ATTRACTED TO FIRE by DIANN MILLS

 ATTRACTED TO FIRE by DiAnn Mills is a book that is well worth reading.  It is a story of intrigue and romance and has a good Christian message.
Ash Zinders is the Secret Service agent in charge of the team of six agents sent to guard the vice president's daughter, Lindsay, at a remote Texas ranch belonging to her father's best friend.  Ash is not at all impressed with the fact that one of the team members is a woman, Meghan Connors, as he is against women agents in general.  Meghan's dedication to her job, her efficiency and her beauty eventually win him over.  
Meghan has been chosen by the vice president specifically as she has had experience with addiction.  Her sister's addiction to drugs is very hard on Meghan and her mother.  
Lindsay is addicted to drugs and alcohol and has tried to take her own life.  There have been threats against her as well, and her wild behaviour whilst under the influence has the media in a feeding frenzy.  She is taken to the ranch in secret, but it is soon obvious to the agents that there is a mole in their midst who is working with the man who is trying to destroy Lindsay and her family.  When her father becomes president the attacks become more intense.
It is interesting to see how Lindsay responds to the agents and caregivers and comes to trust Meghan with her secret fear which leads her and Ash, with Chip's help, to the evidence they need to bring the conspiracy to an end.
We see this young girl, who has been controlled from her youth by an unscrupulous man who introduced her to drugs and alcohol, and who told her lies to make her feel unloved by her parents and not worth anything to anybody, finally able to make the right decisions for her life.
In this novel we see dedication to duty, to one another, and the effect that committed Christians have on those round about them when they live out their faith.  We also
see the singleness of purpose amongst those who have been entrusted with Lindsay's well being.  It is a very exciting book and hard to put down.  I really enjoyed it.

WHEN THE NILE RUNS RED BY DiAnn Mills

WHEN THE NILE RUNS RED by DiAnn Mills takes place in war torn southern Sudan. It is an exciting book and hard to put down.
Dr Larson Farid and her husband Paul are based in a small village where they have a clinic. They work all over southern Sudan amongst the very poor, looking after the sick and injured and ministering to their spiritual needs.
Paul comes from a prestigious Muslim family who are trying to kill him for converting to Christianity and are willing to use any means to do so.
Colonel Ben Alier is a hardened warrior who is fighting to liberate the south from the dictatorship of the north. He is in love with Larson, but knows he can never have her now that she is married to Paul. He is committed to keeping her safe. He is not interested in Paul and Larson's message of Christianity until after he is reunited with his nearly grown up son and the young woman he abandoned years ago, who are also Christians. We see Daruka and David's forgiveness and their unconditional love for the man who has come back to them, with selfish motives in the beginning, and also the change in Ben who ends up loving the woman he only married in order to be close to his son. The softening in his attitude towards others and to the message of Christ is due in part to an unexpected illness for which he refuses treatment until he sees that he has something to live for with the family he has just found.
It is a story of a couple living out their Christian beliefs in the most difficult and dangerous circumstances, of unconditional love for the people of this sad and beautiful land, of forgiveness and betrayal.
With the Farid's adopted son, Thomas, and Larson and Daruka's pregnancies, there is a strong message of hope for the future.
This novel is realistically written and the setting and the people of the land are beautifully described. We see the incredible faithfulness of God towards His servants and His protection and deliverance in extremely dangerous situations, which makes this an encouraging read. I can highly recommend this novel.

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THE WIND HARP BY B J HOFF

THE WIND HARP by B J HOFF is set in a mining town called Skingle Creek in 1904. It is the second book in The Mountain Song Legacy series, and after reading it I have ordered the first and third books! Although the novel can be read on its own, I want to read more about the very real characters portrayed in It.
Life in this mining town is hard and the author gives us a real insight into the kind of life that was led by the miners and their families at the beginning of the twentieth century.
Maggie MacAuley is a young woman of Irish descent with flaming red hair and
a vibrant personality. She has come back to Skingle Creek where she grew up in order to help her parents who are trying to make ends meet after her father has been badly injured in a cave-in at the mine. Maggie is a qualified teacher and has been teaching in Chicago since finishing college and is delighted when she is asked to teach the younger children at her old school by her old teacher, Jonathan Stuart. Mr Stuart is a caring teacher and is well loved by everyone in town, but with Maggie it is something more. She has always had a crush on him, but now that she is grown up she finds she is falling in love with him.
Jonathan and Maggie both care deeply for the children they teach and are very worried by the situation in the Lazlo household. We see the contrast of that awful set up with the MacAuley household where there is also very little money but where family affection and godly values are very strong.
The contrast between darkness and light runs throughout the story. We see the light of Christ that is brought into the darkness and abject poverty of the mining town and the people who have been swallowed up by it. The light is brought in by people like Maggie and Jonathan, Dr Gordon, Pastor Ben and his wife Regina, who are willing to lay down their lives by serving others. This light brings hope into even the darkest situations.
B J Hoff has blended her characters and setting into a story that is enjoyable and has a strong message of hope.


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TROUBLED WATERS BY RENE GUTTERIDGE

TROUBLED WATERS by RENE GUTTERIDGE is a book about relationships, forgiveness and restoration.
Macille (Macey) Steigel is a successful news anchor, with the chance of getting into television broadcasting in New York, but she is neither happy nor fulfilled.  Her inability to sustain relationships is largely caused by a secret which keeps her tied to her past.
She was brought up by loving Christian parents on a farm in a small tight-knit community.  Her father, a godly man and a deacon in the church, had very strict rules about right and wrong, and, when she overstepped the mark, he reacted in anger and condemnation.  Macey is devastated by this rejection and leaves home at seventeen to make a new life for herself.  She turns away from the faith of her youth as she failed to see love and forgiveness in her father, the man who she wanted to please above all and by whom she had always felt loved and accepted until she failed to meet his standards, and wants nothing to do with God if He is anything like her father!
Her feelings are conflicted when she gets a message that her father has died, but she goes back to her childhood home for the funeral to be with her mother, Evelyn.
Evelyn has been praying for years that her husband and daughter will be reconciled, for she knows things that Macey has never known, and is angry that her prayers are unanswered.  However, her joy at seeing Macey again and the loving support and wise counsel of her friend Patricia, who had nursed her husband Jess until he died, make her realize that the Lord is indeed in control and His ways are not our ways.
Noah and his twin girls, with their unashamed love for the Lord and their desire that all should  come to know Him, have a lot to do with her restoration.  
It is a sensitively and beautifully written novel with believable characters. We learn a great deal about human nature and the importance of not trying to make things better in our own strength, which often makes things worse, and also of not being quick in jumping to conclusions.
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WITH EVERY LETTER BY SARAH SUNDIN

WITH EVERY LETTER by SARAH SUNDIN is the first book in her WINGS OF THE NIGHTINGALE series. The novel is set in 1942 during the second world war, mostly in North Africa.
Philomela Blake (whose name means "nightingale") has spent a great deal of her life in the jungle with her botanist father, and has always been a bit of a misfit due to her unusual looks and desperate shyness. Her mother, who died in a car accident when she was two years old, was half Filipino, which accounts for her rather exotic looks. She has a large mouth and is afraid to smile because of the cruelty of her classmates who say she looks like a monkey when she smiles, and she has never cut her hair, which she wears plaited in coils around her head. Her father says she is a rare orchid. She is afraid that if she cuts her hair she will end up like her mother, who became a party animal after cutting her hair and neglected her husband and daughter.
Mellie, as she is called by her father with whom she is very close, and later by the nurses in the army air force, has a real problem making friends. She has a scrapbook with photos she has cut out of magazines, and these are her "friends". Some are photos of real people who have terrible problems, one of whom is Tom MacGilliver whose father was executed for murder when Tom was seven, and Mellie prays for him and others who are suffering in various ways. She has a compassionate heart, is a caring and efficient nurse, and does all she can to help her patients, often singing to them with her beautiful voice. Her father calls her an angel of mercy. Being friendly comes easily to her in a hospital ward, but in she is hopeless at social functions. She has no self image and doesn't see how beautiful she really is when she looks in the mirror. She cuts her hair when it becomes hard to manage in North Africa, and realizes that cutting her hair will not make her like her mother! She is a person in her own right and is responsible before the Lord for her own actions and not her mother's or anyone else's.
She is transferred from the Walter Reed Memorial Hospital to the air evacuation unit at Bowman Field. We see how hard she tries to make friends, as her job depends on it, and the mistakes she makes along the way. She becomes involved in anonymous letter writing, and finds that she can really be herself in this kind of relationship.
Tom MacGilliver is her anonymous correspondent. He can also be himself in such a situation. He has a lot to live down being the son of a murderer, but he will not take the easy way out and change his name. He has some happy memories of his father before he became a drunkard. Tom smiles a lot and is determined not to be seen as a killer. He finds it hard making friends and finds leadership hard. He befriends a dog in the war torn country and lavishes affection on him. He calls him Sesame, and when Mellie sees him with the dog she knows he is her secret correspondant. He is an engineer and wants to build bridges between people, not kill them. He nearly gets his sergeant, Larry Fong, who is his only real friend in the platoon, killed, because he doesn't shoot an enemy sniper when he has the chance. He is a strong Christian and tries to do the right thing in every situation. Both Mellie and Tom have let friends down, been the target of cruel attacks and have been betrayed by those they thought they could trust.
The relationship between Mellie (Annie) and Tom (Ernest) flourishes as they can really open up to one another. They become really good friends and eventually fall in love. Will Mellie, who knows Tom's identity, take the chance of revealing her own identity to him and risk being hurt if he is repulsed by her looks? She feels she owes it to him and is being selfish putting her own fear of being hurt before his feelings.
This novel has a really good message and I can highly recommend it. I am looking forward to the next novel in the series.




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THE BREAKING POINT BY KAREN BALL

I have just reread THE BREAKING POINT by KAREN BALL and can highly recommend it. It is a story about family relationships and marriage. We see how God's amazing mercy and grace can restore, not only a broken marriage, but also broken people.
Renee and Gabe grow up in completely different families. Renee's parents are godly people who love each other, their family is very close, and her childhood is wonderfully happy. She feels secure in her parents' love for her. Her parents's marriage becomes an idol in her life, and she is frustrated with Gabe who is not at all like her father. She tries her hardest to change him.
Gabe's father was an angry and violent man, and there was no peace in their home. Gabe was afraid of his father until one day he became angry and hit him back, Even though he still was beaten on a regular basis, he made anger his friend and was no longer afraid. Gabe was also good at acting as if everything was fine. This became his way of life, and after he miraculously survived a fall down a cliff, he became active in church to fulfill a vow he had made to God. He was good at preaching, as he used his acting ability to help him. He didn't realize the Lord hadn't called him to ministry until his seminary professor helped him see the truth.
Renee and Gabe's marriage starts off on the wrong foot and goes downhill very fast. They go through years of counseling and are greatly helped by Grace and Oren, an elderly couple who belong to their Bible study group.
Renee, Gabe and their Siberian husky, Bo, are stranded in a snow storm after being away for a few days in the mountains. This is where everything comes to a head. They roll down a bank, Gabe is injured and unconscious and Renee is afraid he will die if she doesn't go for help. He wakes up when she has gone and is scared that she is lost and that he will never see her again. We see how they both turn to the Lord in this crisis and how He answers their prayers and how He uses this time to show them the truth about themselves. There is no room for blaming one another for their predicament, nor is their room for play acting.
Renee sees how critical she has become and realizes that she and Gabe are not her mother and father but that they are very different, and Gabe sees how he has hurt Renee by not appreciating her love for him. He has never felt good enough because of his father's physical and verbal abuse, and learnt to
protect his heart by playing a part instead of being himself. He sees how he has pushed Renee away with his outbursts of anger.
We see how a couple can be restored to one another if they are determined not to give up on one another, if they follow godly counsel and ask the Lord to change them rather than trying to change their partner.
This is a story of forgiveness, faith and redemption and is full of scriptural truth.





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A BEAUTIFUL FALL BY CHRIS COPPERNOLL

A BEAUTIFUL FALL BY CHRIS COPPERNOLL is is the second novel by Chris Coppernoll that I have read.  I posted a review on Providence by him on  the 18th April.  I really enjoy his writing style and can highly recommend his books. 
Emma Madison grew up in Juneberry in a community where she was loved and well cared for.  Her closest friends were Samantha, Christina and Michael.  
Emma's father, Will, is a loving father who has had to bring Emma up alone after his wife died when his daughter was five years old.  There is something missing in Emma's life and as a child she was always looking for her mother, who she couldn't really remember.  There was a certain oppression in their home which was filled with photos of her mother, and when she is given a box of mementos that meant a lot to her mother, she buries it.  She is ashamed of her feelings and is afraid of telling anyone how she feels.  This is what leads to her decision to leave Juneberry behind her. She doesn't even say goodbye to Michael, with whom she has had a very close relationship, and who everyone thought she would marry one day.  She hasn't been back for twelve years when she receives a message that her father has had a heart attack and is in hospital.
Emma is a successful and beautiful young lawyer and is a partner in a law firm in Boston.  She has just won a very important case for her firm.  Colin, one of her colleagues, is also a successful lawyer and it is felt that they would make an ideal couple.  Emma has a good life in Boston, but life there is completely different to life in Juneberry.  There is not much chance to unwind in Boston.
Emma loves her father dearly and feels terribly guilty for not having been home to see him for so long.  Her return to Juneberry is a turning point in her life.  Her friends welcome her with open arms and unconditional love.  From the moment she is met at the airport by Noel, Christina and Jim's son, to when she is taken to the airport for her return to Boston, she feels the love of the Lord in all the wonderful people that have played such a big part in her life.  She comes to the painful realization that she has shut people who love her out of her life and not only wounded them, but also wounded herself.  
There is still a strong bond between her and Michael.  She is in turmoil, like a leaf that is blown about by the fall wind, but he is at peace with himself and his Lord, like a tree firmly rooted in the ground.  
The weather plays a big part in this story.  For example, when she returns to Boston to an important meeting, it is cold and raining heavily.  Before returning to Juneberry she had forgotten how beautiful it was in the country.  The heavy rain and cold in Juneberry gives rise to happy memories and times spent with the man she still has feelings for.
She is not ready to return to her life in Boston and stays longer than she originally intended.  Colin keeps phoning her to see how she is getting on, telling her she needs to come back "where she belongs".  But where does she really belong?  She is determined not to be rushed, as she has given the firm years of her life and now is determined to make her family her priority.
Robert Adler, her boss, is not used to people saying no to him, and is exasperated at her long absence from the firm.  She compares the greed and manipulation shown by Robert when she is back in the office and he offers her huge money and even political success in order to keep her, with the Christian love  and forgiveness she has just experienced, and realizes that people are more important than position and success.
Will Madison is a praying man.  He has always been there for Emma, even though she wasn't always there for him.  He is grateful for his heart attack as it has brought his daughter home for a few days.  The way he welcomes his "prodigal daughter" home and then lets go of her when she has to go back to Boston at the end of the week, reminds us of God's amazing grace towards us.  This time, however, she does say goodbye to those she loves.  Michael also lets her go, but this time he goes to Boston to see what choice she is really going to make this time!
This is a story of love, forgiveness and God's mercy.  We see the importance of the choices we make, not only in our own lives but in the lives of those we love.  We see the relationships between the different characters and what love and commitment produces in their lives.  There is a strong Christian message and a lot to learn and enjoy in this sensitively and beautifully written novel.