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August Book Club Pick — Storm Warning

1 Aug

My book club loves romantic suspense, and they will be in the midst of it with our August pick, Storm Warning by Elizabeth Goddard. If you’ve read it let us know what you thought. If not, find all about it below.

Haunted by a half-forgotten past, former army photographer Remi Grant is working at an isolated storm-watching lodge on the rocky Washington coast when she receives a mysterious puzzle piece. The piece may be the catalyst to unlock a disturbing incident she struggles to remember–the event that sent her into hiding. But with heavy storms rolling in, she must focus on the present, not get caught up in the past.

When a mysterious man at the lodge saves her life–more than once–Remi becomes suspicious and confronts him. After a catastrophic event in his own life, former military pilot Hawk Beckett is trying to get some perspective at the suggestion of his former commanding officer. Faced with the fiercest storm to hit the coast in a decade, Remi and Hawk are forced into survival mode. 

But they’re not alone at the lodge. Someone doesn’t want Remi to remember what happened–and they will stop at nothing to see her dead.

Elizabeth Goddard is the PW, ECPA, and USA Today bestselling and award-winning author of over sixty novels, including the Missing in Alaska and Rocky Mountain Courage series. Her books have sold more than 1.5 million copies. She is a Christy Award, Carol Award and Reader’s Choice Award winner and a Daphne du Maurier Award and HOLT Medallion finalist. When she’s not writing, she loves spending time with her family, traveling to find inspiration for her next book, and serving with her husband in ministry.

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July Book Club Pick — The Light on Horn Island

1 Jul

This month’s book club pick is from one of my group’s favorite authors — The Light on Horn Island by Valerie Fraser Luesse. This one looks like a perfect summer read. Find out all about it below.

Just when her life comes crumbling down, she discovers secrets that could shape her future–and heal her past. 

When Edie Gardner’s life in New York falls apart, her grandmother Adele “Punk” Cheramie coaxes her back to tiny Bayou du Chêne, Mississippi. Edie spent many happy summers there, a stone’s throw from untamed Horn Island, where she once found love. Can she now demystify the island’s strange new light?

Punk and her colorful friends introduce Edie to the Trove, a fascinating gallery and antique shop. Like Horn Island’s light, The Trove has appeared out of nowhere. Its proprietor, with a gift for discerning his customers’ needs, gives Edie a Victorian parlor game that asks players a series of personal questions, which is harmless fun at first. But Edie and her grandmother’s circle find that the game has a way of uncovering secrets, including a heartbreak that has haunted one of the women for decades. Banding together, this Southern sisterhood is determined to find answers that will bring healing, hope, and happiness–and maybe explain the transcendent illumination of a wild and windswept barrier island.

Valerie Fraser Luesse is the author of novels set in the South. An award-winning magazine writer, Luesse is perhaps best known for her feature stories and essays in Southern Living, where she wrote major pieces on the Mississippi Delta, Acadian Louisiana, and the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Her editorial section on the recovering Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina, photographed by Mark Sandlin, won the 2009 Travel Writer of the Year award from the Southeast Tourism Society. Luesse earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in English from Auburn University and Baylor University, respectively. Find her online at valeriefraserluesse.com; facebook.com/valeriefraserluessebooks; bakerpublishinggroup.com; bookbub.com/authors/valerie-fraser-luesse; and goodreads.com

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June Book Club Selection — Guilty Until Innocent

2 Jun

How can it be June already?! May was a whirlwind month of traveling, so it just flew by. I am looking forward to a little more leisure, but my calendar is already pretty full of long weekend getaways. At least that is conducive to reading. 😉 One of the books I will be diving into is Guilty Until Innocent by Robert Whitlow. My book club used to impatiently wait for each of his releases, but we fell out of the habit of choosing his books. I am excited for this legal drama from an author some call the John Grisham of Christian fiction. Read all about it below.

Justice has been served . . . unless the accused is innocent. In this gripping legal drama, Whitlow expertly weaves themes of grace, faith, and the law with a plot that is sure to keep you guessing until the end.

Life in prison is often a nightmare, but Joe Moore believes he is just where God intends him to be. Twenty-five years ago, while high on meth, he makes one terrible mistake after another, culminating in the brutal murder of a young, influential couple. Today, Joe is a radically different person, thriving in his role as a ministry leader and role model to his fellow inmates.

After being fired from two previous law firms, young lawyer Ryan Clark and his wife, Paige, have settled into a small North Carolina town. Hired by a distant relative, Ryan is committed to connecting with the right clients and handling the mundane tasks while his cousin Tom takes on the high-profile cases.

But when critical health issues land Tom in the hospital, Ryan is forced to take the helm at the law firm–just in time for the town’s biggest case in history to be reopened. Joe Moore’s niece has been doing some digging and, convinced that her incarcerated uncle is innocent, insists that Ryan relaunch the investigation immediately.

After Ryan meets with Joe, both men receive threats that put their own lives–as well as the lives of those around them–in danger. It appears that together they’ve pulled back a dark curtain that hides a deeper evil than anyone in town suspects exists. Now they must determine if continuing with the case is worth the risk–and if the cost of proving one man’s innocence is too great when the lives of so many others would be placed in mortal danger.

Dive into a world where faith meets the law in this heart-pounding legal drama that will keep you on the edge of your seat. Pick up Guilty Until Innocent and find out if the cost of justice is worth risking everything. You won’t want miss out on this thrilling story of grace, redemption, and the relentless pursuit of truth.

Robert Whitlow grew up in north Georgia. He graduated magna cum laude from Furman University with a BA in history in 1976 and received his JD with honors from the University of Georgia School of Law in 1979. A practicing attorney, he is a partner in a Charlotte, NC law firm. He and his wife Kathy have four children and nine grandchildren.

Robert began writing in 1996. His novels are set in the South and include both legal suspense and interesting characterization. It is his desire to write stories that reveal some of the ways God interacts with people in realistic scenarios.

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May Book Club Pick — Midnight on The Scottish Shore

1 May

This month my book club is reading Midnight on The Scottish Shore by Sarah Sundin. I have already read this historical novel set during WWII and features spies! I loved it! If you have read it too, I would love to know your thoughts.

In a time of war, danger lurks beneath the water–and in the depths of the human heart

As the German war machine devours the Netherlands, the only way Cilla van der Zee can survive the occupation is to do the unthinkable–train to become a spy for the Nazis. Once dispatched to Britain, she plans to abandon her mission and instead aid the Allies. But her scheme is thwarted when naval officer Lt. Lachlan Mackenzie finds her along the Scottish shore and turns her in to be executed.

Yet perhaps she is more useful alive than dead. British intelligence employs her to radio misleading messages to Germany from the lighthouse at Dunnet Head in Scotland–messages filled with naval intelligence Lachlan must provide. If the war is to be won, Lachlan and Cilla must work together. But how can he trust a woman who arrived on his shores as a tool of the enemy–a woman certain to betray both him and the Allied cause?

Sarah Sundin enjoys writing about the drama and romance of the World War II era. She is the bestselling and Christy Award-winning author of Midnight on the Scottish Shore (February 2025), Embers in the London Sky (2024), The Sound of Light (2023), Until Leaves Fall in Paris (2022), When Twilight Breaks (2021), and several World War II series.

A mother of three, Sundin lives in Southern California and enjoys speaking to community, church, and writers’ groups. Sarah serves as program director for the West Coast Christian Writers Conference.

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April Book Club Pick — Cold Dead Night

1 Apr

This month my book club chose a new-to-us author, Lisa Phillips. Phillips is a popular and prolific author of suspense/thrillers. Where to start? At the beginning of one of her series, Brand of Justice. Cold Dead Night looks like it is right up our reading alley. And if we like it, there are 11! books in the series! Have you read it? We’d love to know what you thought.

The FBI betrayed her. Now they need her.

Private Investigator Kenna Banbury lost everything two years ago at the hands of a serial killer. From the ashes of that encounter, she’s built a life she believes in, searching for the lost and forgotten all over the western US.

Bringing her own brand of justice.

When a series of murders drags her into an FBI investigation, Kenna finds herself back in the place where it all went wrong. Struggling to make sense of the case, Kenna’s past and present collide in a deadly plot that risks another betrayal and threatens to shatter everything she’s built.

Kenna faces the darkest part of her past in this first book of a brand-new series from Lisa Phillips.

Lisa Phillips is a USA Today and top ten Publishers Weekly bestselling author of over 80 books that span Harlequin’s Love Inspired Suspense line, independently published series romantic suspense, and thriller novels. She’s discovered a penchant for high-stakes stories of mayhem and disaster where you can find made-for-each-other love that always ends in happily ever after.

Lisa is a British ex-pat who grew up an hour outside of London and attended Calvary Chapel Bible College, where she met her husband. He’s from California, but nobody’s perfect. It wasn’t until her Bible College graduation that she figured out she was a writer (someone told her). Lisa is a worship leader, tea aficionado, and dog lover of two crazy Airedales.

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March Book Club Selection — The Indigo Heiress

3 Mar

How is it March already!?! I can hardly wrap my head around that. But what I can understand is the great book my book club will be reading this month. The Indigo Heiress by Laura Frantz is a historical novel with a marriage of convenience trope. I am half way through already and loving it. Frantz does a great job of bringing the time leading up to the full out American Revolution to life. Find out all about it below.

Virigina plantation life is all she has ever known. 
But could the life she was meant to live be waiting on a distant shore? 

In 1774, Juliet Catesby lives with her father and sister at Royal Vale, the James River plantation founded by her Virginia family over a century before. Indigo cultivation is her foremost concern, though its export tethers her family to the powerful Buchanan clan of Glasgow, Scotland. 

When the heir of the Buchanan firm arrives on their shores, Juliet discovers that her father has arranged for one of his daughters to marry the Scot as a means of canceling the family’s crippling debt. Confident it will be her younger, lovelier sister, Juliet is appalled when Leith Buchanan selects her instead.

Despite her initial refusal, Juliet realizes that fleeing Virginia is her only choice after finding herself in the midst of a scandal. The ship just leaving the harbor for Glasgow is her only hope. But she will soon realize that being part of the complex and calculating Buchanan clan is not the sanctuary she imagined–and the man who saved her from ruin is the very one she must now save in return.

Bestselling, award-winning author, Laura Frantz, has been writing stories since age seven. She is passionate about all things historical, particularly the 18th-century and her novels often incorporate Scottish themes that reflect her family heritage. She is a direct descendant of George Hume, Wedderburn Castle, Berwickshire, Scotland, who was exiled to the American colonies for his role in the Jacobite Rebellion of 1715, settled in Virginia, and is credited with teaching George Washington surveying in the years 1748-1750. Proud of her heritage, she is also a Daughter of the American Revolution. Though she will always consider Kentucky home, she and her husband live in Washington State.

Readers can find Laura Frantz at http://www.laurafrantz.net.

February Book Club Pick — I Think I Was Murdered

1 Feb

What a title! I can’t wait to see what Colleen Coble and Rick Acker have in store in the suspense novel I Think I Was Murdered. See all about it below.

Just a year ago, Katrina Berg was at the pinnacle of her career. She was a rising star in the AI chatbot start-up everyone was talking about, married with an adoring husband, and had more money than she knew how to spend. Then her world combusted. Her husband, Jason, was killed in a fiery car crash. Her CEO was indicted, and, as the company’s legal counsel, Katrina faces tough questions as the Feds take over and lock her out of her office. The final blow is the passing of her beloved grandmother.

Her most prized possession is the beta prototype for a new, ultra-sophisticated chatbot loaded onto her phone. The contents of Jason’s email, social media backups, pictures, and every bit of data she could find were loaded into the bot, and Katrina has “talked” to him every day for the past six months. She has been amazed at how well it works. Even the syntax and words the bot uses sound like Jason. Sometimes, she imagines he isn’t really dead and is right there beside her. She knows it’s slowing her grief recovery, but she can’t stop pretending.

On a particularly bad day, she taps out: Tell me something I don’t know. The cursor blinks for several moments and seems frozen before the reply flashes quickly onto the screen: I think I was murdered.

Distraught, Katrina returns to her cozy Norwegian-flavored hometown in the Northern California redwoods and enlists the help of Seb Wallace, local restaurateur and longtime acquaintance, to try to parse out the truth of what really happened. They must navigate the complicated paths of grief, family dynamics, and second chances, as well as the complex questions of how much control technology has. And staying alive long enough to do that is far more difficult than either of them dreamed.

Bestselling authors Coble and Acker deftly combine a high-concept plot with gripping intrigue and closed-door romance in I Think I Was Murdered. Don’t miss it!

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Book Club Selection — Indigo Isle

1 Jan

Happy New Year! And happy 2025 book club selections! My book club has some great reading ahead. First up is Indigo Isle by T. I. Lowe. This author of southern fiction will be a participant at the Turning A New Page Book Festival. I am so looking forward to reading the Christy Award-winning novel before I hear her speak. If you are anywhere in the middle Georgia area, make plans to attend on 1/25/25. Or there’s always road trip fun!

Sonny Bates left South Carolina fifteen years ago and never looked back. Now she’s a successful Hollywood location scout who travels the world, finding perfect places for movie shoots. Home is wherever she lands, and between her busy schedule and dealing with her boss’s demands, she has little time to think about the past . . . until her latest gig lands her a stone’s throw from everything she left behind.

Searching off the coast of Charleston for a secluded site to film a key scene, Sonny wanders onto a private barrier island and encounters its reclusive owner, known by locals as the Monster of Indigo Isle. What she finds is a man much more complex than the myth.

Once a successful New York attorney, Hudson Renfrow’s grief has exiled him to his island for several years. He spends his days alone, tending his fields of indigo, then making indigo dye―and he has no interest in serving the intrusive needs of a film company or yielding to Sonny’s determined curiosity. But when a hurricane makes landfall on the Carolina coast, stranding them together, an unlikely friendship forms between the two damaged souls. Soon the gruff exterior Hudson has long hidden behind crumbles―exposing the tender part of him that’s desperate for forgiveness and a second chance.

A story of hanging on and letting go, of redemption and reconciliation, and of a love that heals the deepest wounds, from the author of the breakout Southern fiction bestseller Under the Magnolias.

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November Book Club Pick — The Divine Proverb of Streusel

1 Nov

Is it really November already?! Time to plan for Thanksgiving, shop for Christmas presents, and decorate the house with holiday cheer. I am exhausted just thinking about it. LOL! What to do to escape all the doings of the holidays? Read a good book. This month it looks like my book club picked the perfect one. Take a look at The Divine Proverb of Streusel by Sara Brunsvold. Let me if you’ve read it and what you thought.

Shaken by her parents’ divorce and discouraged by the growing chasm between herself and her serious boyfriend, Nikki Werner seeks solace at her uncle’s farm in a small Missouri hamlet. She’ll spend the summer there, picking up the pieces of her shattered present so she can plan a better future. But what awaits her at the ancestral farm is a past she barely knows.

Among her late grandmother’s belongings, Nikki finds an old notebook filled with handwritten German recipes and wise sayings pulled from the book of Proverbs. With each recipe she makes, she invites locals to the family table to hear their stories about the town’s history, her ancestors–and her estranged father. 

What started as a cathartic way to connect to her heritage soon becomes the means through which she learns how the women before her endured–with the help of their cooking prowess. Nikki realizes how delicious streusel with a healthy dollop of faith can serve as a guide to heal wounds of the past.

Sara Brunsvold creates stories that speak hope, truth, and life. Influenced by humble women of God who find his fingerprints in the everyday, she does the same in her life and her storytelling. Sara’s recognitions include the 2020 ACFW Genesis Award for Contemporary Fiction. She lives with her family near Kansas City, Missouri, where she can often be spotted writing at a park or library. Learn more at http://www.sarabrunsvold.com.

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Happy Release Day — Every Moment Since

1 Oct

Happy release day to Marybeth Whalen! Her newest novel, Every Moment Since, is now available. Don’t you just love the cover?! This one immediately hit my TBR list when I found out about it. Check out all the details below.

A small Southern town. An ordinary Saturday night. A little boy disappears without a trace.

Everyone in Wynotte, North Carolina, knows the name Davy Malcor. Knows the video clip of him juggling four balls, “All at the very same time!” Knows the Marty McFly jacket his mother made for his birthday that he wore proudly, and often. But no one knows what happened to him the night he went missing more than twenty years ago.

When the jacket is unexpectedly uncovered, the cold case reopens, and Davy’s family is thrust into yet another media storm. But at the heart of the story are four people forever changed by one single night: Thaddeus Malcor, Davy’s older brother, created the life of his dreams by writing a bestselling memoir about his family’s experience and is enjoying success and notoriety as a result, even if the memoir doesn’t quite reveal the whole story. Tabitha Malcor, his mother, is divorced and living alone, advocating for victims’ rights and faithfully cataloging her regrets each week, never including her biggest regret of all. Anissa Weaver was just a kid herself when Davy went missing, and her connection to him is one she cannot reveal as she serves as the Malcor family’s Public Information Officer. And, long suspected in Davy’s disappearance, Gordon Swift has kept his head down and scraped together a decent life. But the new attention to the case makes it impossible to hide from the public, and the past.

With hauntingly vivid prose, Marybeth Mayhew Whalen peels back the curtain on the inner turmoil of those who were left behind in the small Southern community as they pick up the pieces that remain and press forward into the light to find hope and healing.

Marybeth Mayhew Whalen is the author of Every Moment Since and 9 previous novels. Marybeth received a BA in English with a concentration in Writing and Editing from NC State University a long time ago and has been writing ever since. She is the co-founder of The Book Tide, an online community of readers where “a rising tide raises all books.” Marybeth and her husband Curt are the parents of six kids who are now all in various stages of adulting. A native of Charlotte, NC, Marybeth now calls Sunset Beach, NC home.

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