Book Review: The Bride Backfire by Kelly Eileen Hake

About the book:

Come on down for a real family feud in this witty romance, the second novel in Kelly Eileen Hake's Prairie Promises series. In the Nebraskan Territory of 1857, the longstanding feud between their two families makes Opal Speck desperate to save the life of the Grogan who once pulled her from a burning building. Will her big white lie -- that Adam is the father of her unborn child -- land in enemy territory for the rest of her life? Find out how Adam and Opal deal with the repercussions of their shotgun wedding in The Bride Backfire!

My thoughts:

Just like Kelly's first book in the Prairie Promises series, her second book, The Bride Backfire, did not dissapoint at all! How these two families can manage to stay sane while keeping up a hundred-year-old feud just boggles my mind! And bless their hearts...it wouldn't be so bad if they could just sit down and air out all their differences.

Since that didn't happen in the book, a couple of characters from each family decided to do the next best thing--get hitched. Opal Speck and Adam Grogan have secretly had eyes for each other for awhile now, although no one knows about it...shoot, they don't even know it themselves. When Adam takes an unplanned trip over onto Speck land to retrieve a wandering cow, Opal's brothers catch him and are ready to string him up for trespassing. Thankfully, Opal steps in and says that they'll do no such thing because she's expecting a child and Adam's agreed to be the father. However, only Opal knows that this little story is no where close to being true. So, they bring in an unknowing Parson Carter, and now, we have ourselves an old-fashioned shotgun wedding. Poor Opal has her work cut out for her after the wedding because her father proceeds to disown her, and unfortunately, she's managed to inherit the worst mother-in-law in the world. Add to that a wretched new brother-in-law that makes her skin crawl, and Opal is now in a real pickle!

Just like book one, Kelly Hake has such a great imagination with her stories. I loved that she included the thoughts of the characters in some places, and not just what they said in conversation. While all the characters from book one are featured in this book (especially Midge, who I loved in book one), this book easily stands on it's own and can be read separately. But now, I'm off to read the conclusion to this wonderful series...The Bride Blunder!

4 Stars

**Many thanks to Barbour Books through NetGalley for providing a copy for review.

**Click here to purchase a copy of The Bride Backfire.

CFBA Tour: She Walks in Beauty by Siri Mitchell

This week, the


Christian Fiction Blog Alliance

is introducing

She Walks in Beauty

Bethany House (April 2010)



by


Siri Mitchell

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Siri Mitchell graduated from the University of Washington with a business degree and worked in various levels of government. As a military spouse, she has lived all over the world, including in Paris and Tokyo. Siri enjoys observing and learning from different cultures. She is fluent in French and loves sushi.

But she is also a member of a strange breed of people called novelists. When they’re listening to a sermon and taking notes, chances are, they’ve just had a great idea for a plot or a dialogue. If they nod in response to a really profound statement, they’re probably thinking, “Yes. Right. That’s exactly what my character needs to hear.” When they edit their manuscripts, they laugh at the funny parts. And cry at the sad parts. Sometimes they even talk to their characters.

Siri wrote 4 books and accumulated 153 rejections before signing with a publisher. In the process, she saw the bottoms of more pints of Ben & Jerry’s than she cares to admit. At various times she has vowed never to write another word again. Ever. She has gone on writing strikes and even stooped to threatening her manuscripts with the shredder.

ABOUT THE BOOK:

For a young society woman seeking a favorable marriage, so much depends on her social season debut. Clara Carter has been given one goal: secure the affections of the city's most eligible bachelor.

Debuting means plenty of work--there are corsets to be fitted, dances to master, manners to perfect. Her training soon pays off, however, as celebrity's spotlight turns Clara into a society-page darling.

Yet Clara soon wonders if this is the life she really wants. Especially when she learns her best friend has also set her sights on Franklin De Vries.

When a man appears who seems to love her simply for who she is and gossip backlash turns ugly, Clara realizes it's not just her marriage at stake--the future of her family depends on how she plays the game.

If you would like to read the first chapter of She Walks in Beauty, go HERE.

FIRST Wild Card Tour and Book Review: Asking for Trouble by Sandra Byrd

It is time for a FIRST Wild Card Tour book review! If you wish to join the FIRST blog alliance, just click the button. We are a group of reviewers who tour Christian books. A Wild Card post includes a brief bio of the author and a full chapter from each book toured. The reason it is called a FIRST Wild Card Tour is that you never know if the book will be fiction, non~fiction, for young, or for old...or for somewhere in between! Enjoy your free peek into the book!

You never know when I might play a wild card on you!

Today's Wild Card author is:

Sandra Byrd

and the book:

Asking for Trouble (London Confidential)

Tyndale House Publishers (March 4, 2010)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Best-selling author Sandra Byrd has published nearly three dozen books in the Christian market, including her latest series, French Twist, which includes the Christy Award finalist Let Them Eat Cake (WaterBrook Press, 2007) and its sequel, Bon Appétit (WaterBrook Press, 2008). Many of her acclaimed fiction and nonfiction books target the tween and young adult markets. She has also published a book for new moms entitled Heartbeats. Several of Sandra’s shorter works have appeared in periodicals such as Relevant, Clubhouse, Pockets, Decision, and Guideposts. For the past seven years, she has shared her secrets with the many students she mentors through the Christian Writers Guild. Before turning to full-time writing, Sandra was an acquisitions editor in the ABA market. She lives in the Seattle, Washington, area with her husband and two children.

Visit the author's website.

Product Details:

List Price: $6.99
Reading level: Ages 9-12
Paperback: 272 pages
Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers (March 4, 2010)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1414325975
ISBN-13: 978-1414325972


AND NOW...THE FIRST CHAPTER:

I hung back at the doorway to the cafeteria of my new supercool British school, Wexburg Academy. Most of the lunch tables were already packed, and the room was buzzing with chatter. The populars, whom I'd secretly nicknamed the Aristocats, commanded an entire table right in the center of the room. Their good looks and posh accents made up the sun around which all other tables orbited. The normal kids were in the second circle, arranged by friends or clubs or activities. The drama table was on the outer edge of the room, and so were the geeks, the nerds, and the punk wannabes--way out there like Neptune, but still planets. Most everyone had a group. I didn't.

Okay, so there was one table with lots of room. The leftovers table. It might as well have been the dark side of the moon.

No way.

I skipped lunch--again--and headed to the library. One of the computers was available and I logged on, desperately hoping for an e-mail from Seattle.

There was an e-mail from my grandmother reminding me to floss because British dentists only cleaned adult teeth.

Spam from Teen Vogue.

An invitation to join the Prince Harry fan club--​I opened it and gave it a quick scan. I'd consider it more later.

And . . . one from Jen!

I clicked open the e-mail from my best friend at home--well, it had been my home till a couple of months ago--hoping for a lunch full of juicy news served alongside tasty comments about how she missed me and was planning stuff for my next visit home. I craved something that would take me the whole lunch period to read and respond to and remind me that I did have a place somewhere in this universe.

From: Jen
To: Savannah


Hey, Fortune Cookie, so how's it going? Met the Queen yet? LOL. Sorry I haven't written too much. It's been so busy. Samantha took the position you'd been promised on the newspaper staff. She's brand new, but then again you would have been too. It seemed strange without you at first, but I think she'll do okay--maybe even better than okay. And hey, life has changed for everyone, right? Things are crazy busy at school, home, and church. We hang out a lot more now that a bunch of us are driving. Will write again in a few weeks.

Miss you!
Jen



A few weeks! My lungs filled with air, and I let it out slowly, deflating like a balloon with a slow leak. I poised my hands over the keyboard to write a response but just . . . couldn't. What would I say? It had already been weeks since we'd last e-mailed. Most of my friends texted instead of e-mailing anyway, but texting across the Atlantic Ocean cost way too much. And the truth was . . .

I'd moved, and they'd moved on.

I logged off the computer and sat there for a minute, blinking back tears. Jen hadn't meant to forget me. I was simply out of her orbit now.

I pretended to read Sugar magazine online, but mostly I was staring at the clock, passing the time till I could respectably head to my next class.

Five minutes before class I swung my book bag onto my shoulder and headed down the hall. Someone was stapling flyers to the wall. “Hi, Hazelle.”

“Hullo, Savannah.” She breezed by me, stapling another pink flyer farther down the wall. We had math class together--oh yeah, maths, as the Brits called it--first period. I'd tried to make friends with her; I'd even asked her if she'd like to sit together in lunch, but she'd crisply informed me that she sat at the table with the other members of the newspaper staff.

She didn't bother with small talk now either, but went on stapling down the hall. I glanced at one of the flyers, and one sentence caught my eye right away: Looking for one experienced journalist to join the newspaper staff.

I yanked the flyer off the wall and jammed it into my bag. I was experienced. Wasn't I?

A nub of doubt rose inside me--the kind that popped up, unwelcome, anytime I tried to rationalize something that wasn't exactly true or right.

This time I swallowed it back. I thought back to Jen's e-mail that kind of felt like a polite dismissal. I lived in London now.

It was time to take matters into my own hands.

My thoughts:

This was such a fun and enjoyable read! Of course, anything by Sandra Byrd is just fabulous anyway...whether it's adult or YA fiction.

This book had me wanting to go to London just like Sandra's French Twist series had me wanting to go to Paris. This book is full of British lingo, which I think is something a lot of Americans find rather interesting simply because it's different...I know I do. :) I loved learning a bit more about the food, and that there are ways that you don't address the Queen. The theatre scene with Savvy and her mom and sister was informative, too, and apparently, not much has changed since Shakespeare's lifetime in regard to theatre houses and their patrons...very interesting little tidbit since my hubby is a theatre buff.

Asking for Trouble had a lot of life lessons for anyone regardless of age--the biggest ones being friendliness and honesty. Savvy had a lot thrown at her all at once, especially a whole new culture change from America to London. Add to that the often impossible task of making new friends as a teenager, and you've got a book that shows we all have things in common as we try to navigate our own social circles. But she persevered through it all, including the uphill battle of trying to make it onto the newspaper staff at her school.

I'm so glad that book 2 in this series, Through Thick and Thin, was released right along with Asking for Trouble. I've got to get on the ball to get my next British book fix from Sandra Byrd! Cheerio!

5 Stars

**Many thanks to Christy Wong of Tyndale House Publishers for providing a copy for review.

**Click here to purchase a copy of Asking for Trouble.

CFBA Tour and Book Review: Sixteen Brides by Stephanie Grace Whitson

This week, the


Christian Fiction Blog Alliance


is introducing


Sixteen Brides


Bethany House (April 2010)


by


Stephanie Grace Whitson

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

A native of southern Illinois, Stephanie Grace Whitson has lived in Nebraska since 1975. She began what she calls "playing with imaginary friends" (writing fiction) when, as a result of teaching her four home schooled children Nebraska history.

She was personally encouraged and challenged by the lives of pioneer women in the West. Since her first book, Walks the Fire, was published in 1995, Stephanie's fiction titles have appeared on the ECPA bestseller list numerous times and been finalists for the Christy Award, the Inspirational Reader's Choice Award, and ForeWord Magazine's Book of the Year.

Her first nonfiction work, How to Help a Grieving Friend, was released in 2005. In addition to serving in her local church and keeping up with two married children, two college students, and a high school senior, Stephanie enjoys motorcycle trips with her family and church friends.

Her passionate interests in pioneer women's history, antique quilts, and French, Italian, and Hawaiian language and culture provide endless story-telling possibilities.


ABOUT THE BOOK:

In 1872, sixteen Civil War widows living in St. Louis respond to a series of meetings conducted by a land speculator who lures them west by promising "prime homesteads" in a "booming community."

Unbeknownst to them, the speculator's true motive is to find an excuse to bring women to the fledgling community of Plum Grove, Nebraska, in hopes they will accept marriage proposals shortly after their arrival! Sparks fly when these unsuspecting widows meet the men who are waiting for them.

These women are going to need all the courage and faith they can muster to survive these unwanted circumstances--especially when they begin to discover that none of them is exactly who she appears to be.

If you would like to read the first chapter of Sixteen Brides, go HERE.

To purchase a copy of Sixteen Brides, click here.

My thoughts:

Honestly, this book was not all that impressive to me. I really wanted to like it because I've heard a lot of good things about Ms. Whitson's books. The beginning of the book was almost enough to make me put it down and not finish it, mostly because there were way too many characters to keep up with. Fortunately, only the beginning of the book centers around half or so of the sixteen brides, and then, dwindles to five main brides for the rest of the story. It took about 100 or so pages before the bulk of the story started to take shape, and it wasn't a fast-moving story because again, there were too many characters. If this had been a book that centered around 2 or 3 brides, I think I would've enjoyed it much more.

3 Stars