Monsters of Men(Chaos Walking #3)by Patrick Ness

WAR!

The Spackle are determined to get revenge on the humans(The Clearing). Spackle 1017 has a personal agenda to kill Todd. In 1017's eyes Todd helped the humans kill 1017's partner. The Spackle have a weapon of destruction that the humans had never seen before. A weapon that shoots flames that will incinerate whomever and whatever is in the line of fire. The humans are also significantly outnumbered by the Spackle.

Mayor Prentiss has been waiting for this war. It is almost like he craves destruction. Todd is keeping close tabs on the mayor. Todd has never wanted war with the Spackle. He desires peace. Todd also knows that Mayor Prentiss is getting into his head. He has given Todd the ability to quiet his noise. No longer can people hear every thought that Todd has.

Viola is with the scout ship that has just landed. There are 5000 more people coming to land and Viola is afraid that what they will land into is a planet destroyed by war. She and the pilots of the ship are trying to negotiate peace with the Spackle. But Viola is extremely sick from the band that the Mayor had put on all women. It is eating away at her arm, causing pain and sickness.

Mistress Coyle is determined to be the leader of her own band of rebels. Still bent on destroying the Mayor she enlists the help of several other mistresses to enact terrorist acts upon the Mayor and his army.

When Mayor Prentiss realizes that Todd will never consciously take the place by his side as his son he sets off a string of events that could mean the destruction of all.

Monsters of Men is the last book of the Chaos Walking trilogy. It was a bit hard to read with everyone being so bent on destroying each other. It shows that it only takes a couple of power hungry individuals to break up peace talks. I found it really paralleled "real life" wars. And it is hard to negotiate peace when there is so much bitterness buried deep in a persons soul. I liked Viola and Todd's continued loyalty and love for each other. Both determined to protect the other from the destruction around them. I have to say I was very unsatisfied with the ending. I was left with wanting just a little bit more closure. For the most part though Monsters of Men was an exciting ending to the series and I'm glad I was finally able to read it.

The Christmas Bus by Melody Carlson-Kindle

Christmas Valley capitalizes on it's name all year long. Every store and restaurant is Christmas themed. This year the local pastor and his wife who also run the Bed and Breakfast will sadly be alone. Their children are unable to come home for Christmas.

Inspired by one of her husbands sermons, Edith Ryan decides to open the Bed and Breakfast up to 5 people or families in need of a place to spend Christmas. Charles had preached about being hospitable because they never know when they may be entertaining angels unaware.

Pretty soon all 5 rooms in the Bed and Breakfast are filled up. One of the guests is cantankerous Myrtle. Myrtle seems to be ancient. She is "dropped off" in Christmas Valley and intends to spend 2 weeks at the Bed and Breakfast. Myrtle doesn't seem to know boundaries. She totally ignores the sign above Edith's kitchen that states "no guests beyond this point". She makes herself right at home. Myrtle has a tendency to make people angry also. Her and one of the church members butt heads instantaneously when Myrtle offers to "help" with the traditional Christmas pageant.

A young couple arrives in Christmas Valley. They are driving a broken down, very colorful bus. They are told to get it off the street. They try to get a room at the Bed and Breakfast but there are no more rooms left. Charles and Edith allow them to park their bus in front of the B&B for the night, little knowing that it will be for more than one night since the bus just broke down. Amy and Collin are so young and seem to be in desperate need of help. Not only has their bus broken down, but Amy is very pregnant.

Between Myrtle's shenanigans and worry over Amy and Collin, Edith and Charles have their hands full. Will they be able to make this Christmas special for their guests along with "entertaining an angel unaware"?

I thought this was a sweet Christmas read. It was entertaining as well as thought-provoking. I love the message of being hospitable to all because we may not know when we are entertaining angels unaware. Edith and Charles were perfect examples of two people caring for others no matter their circumstances. I may have to put this on my annual Christmas "read" list.

O Little Town : A Novel by Don Reid-Kindle

Mt. Jefferson in the 1950's was your typical small town where everyone seems to know each other and their lives are intertwined.

It is Christmas 1958 and the story opens with a local pastor's daughter being caught shoplifting in the local department store. Not wanting to raise too big of a scene the manager of the store attempts to keep the news from getting out. Unfortunately he has to call Buddy the Chief of Police in.

Buddy is having problems of his own. He has just found out that his 16 year old daughter is pregnant. The baby's father is the son of a well-known doctor in town. Louis Wayne wants to do the right thing and marry Buddy's daughter. 

Walter is in the hospital. His daughters Doris and Colleen are two very different women. Doris has always tried to win her father's love even though she already had his love. She is a strong personality. And she is married to a doctor. Colleen has always been the favored daughter, but something is bothering her that she cannot figure out. Things just don't seem right between her husband Milton(the manager of Macalbee's department store) and herself.

When Buddy brings Pastor Franklin's daughter home he and his wife Dove are both disappointed in their daughter's behavior. Millie seems to have no remorse for what she has been caught doing. Dove decides to march up to the store and defend her daughter. She has been wanting to move from Mt. Jefferson for a long time. There is one temptation that she wants to flee.

Another story is woven into the main story. That is Walter's story from his youth. It is about the tragic loss of his first love. 

Everyone gathers Christmas eve for service at Pastor Franklin's church. He delivers a message on forgiveness. Hearts and lives are touched and healing can begin for so many.

I enjoyed this story very much. Everyone's lives interwoven together and the ultimate gift of forgiveness shines through.

Waterfall by Lisa T. Bergren-KINDLE #4

Gabriella and her sister Evangelia are in Italy with their mother an Etruscan artifacts archeologist. Both of their parents were archeologists, but now that their father has passed away their mother is on her own in her search for Etruscan treasures. While at their mother's latest discovery the girls decide to do some exploring on their own.

Gabi and Lia find themselves in one of the Etruscan tombs that their mother has been excavating. Knowing that they should never touch anything, Gabi is tempted by hand prints on one of the walls. When she places her hand print in one it fits perfectly. Instead of cold stone there is a warmth emanating from it. She has Lia put her hand into the smaller print which fits perfectly. Movement starts happening and even though Gabi tries to hold onto Lia, the girls are separated.

Coming out of the tomb Gabi finds herself in the middle of a battle between 2 families. She soon realizes that she has been transported to the 14th century where there are lords and ladies and where loyalties can be bought for a price.

Marcello, in the heat of battle, is startled to see Gabi appear. He cannot figure out why a girl would be wearing such clothing and also be in the middle of a battle. He offers Gabi shelter in his castello. He feeds her and clothes her as a proper lady. Marcello is not the lord of the manor. His father is still alive(but has suffered a stroke), and his older brother is still alive although very sickly. Marcello has command of his knights though and they are loyal to him. Marcello is also betrothed to lady Rossi. A union between her family and Marcello's will prove very advantageous.

Obsessed with finding her sister, Gabi insists on being allowed to return to the tombs. With unrest all around and battles at every turn Gaby feels the restriction of being a woman in the 1300's. Also with her growing attraction for Marcello and his for her, Gabi knows she must find her sister quickly and return to the 21st century before it is too late.

WOW WOW WOW! I loved this story! I read it on my Kindle, but I think I may have to go buy the trilogy(Cascade is already out and Torrent is coming out soon), just for the covers of the books! They are gorgeous! There was suspense(biting my nails) and toe-curling kisses(sigh) that kept me turning the pages late into the night.

Her Best Catch by Lindi Peterson-KINDLE #3

Allison Doll is a 29 year old auditor that lives with her mother and grandmother. She loves her job and she loves the Lord. She has been best friends with Trent and Velvet since they were children. Trent and Velvet have recently become a couple. Allison refers to them as Trelvet. She is having a hard time being the third wheel in their relationship.

Ashton Boyd is a baseball relief pitcher that recently injured his throwing arm. When he shows up in Allison’s Sunday School he makes quite a stir, not only with the guys, but also with the girls! When Ashton (known as a player) sets his sights on Allison, Trelvet has misgivings.

Allison is attracted to Ashton, after all his kisses make her weak at the knees! But Ashton is working on a comeback that will take him out of town the majority of the year. Allison’s father was away for much of her life with his job. Allison doesn’t know if she could handle a long-distance relationship. 

I really enjoyed this story. Allison was such a fun character and there were several laugh- out- loud moments. 

A Tailor-Made Bride by Karen Witemeyer-KINDLE #1

Hannah is a seamstress that has dreamed of having her own shop. When an elderly woman customer makes that dream a reality Hannah is thrilled. She moves to the town of Covington to open her shop in the building she was bequethed. She knows it will take time to establish a clientele but she is prepared to prove her worth as a dressmaker.

J.T. owns the livery across the street  from Hannah's shop. He is resentful that he was unable to buy the building that Hannah's shop is in. He had tried to buy it in order to help out the laundress-a proud woman who is raising 3 children on her own. When he learns that Hannah is opening a dress shop he is further resentful and prepared to dislike the new seamstress before he even meets her.  After all his mother left him, his father and sister because she preferred the outward beauty rather than inward beauty.

When Hannah and J.T. meet sparks fly. Unable to understand J.T.'s angry behavior, Hannah is determined ot make him smile. J.T.'s sister Cordelia befriends Hannah and becomes her first customer. Determined to gain the attention of the local telegraph operator Cordelia enlists Hannah's help is changing her appearance. When J.T. learns of this endeavor he has to ask himself some serious questions. Can a woman really be both beautiful on the inside as well as on the outside?

Hannah seems to be proving all of J.T.'s pre-conceived notions wrong. She has be-friended a man who recently lost his wife. It seems the man hasn't bathed since his wife's passing-the town hasn't reached out to him, but by first being kind to him each day, Hannah has managed to bring him back into society. She has also found small ways to help the laundress provide for her family. Surely someone with such a caring heart as Hannah can have beauty within and without.

I enjoyed this story very much. I did get a bit frustrated with J.T.'s struggle to not let go of his rigid ideas but ended up very happy with the outcome.

She Walks In Beauty by Siri Mitchell(Kindle read)

What Clara Carter would like to do is go to college at Vassar. What she is forced to do though is to become a young debutant.

When the De Vries brothers return to New York Clara is forced to debut a year early. Her Aunt and father wish her to marry the elder brother Franklin De Vries, heir to the De Vries fortune.

Clara's aunt takes on the task of teaching Clara all that she needs to know to catch the heir. The first thing that she demands is that Clara's corset be cinched to make her have an 18 inch waist. She then proceeds to teach Clara all of the coy ways that a young woman needs to know to gain the attention of a man. In a time when women's opinions and intelligence do not matter to society it is hard for Clara to play at being a vapid female.

What soon becomes apparent is that both Clara and her best friend Lizzie have both gained the attention of Franklin. They both agree though that he is a bore. His younger brother Harry is much more entertaining and also the more attentive brother. But as women their goal is to win the heir so that they will be taken care of financially.

Clara has been told that at any cost she is to win Franklin even if it means giving him her virtue. Clara wants to marry for love though. She is tired of the pressures of her aunt and father and also the pressures of society. She also finds that her father is not the man that she thought him to be which causes her deep grief.

When Clara is "cut" from society will all be lost for her and her family or will Clara finally see her worth in God's eyes?

I really enjoyed She Walks In Beauty. I felt bad for Clara that she was living in a time when women didn't have many options for their future. At the same time that I wished that she would have stood up to her father and Aunt, I also admired her for being obedient. And of course I loved the Happily Ever After ending.

The Ask And The Answer by Patrick Ness(Kindle)

The book starts out where The Knife of Never Letting Go left off. Todd is being held in New Prentisstown by Mayor(self-declared new President) Prentiss. He won't tell Todd where Viola is or even if she is alive. The Mayor has seemingly walked into Haven and taken over without a fight. He has set himself up as President. He and his army have separated the women from the men.

Viola is in a house of healing. The healers running the place are women. They will not tell her whether Todd is alive or dead. When Mayor Prentiss shows up to question her he too will not tell her about Todd. He wants to know about her ships that are coming to New World.

One of the first things that President Prentiss has done is to take away the cure for Noise. Supposedly as punishment for not following orders. He seems to have no noise of his own though. And he is somehow managing to manipulate people's thoughts and actions.

When some of the women escape New Prentisstown and start an attack on the city calling themselves The Answer, it is the beginning of war. Todd feels that Viola has abandoned him. He is being manipulated by the President. He is sent to work at a monastery using the Spackle as slave labor. Davy Prentiss is in control of the site. It is a nightmare for Todd watching the Spackle being mistreated. Viola is desperate to save Todd but Mistress Coyle refuses to allow her to go on raids to rescue him. Only 8 more weeks remain before the ships are to arrive on New World. She failed to get a message to them to let them know what was happening in the new world.

With two people seemingly manipulating two different sides, war seems inevitable. On which side will Viola and Todd be? Or will they be separated forever by their doubts of each other and the manipulation of people over them?

Wow, there were some scenes in this book that were hard for me to read. The torturing of the Spackle and the women was horrible. For the most part though the book was fast paced and I was very invested in finding out how it turned out. If I hadn't been reading it on my Kindle I would have turned to the end of the book and read the last couple of pages(YES, I am one of those!), just to see how things turned out. As it is I didn't do that and it looks like I will have to get the last book in the series to find out how it all ends. This book had so many different emotions in it.  A son's desire for his father's approval, betrayal, love, loyalty, sadistic behavior, manipulation, power hunger, depression and many more that I am missing I am sure. It made me angry at times, made me want to shake a couple of the characters and say "snap out of it!", made me want to exact revenge(ah, there's another one!), made me nauseous a couple of times. A sign of a good book is when it causes your own emotions to come into play along with the characters in the book.

Happily Ever After by Susan May Warren(kindle)

Mona's dreams of opening a coffeehouse/bookstore are about to be realized. She has just purchased an old Victorian house with every dime she has saved up for the last 10 years. Mona is stubborn and determined to do all of the work herself. She realizes after her first look at the place though that she is going to need a handyman to help her in order to get it ready for the opening of tourist season in 6 weeks.

It is not easy for Mona to hire Joe. Mona is independent and does not need any romantic entanglements in her life. Plus there has yet to be a man who meets all of her requirements. She has only found that man in Jonah, a character in her favorite author's books. He is her ideal man and she refuses to settle for anyone less.

After she hires Joe several things happen to make her realize that someone is trying to sabotage her dream. She feels that she does not deserve to realize her dream. She feels that God could not possibly want to bless her with granting her dreams because of the deep guilt that she is carrying around.

Joe has his own secrets to keep. He has been wandering around for most of his life. He can't afford emotionally to become attached to Mona. From the moment they meet though he is drawn to care for her. Unable to forgive the father who left him and his brother and mother when he was 15 he can't seem to grasp that he has become just like him. Always running away from his troubles.

Joe has come to Deep Haven to visit his brother that he hasn't seen in years. He feels guilty about that but soothes his guilt with the fact that he has paid for his brother to stay at a group home. Even when he realizes he has feelings for Mona he cannot reveal to her the true nature of his brother's handicap. But he is keeping another secret from her that may even be more damaging than that.

For the most part I liked the characters of the book. I did get a little tired of the constant battle that both Joe and Mona had within themselves to keep their "deep dark secrets" and to deny the attraction that they felt for each other. Also there seemed to be a lot of teary eyes in this one. I'm not a fan of a character that constantly cries. It seemed like both Joe and Mona were always welling up. It got kind of old. Not only did Mona and Joe keep secrets from each other, it seemed that the author wanted to keep these secrets from the reader too. Maybe if some of Mona and Joe's reasons for keeping secrets had been revealed sooner in the story the tears and fears would have been more understandable to the reader.  

Chocolate Beach by Julie Carobini(Kindle)

Brianna Stone has the perfect beach life. She has the perfectly hunky/lawyer husband, the perfect son, the perfect home on the beach and the perfect job. Things seem to be spiraling downhill though.

Bri's perfect husband Douglas is working long hours. When a snide remark from one of her acquaintances points out to her that maybe her life isn't so perfect, Bri begins to feel that maybe she needs to make some changes in her life to keep her husband interested in her.

Bri embarks on a mission to change things. She takes her mother-in-laws advice to remodel her livingroom to make it more presentable for Douglas as a rising lawyer. She buys a new wardrobe to make herself look more dignified instead of the beach/comfortable that she normally wears. She has her hair streaked with new color. She even takes some cooking classes so that she can present home-cooked meals to her family instead of the take-out fare that they are used to.

Things are not rosy at her work either. Bri loves her job as a tour guide. When the owner of the company decides to leave the business in her son's hands things start getting weird there for Bri. She tries setting the son up with her best friend Gaby. She thinks that Gaby and Ty are hitting it off, but Bri misses the subtle hints that Ty is more interested in her.

Bri realizes finally that she needs to be who God made her to be. She needs to be herself. Bri's spunk and sarcasm had me smiling and laughing throughout the story. I even shed a tear at a tender moment between Douglas and Bri. I especially enjoyed the sailing off into the sunset ending!

The Knife Of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness(Kindle)

Imagine that you can hear what every person and creature around you is thinking. This is what Todd and the men of his village have to deal with every day. They call it Noise. It is constantly buzzing in Todd's mind. The random thoughts of men, their evil thoughts, their desires, all out there for everyone to hear.

One day while in the swamp with his dog Manchee Todd senses another person there. He can't hear their noise though. It freaks him out. When he tells his caretakers Ben and Cillian they panic and pack him up to send him away. The town hear though and come to get Todd and the person that they can't hear the noise from. While escaping Todd runs into that person~a girl. She won't speak to him. Todd has to rescue her from Aaron the "preacher" from the town. Aaron tries to stop Todd and the girl from escaping. While struggling he falls into the swamp and is attacked by crocodile's. Thinking this is the end of Aaron, Todd and the girl take off for the next settlement.

After days of travel the girl finally is able to talk. Viola and her family crash landed in their space ship. Her parents died. They were a scouting trip to this new world. Viola is trying to get to a place where she can notify the rest of her people coming to settle on the new world. Once they reach the first settlement they find that an army is chasing them. This starts a race of survival hoping to reach the biggest settlement of all before the army catches up with them.

The Knife of Never Letting Go kept me on the edge of my seat! I kept hoping for Todd and Viola to win. I fell in love with Todd's dog Manchee. I wanted everything to end well...It didn't. I now have to get The Ask and the Answer that hopefully picks up where The Knife of Never Letting Go ended. A couple of things that I didn't like were the language and the constant one-thing-after-another that kept happening. It got old after a while. I will have to take a break before I start the next one because I need something a little lighter.