Archive | June 2020

The Summer We Ran Away by Jenny Oliver

Jun10

True Friendship

The Summer We Ran Away by Jenny Oliver is the most delightfully refreshing contemporary novel about friendship, life and love.

Friendships may be complicated affairs – new friendships are often about trying to fit in. Real friendships are like a pair of comfy slippers. Jenny Oliver examines false and real friendships. She shows how clicky, cruel and hurtful some can be. A real friendship is one where someone loves you enough to tell you the truth in love.

Keeping up with the Joneses is exhausting. Far better to live in the freedom to be ‘you.’

The novel explores various marriages and relationships. We see just how important it is to cherish your spouse and to be thankful for the life we have built together.

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The Sight Of You by Holly Miller

Jun9

A Blessing Or A Curse?

The Sight Of You by Holly Miller is a very beautiful contemporary novel about love. It is a tale that made me smile and that also made me cry. The love radiated from the pages and wrapped around me.

Love is not all hearts, roses and chocolates. Love demands so much more. Love is not self-serving. Love is sacrificial. It gives away no matter what the personal cost.

The characters are wonderfully drawn. There is a chemistry between the leading two which is palpable. It is their voices that tell the story as the chapters alternate between them. The reader becomes acquainted with both. We feel the love and we feel the pain.

Some gifts we are born with are both a blessing and a curse. The reader understands the tension within a character and we empathise with the choices made.

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Going Through Hell To Get To Heaven by Dr Scot Hodkiewicz

Jun8

Surrendering To God’s Plan

Going Through Hell To Get To Heaven by Dr Scott Hodkiewicz is a powerful true life account of not just a family who survived but who actually thrived. This is a wow read about the recovery from a horrendous accident and the lessons learnt from God as the family pressed into Him.

Before the crash the author was a vet. He had built a successful life and had a nice house. In worldly terms he was a success. The author admits that before the crash the gifts God had given him, he used for himself. Whereas after the crash, God’s gifts were used for God and others. His outlook completely changed as his mind focussed on the true treasures in life.

We all have moments in life that define us – for Dr Scott Hodkiewisz and his family it was when a drunk, disqualified driver crashed into their family car. But God is a faithful God and at just the right time, He sent His angels in human form, to minister just where they were needed.

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Char’s Gift by Steve Harryman

Jun8

In The Palm Of His Hands

Char’s Gift by Steve Harryman is a moving and poignant true life story of the author’s wife’s journey through brain cancer since diagnosis in 1995. It is not a gloomy read but a very inspiring and hope-filled one as we read about a huge hearted lady named Char.

What shines through the book is the love Char had for others and for God. She had an unwavering trust in God. “I know God will take care of me.” Char knew “God has His own roadmap for our lives” and she could trust Him to walk alongside her every step of the way.

Char also thought of others before herself – praying with a nurse whilst she herself was a patient in hospital.

Cancer is cruel but Char focussed on the journey of others through cancer and not her own. She gave hope and she spread love. This book is full of the wonderful ways Char and her husband Steve Harryman helped others – they visited, they gave gifts, they set up Hope Through The Storm Ministries and they organised the Hope conferences believing “Hope… has to talk louder than fear.”

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