My Heart Belongs in the Blue Ridge

"My Heart Belongs in the Blue Ridge" by Pepper Basham

  I have to say that this the first book in the "My Heart Belongs" series that I've the privilege to read and I loved this book.  It reminded me of growing up in Southeast Oklahoma.  My childhood was spent living in the middle of nowhere with no electricity for 6 months.  We even survived with no telephone, which was unheard of in the 1970"s.

     This is just a great book! It starts out with Jonathan Taylor, whom is from Britain, he decided to follow his uncle to the Blue Ridge mountains to teach. Jonathans desire wasn't to teach but to one day be a doctor.  He was just trying to get out from under his fathers controlling hands.

      Jonathan had never been in a place like this,  He was born into a family of wealth and prestige and now he was living in North Carolina living in a one room house where everyday was a adventure and  the winters are very rough. Teaching where anything out of the ordinary was frowned upon.

     The first day there he meets a girl named Laurel McAdams.  She is a girl with big dreams of going to college and returning to help her community by teaching.  Leaving the mountain life, wasn't something that people did in the hills. Laurel had a big family and there was also a family problem that she tried to keep from Jonathon.

     Jonathon was the first one to realize how special Laurel was and how he would like to start a relationship with her, but he was unwilling to come between her and her dreams for the future.

     I love this book and would recommend it to others that love a great Christian book.

     I received a compliment copy of this book from Barbour Publishing and was under no obligation to publish a review.

We Hope for Better Things by Erin Bartels

     It's not often that one finds a novel as exciting as "We Hope for Better things" by Erin Bartels.  This really touched my life because in reminds me of doing genealogy of my own family. Erin brings you into this story from the start to the end!

     It is a story about three women at different places in history.  They are all related, strong women that grown through different situation during their lives. The book is written going back and forth in time, makes the reading easy and interesting.
 
     It starts out in modern day Detroit with Elizabeth Balsam.  Elizabeth is a journalist who just lost her job and is wondering what to do with her life now.  She was surprised when someone contacts her to return some long lost photo's to a aunt she never knew she had.  When she finally meets Nora, there is a connection at the very start. Elizabeth is about to learn about the history of the family home and the relatives that have lived in it through the years.

     Nora life spans from modern day Detroit to 1967 Detroit which was during the height of race riots. Her story is about her inter-racial marriage to William.  It shows you the struggles a couple had to face during this time in history.

     Then the last strong woman of this book is Mary Balsam, who lived during the civil war.  She helps in the cause of hiding runaway slave in her home. You see the relationship that she develops with the slaves she has been called by God to help.

  This book is one that I recommend to anyone that once to read a book about a families genealogy through time