The Winnowing Season by Cindy Woodsmall

The Winnowing Season by Cindy Woodsmall

The Winnowing Season by Cindy Woodsmall is the second installment of the Amish Vines and Orchards series.  Rhoda Byler and her brother and his family have joined forces with the King brothers’ family to form a new Amish community in Maine.  Rhoda and Jacob King had a new romance begun during the A Season for Tending installment of the series.  Rhoda’s friend Landon had found an orchard in Maine badly in need of repair which was for sale at a price that they could afford.  Rhoda came from a harder more conservative community of Amish than the King family.  The night before they were to leave they got word that the Rueben Glick, the man who had destroyed Rhoda’s small family orchard and garden had twisted the story so that Rhoda was in trouble and maybe would be punished by not being allowed to go on the move.  Though Rueben’s uncle was presiding over the meeting truth managed to win out and so began the great move to the new orchard in Maine.  Rhoda Byler and Samuel King must learn to work together and Rhoda needs to learn how to deal with Jacob’s secrets and trouble with the law.  This 2^nd installment is how they all learn to live together drawing from each of their strengths and living within their weaknesses.

Ms Woodsmall has outdone herself with this installment.  As usual she has left us wanting more.  The author has drawn the reader into the lives of the Byler and King settlement of Amish in such a way that they no longer see the characters as Amish but rather as friends that anyone could have.  Friends that we all want to live in and around our own community, friends who have problems but who love and care about those around them whether like them or different from them.  I love reading her stories and look forward to reading the next installment of the Amish Vines and Orchards series.

This book was provided by Waterbrook Press for this review.

When God Makes Lemonade by Don Jacobson

When God Makes Lemonade by Don Jacobson.

When God Makes Lemonade is a collection of real stories of people’s lives of God’s intervention when He was needed.  Some of these are miracles.  Some of these are times when God used another human to do His work.  All are times when the teller was at the end of their rope and ready to give up and God sent help.  Some are funny and others will have the reader crying.  Some are Mr. Jacobson’s own stories but most are stories of other people’s life.  All show the hope of living daily with Christ.  All of these people are not “good” people who prayed and good happened.  Some of them had bad things happen to bad people and God brought peace and hope in order to bring them to Him.

I liked this book but I warn you don’t read it without tissues handy.   I was in tears more than once and had to get to the bathroom to get one so plan ahead.  These stories are not all miracles that happened whenever anyone prayed. 

I received this book from Booksneeze for this review.

When God Makes Lemonade by Don Jacobson

When God Makes Lemonade by Don Jacobson.

When God Makes Lemonade is a collection of real stories of people’s lives of God’s intervention when He was needed.  Some of these are miracles.  Some of these are times when God used another human to do His work.  All are times when the teller was at the end of their rope and ready to give up and God sent help.  Some are funny and others will have the reader crying.  Some are Mr. Jacobson’s own stories but most are stories of other people’s life.  All show the hope of living daily with Christ.  All of these people are not “good” people who prayed and good happened.  Some of them had bad things happen to bad people and God brought peace and hope in order to bring them to Him.

I liked this book but I warn you don’t read it without tissues handy.   I was in tears more than once and had to get to the bathroom to get one so plan ahead.  These stories are not all miracles that happened whenever anyone prayed. 

I received this book from Booksneeze for this review.

One Glorious Ambition by Jane Kirkpatrick

One Glorious Ambition by Jane Kirkpatrick.

This is the story of Dorthea Dix.  She is the eldest child of a mother with mental illness who neglected her and a religious fanatic father who physically abused both her and her younger brothers.  Dorthea at a young age is rescued from her extremely poor family to be raised to be a lady of means by her paternal grandmother.  Dorthea is educated and well fed and becomes a teacher for young people who could not afford the tuition that was then required for educating the youth of the beginning of the 1800’s.  Dorthea after searching for her calling in life finally finds that she has a gift for writing and then upon her lifelong journey of finding help for the mentally ill of the world.  At the time these people were either housed in people’s homes or in prisons.  Some states even auctioned them off to be servants or slaves.  Dorthea’s great ambition was to see these “least of these” housed in hospitals where they could be properly fed and treated by doctors.  She championed moral care for these people.  Dorthea who was born a poor girl who was not even well fed grew into a woman who would tour the country and then eventually speak before Congress to try to get this country to take good care of our mentally ill and to encourage treatment of this illness at a time when they were routinely chained and hidden from society.

When I first heard of this book, I knew that I had heard of Dorthea Dix but couldn’t remember why.  This is a woman who usually gets a paragraph or even just a sentence in our history books, even in nursing.  This woman who lived at a time when women were not allowed to vote or even speak before groups of men did all this work for people who did not have the means or the know how to even know who she was.  The mentally ill of the early 1800s were not fed regularly let alone educated or treated by physicians who specialized in their care.  The horror stories of this time must be know by those now who think that treatment of the mentally ill is not worth the tax dollars spent on it.  This is a book that should be read by all those concerned with the treatment or who know a mentally ill person—and that is most all of us.

This book was provided by Waterbrook Multnomah Press for this review.

The Bridesmain by Beverly Lewis

The Bridesmaid by Beverly Lewis.

Joanna Kurtz is such good friend to many in her Amish community that she has been asked over and over to be their bridesmaid at their wedding.  She loves that she is appreciated and loved by her peers but she yearns to be loved and married to a man that she loves her back.  Oddly enough she meets the man of her dreams, Eben, after traveling to Indiana for the funeral of her Uncle Amos.  They love each other but it would seem that living in 2 different states and Eben’s family’s expectation that he stay to help on the family farm and Joanna’s trouble with the Bishop would keep them apart.  Joanna has been writing fiction secretly and her sister has told the preacher and now she is in so much trouble that she may not leave the community.

I love to read Beverly Lewis’s Amish love stories and I enjoyed this one.  I sure do hope that she continues to turn out these stories of quality to the women who read them.

Yellow Crocus by laila Ibrahim

The setting of this novel is mid 1800’s of the southern part of the United States.  Slavery was the norm and Elizabeth Wainwright was born to the mistress of the house through a difficult forceps delivery by a well respected white doctor—the best that money could buy.  She is then brought to her wet nurse, Mattie.  Mattie has been honored by this transfer from the fields into the big white house to be the slave for Miss Elizabeth but she must leave her months old baby to be raised by another which creates heartache for her which she will never recover.   It matters not though because Mattie is a slave with no power over her life or her death for that matter.  Though she longs to be with her baby son she raises and learns to love this new baby who she nurses and loves as if her own while only allowed to see her son through the window of Miss Elizabeth’s bedroom and a few hours on Sunday.  Elizabeth loves her Mattie more than her own mother.  Mattie calls this new baby Lisbeth.  Lisbeth grows into a high-born white lady but she is bothered by some of the norms of her surroundings—ownership of other humans, the beatings, the rapes of the slaves by the white masters—and all this time she remains close with her nurse but is growing away from the slave quarters and how she played with Mattie’s son, Samuel.  She is being encouraged to be married to Edward Cunningham who is from one of the most upstanding families of society.  It matters not to her family that she does not feel like she loves him.  It doesn’t matter that she is drawn to Matthew who shares her interest in books and treats her well.

I loved this book.  I would recommend reading it by all especially girls and women.  It is written in simple language that would be understood by even those of middle school age.  This novel is certainly not a history book but one that would encourage the study of this dark time in our own country’s history.   That this novel was written by a first time author is especially encouraging, I hope she continues to write such good novels for our female readers.

When Donkeys Talk by Tyler Blanski

When Donkeys Talk by Tyler Blanski.

Tyler Blanski is an American Singer-songwriter and author who was thirsty for a fresh look at his Christian faith and wanted to look back into the lives of the saints, the stars (constellations) and see the beauty of Christianity.  He wants us to again believe that miracles can and will happen in the life of the Christian.  He wants us to expect that God will work in our life in miraculous ways and for us to look again at the world that God has created for us to live in and experience as creatures of His creation.  The writer also wants us to again look at the why we as a group find it so hard to believe in God’s miracles but we willingly listen to the science and chaos that the modern culture would have us to believe.  Mr. Blanski uses scripture, history and works of the thinkers of our Christian church to states his case for belief in God’s miracles and faith in His love for us.

I struggled through this book.  It is written in a flighty way and uses a lot of the modern fantasy writings that I was not familiar.  It makes the reader think though outside of the box which is what Jesus also did in order to bring in the masses to Him.  I hope that this book will do much the same with new readers who love reading of fantasy and would be drawn to accept that Jesus was born died and resurrected for all. 

This book was provided by    Booksneeze  for this review