Spring has been around for weeks in my area of the country, but it has been erratic! We’ve had record high temps, severe weather threats, and even a bit of snow! So crazy! But the flowers are blooming, the trees are budding, and my husband is mowing the grass! LOL! Today’s TTT topic is Spring TBR Lists. I am embarking on a novel approach to my reading life — choosing to read what I want, when I want. Even the few review titles are those I really, really want to read. It’s been a while, folks! I am having a blast! I had to really think about today’s post because past seasonal TBRs have been filled with required reading (books for review.) Today’s list features book club picks and mood reads, which are hard to plan for. But I think I have a great list planned. Let me know what you are reading this season.
Anna believed choosing Andrew meant gaining a home. Instead, she finds herself on the dusty roads of Galilee, under the watchful eyes of hostile Pharisees, walking ever closer to miracles that both heal and unsettle.
As a healer traveling with Jesus’s ministry alongside Andrew, Anna takes her place among the women who follow, forming bonds that offer strength as the journey grows harder. While crowds press close to hear the Teacher’s words, a different kind of attention gathers. In Jerusalem, her father Joseph of Arimathea, walks an impossible line within the Sanhedrin, and with each miracle Jesus performs, the net draws tighter around them all.
The cost of discipleship, Anna discovers, is not counted in miles walked or comforts surrendered. It is measured in the space between what she hoped following Jesus would be and what it actually demands.
Some journeys test what you believe.
Some reshape who you become.
Anna’s does both.
This is Book 2 of The Arimathea Chronicles. Begin Anna’s journey from the beginning with Book 1, Anna of Arimathea, where a scarred, isolated young woman discovers healing, first love, and purpose in the footsteps of Jesus.
Anna of Bethsaida is perfect for readers who love:
Deeply researched biblical fiction with authentic period detail
The untold stories of women in the early church – Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and the community that sustained Jesus’s ministry
Love stories tested by faith and dangerous callings
Political intrigue woven through spiritual transformation
Character-driven narratives where personal loss intersects with world-changing events
Excerpt
The sun had set, and Mary disappeared into the house.
When she returned, she carried an alabaster jar. Small, no larger than her palm, carved from translucent stone that glowed honey-gold in the lamplight. She held it with both hands, crossing slowly toward where Jesus reclined at the head table. Every eye followed her. Even the street sounds faded until only the soft shuffle of her feet on stone remained, the whisper of her robe against the ground.
She kneeled at his feet.
Then she broke it.
The crack echoed through the courtyard, and the scent hit — nard, pure nard, the kind carried by traders who crossed deserts and mountains to bring it west. The air grew thick with it, coating the inside of my mouth and lungs. The smell of exotic spices and resin, of distant places I would never see, of wealth so extravagant it felt obscene.
Mary tilted the jar over Jesus’s feet. The oil poured out in a thick stream, coating his skin, running between his toes, pooling on the stone floor beneath them. The scent grew stronger, filling every corner of the courtyard until I could taste nothing else.
Jesus sat very still, watching her. Tears gathered in his eyes.
Mary set the empty jar aside. Then she reached up and unbound her hair. It fell around her shoulders in dark waves, tumbling down her back to her waist. She bent forward until her hair brushed the floor, and wiped his feet with it.
The gesture was so intimate, so tender, that part of me wanted to look away. This was not a servant washing a master’s feet. The sound of her hair against his skin whispered through the courtyard.
No one spoke. No one moved. We all sat watching what we did not fully understand but knew in our bones was sacred.
Susanne Blumer lives her life surrounded by stories—some she writes, and some she sells. As the CEO and Founder of Sassafras on Sutton LLC, she is the owner of three magical indie bookstores nestled in the North Carolina mountains of Black Mountain and Waynesville and Beaufort, South Carolina. One even has a full coffee bar. Oh, happy day!
She is the author of The Arimathea Chronicles, a series set in first-century Judea and centered on the life of Anna, the daughter of Joseph of Arimathea. The first two books, Anna of Arimathea and Anna of Bethsaida, are available now. The third book, Anna of Calvary, will be available later this year. She’s also written several children’s books, including the award-winning Bell Tower Bible Adventure series she co-wrote with her husband. Her new children’s picture book series, The Story of You, will release its first book late Spring 2026 called Before Your Story Had A Name.
When she’s not writing or doing other entrepreneurial tasks, you can usually find her hanging out on the floor of one of her stores, drinking coffee and learning the stories of her customers or spoiling her eight chickens. Susanne splits her time between Waynesville, NC in her beloved mountains and Beaufort, SC on the enchanting Lowcountry coast.
Connect with Susanne by visiting susanneblumer.com to follow her on social media and subscribe to email updates.
Tour Giveaway
(1) winner will receive a $25 Bookshop gift card and a signed copy of Anna of Bethsaida!
Full tour schedule linked below. The giveaway begins at midnight March 17, 2026 and will last through 11:59 PM EST on March 24, 2026. Winners will be notified within 2 weeks of close of the giveaway and given 48 hours to respond or risk forfeiture of prize. US only. Void where prohibited by law or logistics.
Happy Friday! Today I am featuring the debut Biblical novel Anna Of Arimathea by Susanne Blumer. Some of you may know Susanne from her bookstore, Sassafras on Sutton. I am so looking forward to reading this book!
Here’s the first line:
Anna pressed her small hands against the rough stone wall of their courtyard, watching her mother clean the gash along the young lamb’s flank with steady hands.
Some wounds are carried in silence. Some healings require more than medicine.
Eighteen-year-old Anna bears the marks of a childhood tragedy that left her motherless, scarred, and lame. Hidden within the household of her father, Joseph of Arimathea, a wealthy councilman of the Sanhedrin, her days are measured in herb gardens and healing tinctures, in the steady work of hands trained to help others, and in the quiet safety of a world made small.
Then Andrew of Bethsaida arrives at her father’s gate with urgent business for Joseph and talk of a teacher who calls ordinary people to extraordinary purpose. A fisherman turned disciple, Andrew follows the rabbi Jesus with a conviction that unsettles every long-held expectation—including Anna’s own.
When Andrew’s kindness cracks open the door to a larger world, Anna faces an impossible choice: remain in the safety of her father’s estate or risk everything for the possibility of healing, love, and a life she never dared imagine.
Set against the dusty roads and fishing villages of first-century Judea, where miracles unfold and mercy walks among the broken, Anna of Arimathea opens The Arimathea Chronicles—a richly imagined tale of faith, first love, and redemption in the footsteps of the Messiah.
Susanne Blumer is an award-winning author, bookstore owner (x3), and CEO & Founder of Sassafras on Sutton LLC. She co-authors the Bell Tower Bible Adventures middle grade series with her husband Cole and the Piper Periwinkle picture book series. Her new series, The Arimathea Chronicles, follows the life of Anna, the daughter of Joseph of Arimathea. A long-time lover of Biblical Fiction, she is so excited to be bringing the story of Anna to life. The first book, Anna of Arimathea, published in December 2025. Book two, Anna of Bethsaida, will release in March 2026. Susanne splits her time between the magical mountains of North Carolina and the enchanting lowcounty coast of South Carolina where she drinks far too much coffee, spoils her chickens, daydreams a lot, and loves hanging out at her stores chatting with customers. If you’re ever up in the NC mountains or down in Beaufort, SC, stop by and say “Hey!”
Some wounds are carried in silence. Some healings require more than medicine.
Eighteen-year-old Anna bears the marks of a childhood tragedy that left her motherless, scarred, and lame. Hidden within the household of her father, Joseph of Arimathea, a wealthy councilman of the Sanhedrin, her days are measured in herb gardens and healing tinctures, in the steady work of hands trained to help others, and in the quiet safety of a world made small.
Then Andrew of Bethsaida arrives at her father’s gate with urgent business for Joseph and talk of a teacher who calls ordinary people to extraordinary purpose. A fisherman turned disciple, Andrew follows the rabbi Jesus with a conviction that unsettles every long-held expectation—including Anna’s own.
When Andrew’s kindness cracks open the door to a larger world, Anna faces an impossible choice: remain in the safety of her father’s estate or risk everything for the possibility of healing, love, and a life she never dared imagine.
Set against the dusty roads and fishing villages of first-century Judea, where miracles unfold and mercy walks among the broken, Anna of Arimathea opens The Arimathea Chronicles—a richly imagined tale of faith, first love, and redemption in the footsteps of the Messiah.
Anna of Arimathea is perfect for readers who love:
Biblical and historical fiction with rich period detail
Redemptive love stories that explore the cost of faith
Immersive historical worlds
Characters who choose courage over comfort
Excerpt
ARIMATHEA 30AD. Anna, alone and forgotten in her garden, cries out to God—and receives an answer that changes everything.
The wind circled me, wrapped around my shoulders, lifted my hair, stirred my robe against my ankles. I stood in the center of something vast and holy, something that had come for me alone. My scarred hands tingled where they gripped the iron as the air swirled around me.
Then, as suddenly as it had come, the wind stilled completely. The birds stopped mid-note. Even the hens stopped their scratching and stood motionless, heads cocked, listening. The silence stretched and deepened until it seemed the very air held its breath, waiting.
I did not hear it with my ears first. It came up through the ground, through the stone, through the bones that ache in the rain, until it reached the place where fear had made a tiny house inside me.
“I see you, Anna.”
The latch slid from my fingers and struck the stone. My knees loosened and would have given way if not for the wall. Those four words moved through me the way floodwater roars down a dry streambed, finding every hollow place.
Susanne Blumer lives her life surrounded by stories—some she writes, and some she sells. As the CEO and Founder of Sassafras on Sutton LLC, she is the owner of three magical indie bookstores nestled in the North Carolina mountains of Black Mountain and Waynesville and Beaufort, South Carolina. One even has a full coffee bar. Oh, happy day!
She is the author of The Arimathea Chronicles, a series set in first-century Judea and centered on the life of Anna, the daughter of Joseph of Arimathea. The first book, Anna of Arimathea, published in December 2025 and the second, Anna of Bethsaida, will be available in March 2026. She’s also written several children’s books, including the award-winning Bell Tower Bible Adventure series she co-wrote with her husband. Her new children’s picture book series, The Story of You, will release its first book late Spring 2026 called Before Your Story Had A Name.
When she’s not writing or doing other entrepreneurial tasks, you can usually find her hanging out on the floor of one of her stores, drinking coffee and learning the stories of her customers or spoiling her eight chickens. Susanne splits her time between Waynesville, NC in her beloved mountains and Beaufort, SC on the enchanting Lowcountry coast.
Connect with Susanne by visiting susanneblumer.com to follow her on social media and subscribe to email updates.
Tour Giveaway
(2) winners will each receive a signed print copy of Anna of Arimathea plus a $50 Bookshop.org Gift Card!
Full tour schedule linked below. The giveaway begins at midnight January 21, 2026 and will last through 11:59 PM EST on January 28, 2026. Winners will be notified within 2 weeks of close of the giveaway and given 48 hours to respond or risk forfeiture of prize. US only. Void where prohibited by law or logistics.
Many of the books I review are provided to me free of charge from publishers, authors, or other groups in return for a review. The opinions expressed in the reviews are mine and mine alone. No monetary consideration is given. This disclaimer is in accordance with FTC rules.
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