Woe to those who call evil good
and good evil,
who put darkness for light and light for darkness,
who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.
Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes
and clever in their own sight.
Isaiah 5:20-21 (NIV)
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This is it.
God have mercy on the USA and please shed your grace on us. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.
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The first novel this week in the CFBA Tour is The Breath of Dawn by Kristen Heitzmann published by Bethany House. The Breath of Dawn reunites readers with Morgan Spencer, his brother Rick and wife Noelle and their young son Liam, making this book the third, many years later, following A Rush of Wings and The Still of Night. It might not be quite as long as the two previous novels, but it's definitely longer than the average romantic suspense in CBA – which is a good thing.
When a Kristen Heitzmann contemporary novel releases, I'm all over it. Few CBA authors can do romance with her depth, her skills at subtle dialogue that smolders, and her ability to capture the essence of real attraction that leads unequivocally to romance. Never silly but occasionally humorous because of the foolishness we can experience in the midst of attraction, the insecurity, and all the intensity of inner struggles which accommodate establishing mutual feelings, Kristen Heitzmann is a master at creating all the romantic tension two people can endure before relationship results.
The novel opens at the gravesite of Morgan Spencer's wife Jill, killed instantly in a car crash, leaving him with their precious two year old daughter "Livie". The grief is palpable and the pain is searing, perfectly done.
Time marches on and as Morgan and Livie stay in a cabin at his brother Rick's guest ranch in the high country of Colorado, his fame as the "success guru" gained from righting businesses and turning them into money-making enterprises seems like another lifetime. He hasn't been back to his mansion in Santa Barbara since Jill's death, and he contemplates buying a small local home not too far from Rick's ranch to ease Livie into life without Rick, Noelle, and Liam so he can eventually return to his former life. The owner of the unusual house has died, her daughter RaeAnn is visiting from her home in Texas to make arrangements for getting it ready to sell. She hires a woman named Quinn Reilly to take care of her mom's near-hoarded belongings and forms an instant friendship with Quinn.
In the process of learning what RaeAnn intends to keep and what Quinn is free to sell for her business on Ebay, Quinn meets all of the Spencers and experiences both attraction and conflict with Morgan. She recognizes his pain instantly but doesn't appreciate his occasional jabs and curt treatment that seem to follow his kindness and humor. Without the knowledge of his having lost his wife, she attempts to keep things all business, but her spunk won't always let him get away with being a sometimes jerk. Morgan finds himself in the odd position of finding this petite package rather attractive and loads himself down with guilt over it causing the rudeness he knows is wrong. Livie makes no bones about her rapport with Quinn which surprises and unsettles Morgan in an eventually positive way.
Quinn Erin Reilly is on the run. She's found her tiny chalet in the Colorado mountains hoping she can hide there from the man who seeks revenge for her testimony against his con job on her father's cultish church which put the man in prison for four years. When she gets a terrifying phone call from her older sister who's always resented her and has been manipulated by the con man, Quinn's hope that she can stay tucked away there disintegrates.
When she's invited to Thanksgiving dinner at the Spencer ranch and offers to cook the meal since Noelle is both sick and a terrible cook, a snowstorm keeps her there overnight, and a definite "something" begins with Morgan.
The complexities and fears in Quinn's life slowly reveal themselves to Morgan who offers an extreme solution to her request for help. Motivated by fear, Quinn accepts Morgan's plan which leads to far more than either of them expected.
Told from multiple points of view, the development of the relationship between Quinn, who must revert to using her middle name Erin, and Morgan, we get detailed pictures of different individuals in this story. Capturing personal pain with a magnifying glass, Quinn and Morgan's different situations cause us to empathize with each of them along with our frustrations in their mutual stubbornness. Kristen Heitzmann writes well, takes her time to develop new characters and flesh in the "old" familiar ones while adding peripheral people who contribute directly to the history past and present of her main characters. It's a good story even though we know the outcome. The telling of it presents a treat for fans of this author. I loved the story.
If you enjoy non-typical romantic suspense that gives romance a dose of reality and injects faith in God to a prominent but subtle place, designs a dashing hero, a strong but vulnerable heroine, a pathetic sister, and a vengeful villain, you won't be disappointed in The Breath of Dawn by Kristen Heitzmann. The only complaint I have – which is incidental and totally my opinion – is the cover. I don't like it even a little bit and don't picture Quinn Erin Reilly as the girl on the cover.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0764210424
Father, I pray you would continue to fill Kristen with stories, to bless all she does to honor you, and encourage her in every area of her life as you direct her steps. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.
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As for God, his way is perfect; the word of the Lord is flawless. Psalm18:30 (NIV)
The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul.
The statutes of the Lord are trustworthy, making wise the simple. Psalm 19:7-8 (NIV)
No one whose hope is in you will ever be put to shame, but they will be put to shame who are treacherous without excuse. Psalm 25:3 (NIV)
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Graded as the most important election ever for our country, both sides of the two main parties have their heels dug in firmly to their positions as the voting deadline of November 6th, 2012, approaches. Enough mud has been slung to bury the devastated Jersey shoreline. Enough lies have been told to outlast most of our lifetimes. Never enough prayers have been offered by Christains who long for God's principles and His healing to commence.
Many have already cast their ballots across this great nation. I don't identify this nation as "great" lightly. What has made it great is the God who has allowed His mercy and grace to hover over it as it fought through its youthful failures, a terrible divide resulting from the atrocities of slavery, and the courage it's taken to defend the freedoms of others on foreign shores in stranger lands. Every bad decision results from man taking control of other men and circumstances, playing God. Every success is given by the Father, His benevolence unequaled by sinful men.
Most of us would agree that greed, covetousness, murder, and lying constitute sin. Some will balk when we add adultery, fornication, and homosexuality to the mix. Yet the same principles that establish sin include them along with the practice of magic (in the occult sense), gossip, and idolatry. The one thing we all have in common in this world is sin.
Let's talk about having blood on our hands through our direct actions. Most of us would be horrified at the thought of watching a doctor carve up a newborn in the hospital nursery. Yet some of us are okay with that child being barbarically carved out of the womb.
How do you justify this? If it's a child outside the womb, it's a child inside the womb. That unborn child has a heartbeat and feels pain. How does this get set aside while abortion gets championed with such hatred and vitriol for saving unborn lives?
Some of us can watch the gore of a horror film or the killers portrayed in forsensic series TV and remind ourselves it's fiction. But it's another thing entirely to watch the live feed of the outnumbered execution of four Americans fighting for their lives for seven hours from an al Qaeda attack, after making numerous requests for assistance because of imminent attack and inadequate faulty local security which betrayed them on that day, and being denied. When pleas for protection were made, orders were given to not assist. To not assist. While four Americans died. While this president denied them help, two former Navy SEALs fought to their death trying to provide the assistance and protection the United States government under the Commander-in-Chief Barack Hussein Obama would not give. While the live feed played their deaths in real time.
I will never understand how this can be defensible in any way. Or comparable to any other circumstance related to the POTUS. Or can be overlooked by a media that has sold its soul to the devil of deception to assist in cover-ups and promote the lies which followed this incident for 10 (ten) days after the travesty. A mainstream media which still to this day keeps mostly silent, continues to deny the reality which has been exposed in spite of them.
The crimson blood of our countrymen and millions of unborn children on the hands of those who choose to ignore and excuse these heinous acts.
This is why we pray. This is why we repent of our horrible sins and humble ourselves before the God of all creation and repent in shame. In shame. We can only hope the promise of this scripture will prove true. That enough of us will show our Lord how deeply sorry and ashamed we are of our actions and words which have disregarded Him and His principles, have turned away from Him, have gone our own ways, celebrating and defending sinful conduct.
"When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command locusts to devour the land or send a plague among my people, if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land." 2 Chronicles 7:13-14
Father, we come before you in the Name of Jesus, humbled by your holiness, ashamed of our wicked ways. We have sinned in innumerable ways. There are no words, no reasons or excuses, nothing we can offer in defense of our evil choices and actions. They are inexcusable and totally against everything good and righteous. We have been wrong, we have been sinful, we have been wicked and evil. There is really no way that we should be able to approach you and ask for your forgiveness, but the Blood of Jesus, His sacrifice for our sins, has made it possible to spiritually kneel before you and confess our ugly sins. You have told us your mercy is new everyday because you knew we'd need it, that we'd be desperate for it. And we do and we are. How you can love us, I do not know. We are anything but lovable. God Almighty, please forgive us. Please heal our broken and spiritual wasteland. Your grace is the only way we can find our way back to you, the One who provides salvation and healing. We truly are desperate for you, for your forgiveness. Please hear us, and since you know our hearts, determine what your perfect love will do. We thank you for your love and the opportunity to repent and be forgiven. Thank you for the United States of America. Thank you for making it one nation under God. May it remain that way for a little longer, Lord. Please. Please. In the Name, Authority, and Blood of Jesus, Amen.
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I love my country because:
It's one nation under God.
In God We Trust.
The Constitution was formed with God's principles as the foundation.
Many of our forefathers were Christians and prayed for God's wisdom in forming this great nation.
I have the freedom to worship God in Spirit and in Truth. So far.
Father, it's only by your mercy that this nation will survive for awhile longer. You are its lifeblood. There are many who need to know you as you want to be known. Jesus is your answer to our sin-filled lives. Please forgive us as we humble ourselves before you. We're truly desperate for you. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.
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Available November 2012 at your favorite bookseller from Revell, a division of Baker Publishing Group.
Steven James' fans will have to adjust to this new series featuring magician/escape artist Jevin Banks and his lovely assistant Charlene. More like a suspense than a thriller, the pacing a bit slower with the impact that builds from the storyline, Placebo takes a grieving entertainer and thrusts him into a situation filled with psychopaths, sadists, and a Voodoo priestess. Steven's voice and style haven't changed, but the storyline is decidedly different. Reminding me in substance of Frank Peretti's latest Illusion, Placebo runs a different direction from Illusion and from the Patrick Bowers Series.
Opening the story with a disturbing first chapter, the plot then jumps thirteen months ahead to who Jevin Banks has now become, abandoning his entertainment act to pursue documentary TV where he and his associates intend to expose a mind-to-mind experimental program tied to a huge pharmaceutical company. Undercover as a romantic couple for the testing of their psychic "non-local" communications, Jevin and his assistant Charlene get caught in what seems like an inescapable situation involving the elderly doctor who's responsible for conducting the studies and recording the data.
Introducing Jevin's other friends and associates, we meet the intelligent, weird, conspiracy theorist, and strangely philosophical good friend Xavier, the affectionate, sincere, and clever Charlene, and the somewhat wacky computer genius Fionna and her four kids. When danger forces the group to explore other avenues related to these studies, we get looks at various psychopaths and sadists who hold important positions in terrifying experimental endeavors. Exposing the real results of these testings might be the death of them all – if the Voodoo priestess doesn't catch on to them first. The story is told primarily from Jevin Banks' POV but gives glimpses of other characters' thoughts and inner dialogue.
It's impossible not to give away spoilers if I reveal anymore, so suffice it to say Placebo is another Steven James' novel filled with his typical plot complexities. It's entertaining in its explorations, suppositions, expositions, and contains more real evaluations of faith issues but is not yet as compelling as the Patrick Bowers Series. It's finite as far as resolving this story but leaves a few loose ends and one villain as possibilties for the next book without hanging the reader on a cliff. I appreciate that. As a reader of the entire Patrick Bowers Series, I can see Steven developing his new effort to capture the same enticing draw of his original series.
Steven James is a master at portraying villains, particularly psychopaths. In Placebo he delves a bit further into the operational faculties of the mind of one female psychopath and presents a unique but troubling character who manages to snare just a bit of our compassion. Huge accomplishment considering the interests and capabilities of this character.
Placebo by Steven James will possibly gain new fans who are less likely to attempt the chilling thrillers of the Patrick Bowers Series while sustaining his regulars. Placebo is easily recommended for readers of both suspense and thrillers.
*Placebo was made available to me by Revell for an honest review.*
Father, I continue to ask your blessings upon Steven, that you would continue to meet his supply of stories, and that he would continue to honor you with the gifts and talents you've given him. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.
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I'm reading a good old fashioned novel at present to be reviewed next week. And by that I mean it's more than the quick 300 pages of many CBA novels. It takes time to explore multiple characters' thoughts and motivations. And I love it.
Long stories with good writing make wonderful reading. They go hither and yon, bring in peripheral characters and story arcs, and they don't hustle the reader to the finish without taking a real journey. Granted every author can't do this well, but I'm convinced those writers who love a good long book are capable of creating meaningful stories that take more than a couple of days to read.
I know not everyone wants to expend that kind of time on an epic novel or a meandering saga. Writers are constantly chastised, warned, and berated for including unnecessary words in their manuscripts. This can lead to a blatant disregard for the practiced and appreciative reader who loves to truly invest in a story. To indulge the characters, to feel their joy and pain, follow them as they run, rebel, rant, and rejoice. To be fully immersed somewhere else within the pages of a long novel.
I'm currently reminded how much I've missed that very thing in other genres besides thrillers.
Father, I know you love variety. We have only to look at your creativity in all things to see that. Thank you for giving me a love for writing and reading long stories. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.
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As a writer, most of us need a little affirmation. Some of us need a lot. However, those compliments and affirmation often play directly into how we feel about ourselves as writers – depending on who gives them to us. If we hope to be published, we have to sell all kinds of people on what we write. Sometimes those to whom we aim our writing don't see it unless we figure out how to connect with them. In other words, sometimes along the strange and unique roads to publishing, the obstacles can be multiple, confusing, and can lead us to empty places.
If you could receive the compliment about your writing, what would it be? Be honest.
Here's mine (for this week anyway):
"I'd read anything she writes."
Father, you know me. You provide what I need. No one else can do that. I'm desperate for you. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.
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The Pharisees, who loved money, heard all this and were sneering at Jesus. He said to them, "You are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of men, but God knows your hearts. What is highly valued among men is detestable in God's sight."
Luke 16:14-15 (NIV)
