slave talk which is written phonically so would possibly be difficult reading for the younger.
I received this book from Bethany House for this review.