Archive | April 2021

Remote Sympathy by Catherine Chidgey

Apr15

Unique And Horrifying

Remote Sympathy by Catherine Chidgey is a heart wrenching historical tale that looks at the Holocaust in a different way.

The book alternates between four voices – the former camp commandant in 1954 looking backwards, his wife in the form of an imaginary diary, a Jewish doctor writing to his daughter in 1946 looking backwards and eye witness accounts from the local town. Together these voices piece together life at Buchenwald.

We witness the commandant making excuses for what he does, trying to justify what can never be justified. We see his wife as she has cancer looking backwards to her life in Munich and also discovering a forbidden faith in God. The doctor is looking for news of his wife and daughter in Theresienstadt as he operates his cancer curing machine. And the townspeople deny what is happening on their doorstep.

Continue reading →

The Rogue Wave by Paul Nicholas Mason

Apr15

More Than We Can See

The Rogue Wave by Paul Nicholas Mason is an exciting supernatural thriller that will entertain and intrigue from the start.

Life is more than we can see, hear and touch. Life is a spiritual battle that we do not always understand. Evil seeks to deceive and trick us. We must keep our eyes and heart firmly fixed on Jesus.

Whilst investigating a case, a P.I. comes up against a series of coincidences. As they ramp up, it seems like someone is trying to thwart his movements.

Continue reading →

Saving Missy by Beth Morrey

Apr14

Love Lives Here

Saving Missy by Beth Morrey is a simply beautiful contemporary novel about love and friendship. It made me smile and it made me cry.

The leading lady is seventy eight. She has had her family but now she is alone. “Now there was just the echo of it [love] in this ramshackle old house.” There is a “crushing silence.” The reader can empathise with Missy who has known a busy house but now the walls are empty. Her life is shrinking. Her saviours come in the unlikely forms of two women, one boy and a dog.

It is beautiful to watch a life in the twilight years, bud, blossom and bloom again.

We all need friends. We all need to know our lives count.

Continue reading →

Bent Tree Bride by Denise Weimer

Apr13

Action, Adventure, Romance

Bent Tree Bride by Denise Weimer is a gripping historical Christian romantic adventure. It has its roots in historical fact, around which Denise Weimer has woven a fabulous story.

The novel surrounds the Cherokee and their interactions with the white Americans as well as battles with the Red Sticks. It was refreshing to read a novel with Native Americans as main characters as there are few on the market. Very much seen as second class citizens, the Native Americans have to fight for equality. They were viewed as savages. “Lest they give way to their baser nature and resort to brutalities.”

Likewise a strong female lead seeks equality with men. She fights to prove she is not a weak woman in need of protection.

Continue reading →