Wonderful – Hope In my Heart

Planting Hope by Brenda Anderson is a wonderful Christian romance which I really adored. It is the third book in the Where The Heart Is series but can be read as a stand-alone. I enjoyed meeting up with familiar characters.

Brenda Anderson always writes warm and welcoming novels with characters that just take up residence in my heart. Planting Hope is no exception. The characters are all realistic and likable. There are some wonderfully amusing and fun dialogue exchanges that put a smile on your face and a warm fuzzy feeling in your heart. As well as getting to know the ‘living’ characters, I also felt like I ‘knew’ Gran who died before the novel began. The inclusion of ‘Granisms’ impart wise wisdom into both the readers and the characters.

The novel is about relationships, particularly marriage. Marriage is God’s idea. He never wants it to break down. No matter how old you are, no one wants their parents to break up. Characters will do whatever is needed to keep parents together but “People don’t fix people, God does.”

Relationships are complicated. Love motivates people to act, sometimes in unexpected ways.

Planting Hope explores father/son relationships. We work so hard at times to make our earthly father love us but nothing we ever do seems enough. In comparison our heavenly Father loves us unconditionally. We know that we can put our hope, faith and trust in Him. “He had a heavenly Father who loved Him without condition.”

Past hurts continue to cause pain if we let them. We need to forgive others and move forwards unhindered by past events. “You can’t change the past but you can impact the future.”

God has plans for us all. We need to listen for His voice and not the other voices competing for attention. “Negative Nelly again, whispering in her ear that she wasn’t good enough.” God always speaks life and hope over us.

Brenda Anderson had some wonderfully descriptive passages that made the landscape come alive for the reader. I could ‘see’ the area around the cabin – from the mud to the flowers. God’s handiwork was clearly displayed in nature. A fact that characters appreciated too. “How had he allowed work to take precedence over visiting God’s art gallery?”

Prayer is important. For some problems all we can do is hand it over to God in prayer. “She liked to grip all her problems tightly and solve them herself.” We need to have a loose grip on everything and let God work.

Planting Hope was a real ‘feel good’ novel with God at the centre. I always love Brenda Anderson’s novels and cannot get enough of the fabulous stories with realistic and lovable characters. I read with a smile on my face and hope in my heart.

Fabulous.

I received this book for free. A favourable review was not required and all views expressed are my own.

JULIA WILSON