BookLoverAmanda

A Wonderful Christmas Crime by Jacqueline Frost 4 Stars  Book 6 in the Christmas Tree Farm   Another cute Christmas cozy mystery in this series! :) We follow Holly White and her husband Sheriff Evan Gray as she is expecting! Holly agrees to take it easy because she has elevated blood pressure. There is an attempted robbery of an antique ornament. The thief manages to escape....but they find their body later.....someone was in town to kill them and now they have another mystery to solve. I really liked the romance with Holly and Evan continued in this book. It's natural, sweet and clean. The small town and side characters in this book are SO cozy and you just love seeing them try to figure out what happened. Only a couple of small swear words, no explicit content, making this an overall clean series to get into. Goodreads:  https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/7949483450 Amazon:  https://amzn.to/47f2K5z *Amazon links are affiliate links and a commission may be e...

  A Weather Girl's Guide to Love by Cassandra Joelle 3 Stars Another buddy read with my friend Melissa! :)  This book is a Christian romance following Hailey Sinclair. She had her life all planned out. She goes to rural Wyoming after graduation instead of a bigger city to be an on-air meteorologist as she planned. Her mother passed away when she was young and her boyfriend of 3 year's, Jett Dawson, reveals his mother is dying from cancer. So, she changes her plans and goes to follow Jett home because his mother has always felt like her own. While she is there, things with Jett and her don't feel like they are working out for whatever reason and they take a dating break. He is devastated by his mother's diagnosis and needs space to process. While on the dating break, she meets Colt Wilder, a cameraman at her new job who she connects with more than she did with Jett. She starts to wonder why her and Jett lost their spark in the relationship and if she was just with him be...

The Christmas Ring by Karen Kingsbury 4 Stars  I really enjoyed this Christmas read! It was sweet, hope-filled and has small town charm, Christmas magic, emotional depth...all the THINGS! We follow a military widow, Vanessa, carrying her grief and the hope of finding her family's lost heirloom, The Christmas Ring. Her journey is authentic and I loved the relationship with her daughter. With so many books having toxic relationships these days with mothers and daughters, it was such a breath of fresh air that they were best friends together in their adult lives. Really inspiring.  We see Vanessa finding love again with the antiques dealer, Ben, as they have quite the growing friendship together.  A little twist with the ring makes things very interesting!  If you love a sweet, clean, Christian Christmas read, pick this up! Karen always add layered, emotional depth to her stories and I thought this was a very nice family read. Really excited to see the movie! Thank you ...

   Rescued Heart by Angela Hunt Book 1 in The Matriarchs Series 3 Stars Rescued Heart is the first book in Angela Hunt’s new biblical fiction series and this book explored the lives of Abraham and Sarah. The story is well written, rich in historical detail and gives readers an imaginative look at what life in Ur of the Chaldeans, with Sarah and Abraham might have been like. That said, I personally struggled with some of the creative license  taken with the biblical story. The book portrays Sarai and her family as worshipers of false gods before Abram’s call, and Sarai herself is not shown as the woman of strong faith we recognize from Scripture. While I understand some of this is historically accurate for the people in Ur during that time and added depth to Sarah's character in the books, those choices just made it harder for me to connect with the Sarah I know from the Bible. Additionally, some of the family relationships were not accurate and felt like a creative dep...

  The Heart of Bennet Hollow by Joanne Bischof DeWitt 3 Stars  Alright friends, take me with a grain of salt on this review because SO many of y'all will enjoy this book I think. It's cute, cozy and good for a Jane Austen fan in general. I think it would be perfect for the fall time too, it starts in October. As someone who adores Pride and Prejudice, I went into this book excited for a heartfelt, Appalachian twist on a classic favorite. As a southern girl who lives in Tennessee, I LOVED the setting. It was lovely and the author truly captures the Appalachian atmosphere beautifully with cozy, fall-ready charm and strong small-town details. That what made the book for me was the Appalachian details and narration.  All of that said, I do think the story itself felt a little too close to Jane Austen’s original.  Because of that, it lost some of the emotional spark and originality I was hoping for. Some of the personalities of the characters were not how I anticip...

  Night Falls on Predicament Avenue by Jaime Jo Wright 3.5 - 4 Stars (4 on Goodreads) I have read so many Jaime Jo Wright books! She is known for her haunting, Gothic dual-timeline mysteries/suspense style with good Christian content, combating the supernatural with the reality of the Christian faith. She usually has a good romantic sub-plot too. This one is set in 1901 and present day for our timelines.  Jaime Jo weaves together the lives of Effie James and Norah Richman, two women connected by tragedy, secrets, and an eerie house at 322 Predicament Avenue. I think my favorite timeline was the present day because of the crime podcast stuff.  My favorite part of this book is honestly the atmosphere and the strong writing I’ve come to expect from Jaime Jo. I do struggle to stay fully invested this time but honestly, I listened to the audio and think I just wasn't as invested because the timelines and mysteries felt a bit too similar at points, and I found myself having to ...