Shay Brandenberger's life has been filled with shattered dreams, disappointments and heartache. Her childhood was filled with hurt since she grew up poor and without. This was compounded because of being raised in the small town of Moose Creek. Now an adult Shay still struggles with feeling that everyone looks at her as a charity case, and whispers about all the bad things that have happened to her. Deep down Shay has a feeling that she is not special at all and she struggles constantly with trying to prove that she is worth more than people think.
A single mom struggling to make ends meet and keep her parent's ranch afloat after she was left by her husband Garrett this proud and spirited woman tries to keep her head held high. However, things are about to change for Shay when she agrees to play the bride in the town's Founders Day play. What should have been a pretend event turns into a real, legally binding marriage through the mistake of the absent-minded minister. How will Shay handle the town gossip when she finds herself now married to her one true love - the one that had left her at the alter 14 years before.
Travis McCoy is Moose Creek's golden boy. However, the Travis McCoy that left Moose Creek and the love of his life 14 years earlier to pursue a career in the rodeo is not the same man that has come back to take care of his parent's ranch. His heart longs to have a second chance with the girl he left standing at the alter so many years before, but after such a devastating hurt will she allow this man back into her heart and life? Then things suddenly change when at the last minute Travis is asked to play the groom - will he have the patience and endurance to prove his love to Shay?
This is a sweet story of love and life - of change and forgiveness.
Thanks to the publisher and B&B Communications for this review copy.
The Accidental Bride by Denise Hunter
Thomas Nelson/January 3, 2012/ISBN 978-1-59554-802-3
304 pages/trade paper/$15.99
www.ThomasNelson.com ~ www.DeniseHunterbooks.com
Monday, December 26, 2011
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
The Gospel Story Bible, Marty Machouski
This colorful storybook is absolutely wonderful! This would make an ideal bedtime story book or early morning devotional type story book. Kids will be captivated by the beautiful and colorful illustrations and their attention will be kept by the stories told. Each story is followed by a "Let's talk about it" section that has simple questions.
The book contains 156 stories - enough for an entire year of Sundays. I liked this because it was easily adaptable for Home school bible time for the younger children. After reading this I am very interested in the other material available by this author for Sunday School and home school bible time.
I highly recommend this book for anyone looking for a unique and interactive storybook to share with their children. This will no doubt be a book that piques a child's interest in the bible causing them to want to learn more and more.
Thank you B&B Publications for this review copy.
To view more by this author visit the website www.newgrowthpress.com
The book contains 156 stories - enough for an entire year of Sundays. I liked this because it was easily adaptable for Home school bible time for the younger children. After reading this I am very interested in the other material available by this author for Sunday School and home school bible time.
I highly recommend this book for anyone looking for a unique and interactive storybook to share with their children. This will no doubt be a book that piques a child's interest in the bible causing them to want to learn more and more.
Thank you B&B Publications for this review copy.
To view more by this author visit the website www.newgrowthpress.com
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Mo Wren, Lost and Found, Tricia Springstubb
This is a modern Ramona story - it is absolutely enjoyable on all levels. A great chapter book for early to mid-elementary age students to read. This is a classic in the making.
The antics and adventures of Mo Wren will keep any child's attention just as Beverly Cleary did with her books. This little girl is always up to something or into something making each page an exciting page to read.
I especially liked the fact that this book deals with a child's hopes and fears. Children who read this will be able to relate to Mo as she begins a new journey in life and moves from the home that she has grown up and and loved for so long. From a house on a street to a home in a building Mo is up for many challenges and changes. Too often young children feel they are alone in their fears and dissapointments when the things they hoped for and loved change. In this book children are invited along to travel with Mo as she faces these things and sees that life is full of change, challenge, a little fear and lots of laughs.
This book was provided free of charge by the author in exchange for an honest review. Visit the author at her website at www.triciaspingstubb.com
I Love you More than Chocolate, Melanie Milburn
Melanie Milburn, a self-avowed chocolate lover, has written an absolutely adorable children's book. I really loved the fact that this book was based on a night time ritual that she has with her own children. My children loved the easy rhymes and colorful illustrations because they could relate easily since we also play a similar game. The included cd with song makes this a great gift for any child. The child can follow along in the book as the verses are sung by Melanie Milburn. It is evident in this book the deep love that this author has for children and her desire to share with them how very special they are. I believe that this book will quickly become a favorite bedtime tradition for parent and child - a welcomed break at the end of life's hectic day to remember just how special and dear our children are and to let them know just that.
Thank you Melanie Milburn for this wonderful children's book.
I received this book as a free review copy from the author and publisher.
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
The Hidden Gifts of Helping
The Hidden Gifts of Helping:
Do Good Things for Others This Holiday Season
Article by Stephen G. Post,
Author of The Hidden Gifts of Helping,a Wall Street Journal bestseller
(www.StephenGPost.com/HiddenGifts)
Ebenezer Scrooge begins in The Christmas Carol with a “Bah humbug!” He is both miserly and miserable. As the story unfolds, he eventually discovers the “giver’s glow,” as I like to term it. He is dancing on the streets in the enduring joy of his newfound generosity of heart. I compare the giver’s glow to a glow stick that children get at parades and fairs. These are the translucent plastic tubes containing substances that when combined make light through a chemical reaction. After the glass capsule in the plastic casing is broken, it glows. The brokenness is part of the process. Give and grow, give and glow. Scrooge discovered this before it was too late.
Human beings are wired to give of themselves for noble purposes, regardless of circumstances. Recently, I delivered a sermon in an African-American Baptist church in Coram, New York. The subject was how we benefit when we love our neighbor. Afterwards, a wonderful elderly woman, who was full of vitality, said to me, “You know, that giver’s glow is how we African Americans have been getting through hard times for two centuries!”
On the inside cover of a copy of The Book of Common Prayer, given to me in 1986 by the Rev. William B. Eddy of Tarrytown, New York, is an accumulating memorial list of twenty people I have known closely as models of kindness and generosity over the years. To get on the list a person must have passed on and, by all accounts, remained generous even in their final days. These are people who understood that happiness is not to be found just in the getting, but in the giving, and they taught by example. Have you noticed the warm glow in your heart that comes when you act kindly? They had a deep sense of common humanity, and they all had a certain happiness about them—a sort of gaiety that comes with a life well-lived and rightly inspired.
In my most recent book, The Hidden Gifts of Helping: How the Power of Giving, Compassion, and Hope Can Get Us Through Hard Times (Jossey-Bass, A Wiley Imprint), I describe a bit of an upheaval in my own life, and how helping others got me and my family through the inevitable tough times that come everyone’s way.
“After twenty years of being ‘at home’ in the Cleveland suburb of Shaker Heights, my job disappeared. Maybe we were too attached to Cleveland, and maybe God wanted us to move on. But as a family we never anticipated just how challenging up-rootedness is, especially when it is not something that you would have opted for in better times. So in June of 2008, we sold the house and moved east on Route 80 from Ohio to the George Washington Bridge, landing in Stony Brook. What a great place! But still, we just had not quite imagined how stressful such a move would be and how hard we would have to work to find renewed peace of mind and heart.
“Suddenly cut adrift from friends and community, we felt painfully uprooted—out of place, stressed out, disoriented and at odds with each other. Most movers suffer from a lack of companionship and intimate friends, at least temporarily, and doing this repeatedly is really tough. Fortunately, we had those twenty good years in Ohio. We struggled to find our footing with the move, determined to recreate the good life of community and friendships we all so keenly missed. The key turned out to be something we knew quite well, but learned to remember daily in our upheaval: the healing power of helping others. The medical prescription is this—Rx: Helper Therapy.
“Simply put, helping others helps the helper. Research in the field of health psychology, as well as all the great spiritual traditions, tells us that one of the best ways to get rid of anger and grief is to actively help others. Science supports this assertion: Giving help to others measurably reduces the giver’s stress; improves health and well-being in surprising and powerful ways; renews our optimism about what is possible; helps us connect to family, friends and lots of amazing people; allows the deep, profound joy of our humanity to flow through us and out into the world; and improves our sense of self-worth. These are valuable gifts anytime and particularly in hard times. If there is one great secret to life, this is it.”
After all was said and done, this move worked out. My wife found a grade school where she could continue her work as a teaching assistant for especially needy children, my son Drew volunteered at the hospital and I started working with families of individuals with autism. We eventually realized that wherever we are, we are at home when we can contribute to the lives of others. We got back in touch with the things that matter most, and maybe that is what hard times are for. We helped others in ways that we felt called to, we used our strengths so as to feel effective and we shared our experiences with family, faith community and like-minded others.
Eventually, of course, everyone stumbles on hard times, and no one gets out of life alive. Today, even those who had considered themselves protected from hardship are being touched and their lives changed by volatile economic markets, job uncertainty and the increasing isolation and loneliness of modern life.
Here are four things to keep in mind. First, as Washington Irving put it so well: “Love is never lost. If not reciprocated, it will flow back and soften and purify the heart.” Second, love often does beget love, just as hate usually begets hate, and so good givers need to be good receivers. Third, we should never count on reciprocity because this is sure to be frustrating and ultimately small-minded. Better to take joy when those upon whom our love is bestowed do not “pay it back” to us, but rather “pay it forward” to others as they move through life remembering our good example. Or to bring this to the kitchen table, as I heard one Italian mother in Cleveland tell her son, “Love and forget about it!” And fourth, in I Corinthians Paul linked “faith, hope and love,” and he proclaimed that “love never fails.” What is faith but having confidence that no matter how harsh a particular scene in the drama of our lives or of history might be, it is love that wrote the play and love that will be revealed in the final act.
Do a little good this holiday season. The 2010 Do Good Live Well Survey,released by United Healthcare and VolunteerMatch (www.VolunteerMatch.org), surveyed 4,500 American adults. 41 percent of Americans volunteered an average of 100 hours a year. 68 percent of those who volunteered in the last year reported that volunteering made them feel physically healthier. In addition:
89% reported that “volunteering has improved my sense of well-bring”
73% agreed that “volunteering lowered my stress levels”
92% agreed that “volunteering enriched my sense of purpose in life”
72% characterized themselves as “optimistic” compared to 60% of non-volunteers
42% of volunteers reported a “very good” sense of meaning in their lives, compared with 28% of non-volunteers
How wise it is to do what one can to contribute benevolently to others!
Some individuals on my The Book of Common Prayer list were well known and others lived quiet lives out of the limelight. Some were appreciated and some not. We might prefer to think that loving servants of goodness would, after a long and successful life, die peacefully in their beds and all people would speak well of them at their funerals. But this is too simplistic. Everyone on my list experienced an enduring joy as a by-product of their generosity. Thus, the motto of my independent Institute for Research on Unlimited Love (www.unlimitedloveinstitute.com), founded with the help of Sir John Templeton (who happens to be on my list!), is “In the giving of self lies the discovery of a deeper self.”
To request permission to post this article or for review copy and interview information, contact:
Audra Jennings
Senior Media Specialist
The B&B Media Group
1-800-927-0517 Ext. 104 - ajennings@tbbmedia.com
Do Good Things for Others This Holiday Season
Article by Stephen G. Post,
Author of The Hidden Gifts of Helping,a Wall Street Journal bestseller
(www.StephenGPost.com/HiddenGifts)
Ebenezer Scrooge begins in The Christmas Carol with a “Bah humbug!” He is both miserly and miserable. As the story unfolds, he eventually discovers the “giver’s glow,” as I like to term it. He is dancing on the streets in the enduring joy of his newfound generosity of heart. I compare the giver’s glow to a glow stick that children get at parades and fairs. These are the translucent plastic tubes containing substances that when combined make light through a chemical reaction. After the glass capsule in the plastic casing is broken, it glows. The brokenness is part of the process. Give and grow, give and glow. Scrooge discovered this before it was too late.
Human beings are wired to give of themselves for noble purposes, regardless of circumstances. Recently, I delivered a sermon in an African-American Baptist church in Coram, New York. The subject was how we benefit when we love our neighbor. Afterwards, a wonderful elderly woman, who was full of vitality, said to me, “You know, that giver’s glow is how we African Americans have been getting through hard times for two centuries!”
On the inside cover of a copy of The Book of Common Prayer, given to me in 1986 by the Rev. William B. Eddy of Tarrytown, New York, is an accumulating memorial list of twenty people I have known closely as models of kindness and generosity over the years. To get on the list a person must have passed on and, by all accounts, remained generous even in their final days. These are people who understood that happiness is not to be found just in the getting, but in the giving, and they taught by example. Have you noticed the warm glow in your heart that comes when you act kindly? They had a deep sense of common humanity, and they all had a certain happiness about them—a sort of gaiety that comes with a life well-lived and rightly inspired.
In my most recent book, The Hidden Gifts of Helping: How the Power of Giving, Compassion, and Hope Can Get Us Through Hard Times (Jossey-Bass, A Wiley Imprint), I describe a bit of an upheaval in my own life, and how helping others got me and my family through the inevitable tough times that come everyone’s way.
“After twenty years of being ‘at home’ in the Cleveland suburb of Shaker Heights, my job disappeared. Maybe we were too attached to Cleveland, and maybe God wanted us to move on. But as a family we never anticipated just how challenging up-rootedness is, especially when it is not something that you would have opted for in better times. So in June of 2008, we sold the house and moved east on Route 80 from Ohio to the George Washington Bridge, landing in Stony Brook. What a great place! But still, we just had not quite imagined how stressful such a move would be and how hard we would have to work to find renewed peace of mind and heart.
“Suddenly cut adrift from friends and community, we felt painfully uprooted—out of place, stressed out, disoriented and at odds with each other. Most movers suffer from a lack of companionship and intimate friends, at least temporarily, and doing this repeatedly is really tough. Fortunately, we had those twenty good years in Ohio. We struggled to find our footing with the move, determined to recreate the good life of community and friendships we all so keenly missed. The key turned out to be something we knew quite well, but learned to remember daily in our upheaval: the healing power of helping others. The medical prescription is this—Rx: Helper Therapy.
“Simply put, helping others helps the helper. Research in the field of health psychology, as well as all the great spiritual traditions, tells us that one of the best ways to get rid of anger and grief is to actively help others. Science supports this assertion: Giving help to others measurably reduces the giver’s stress; improves health and well-being in surprising and powerful ways; renews our optimism about what is possible; helps us connect to family, friends and lots of amazing people; allows the deep, profound joy of our humanity to flow through us and out into the world; and improves our sense of self-worth. These are valuable gifts anytime and particularly in hard times. If there is one great secret to life, this is it.”
After all was said and done, this move worked out. My wife found a grade school where she could continue her work as a teaching assistant for especially needy children, my son Drew volunteered at the hospital and I started working with families of individuals with autism. We eventually realized that wherever we are, we are at home when we can contribute to the lives of others. We got back in touch with the things that matter most, and maybe that is what hard times are for. We helped others in ways that we felt called to, we used our strengths so as to feel effective and we shared our experiences with family, faith community and like-minded others.
Eventually, of course, everyone stumbles on hard times, and no one gets out of life alive. Today, even those who had considered themselves protected from hardship are being touched and their lives changed by volatile economic markets, job uncertainty and the increasing isolation and loneliness of modern life.
Here are four things to keep in mind. First, as Washington Irving put it so well: “Love is never lost. If not reciprocated, it will flow back and soften and purify the heart.” Second, love often does beget love, just as hate usually begets hate, and so good givers need to be good receivers. Third, we should never count on reciprocity because this is sure to be frustrating and ultimately small-minded. Better to take joy when those upon whom our love is bestowed do not “pay it back” to us, but rather “pay it forward” to others as they move through life remembering our good example. Or to bring this to the kitchen table, as I heard one Italian mother in Cleveland tell her son, “Love and forget about it!” And fourth, in I Corinthians Paul linked “faith, hope and love,” and he proclaimed that “love never fails.” What is faith but having confidence that no matter how harsh a particular scene in the drama of our lives or of history might be, it is love that wrote the play and love that will be revealed in the final act.
Do a little good this holiday season. The 2010 Do Good Live Well Survey,released by United Healthcare and VolunteerMatch (www.VolunteerMatch.org), surveyed 4,500 American adults. 41 percent of Americans volunteered an average of 100 hours a year. 68 percent of those who volunteered in the last year reported that volunteering made them feel physically healthier. In addition:
89% reported that “volunteering has improved my sense of well-bring”
73% agreed that “volunteering lowered my stress levels”
92% agreed that “volunteering enriched my sense of purpose in life”
72% characterized themselves as “optimistic” compared to 60% of non-volunteers
42% of volunteers reported a “very good” sense of meaning in their lives, compared with 28% of non-volunteers
How wise it is to do what one can to contribute benevolently to others!
Some individuals on my The Book of Common Prayer list were well known and others lived quiet lives out of the limelight. Some were appreciated and some not. We might prefer to think that loving servants of goodness would, after a long and successful life, die peacefully in their beds and all people would speak well of them at their funerals. But this is too simplistic. Everyone on my list experienced an enduring joy as a by-product of their generosity. Thus, the motto of my independent Institute for Research on Unlimited Love (www.unlimitedloveinstitute.com), founded with the help of Sir John Templeton (who happens to be on my list!), is “In the giving of self lies the discovery of a deeper self.”
To request permission to post this article or for review copy and interview information, contact:
Audra Jennings
Senior Media Specialist
The B&B Media Group
1-800-927-0517 Ext. 104 - ajennings@tbbmedia.com
Friday, December 2, 2011
Live Reflectively and Live Abundantly , Lenya Heitzig & Penny Rose
Live Reflectively: A study of the book of Ephesians and Live Abundantly: Lessons from the Watershed (Moses) are both excellent devotions.
I like the fact that the books were a little wider than the average book allowing space for journaling and jotting down thoughts or additional scripture (or things that you might want to work on). Though they say that this is a 20 minute devotional I think most people will find that it can last a lot longer than that. The actual devotional is short however it is followed with questions for reflection and with additional scripture. I thought this was unique to this devotional as it really pushes the reader into the scriptures instead of taking the devotional as is. The format causes the reader to really take time on self-reflection and searching the scripture. I believe this type of study will help a Christian get the meat of the scripture instead of the milky watered down version of diluted scripture in devotional story telling style. Both of these studies will bring about growth and maturity as well as cause a reader to ask more questions and there by search the scriptures more. The questions make it easy to apply the scripture and devotion to ones self.
I have really enjoyed these and will be recommending them to the ladies of our church.
Thanks to B&B Communications for this review copy.
I like the fact that the books were a little wider than the average book allowing space for journaling and jotting down thoughts or additional scripture (or things that you might want to work on). Though they say that this is a 20 minute devotional I think most people will find that it can last a lot longer than that. The actual devotional is short however it is followed with questions for reflection and with additional scripture. I thought this was unique to this devotional as it really pushes the reader into the scriptures instead of taking the devotional as is. The format causes the reader to really take time on self-reflection and searching the scripture. I believe this type of study will help a Christian get the meat of the scripture instead of the milky watered down version of diluted scripture in devotional story telling style. Both of these studies will bring about growth and maturity as well as cause a reader to ask more questions and there by search the scriptures more. The questions make it easy to apply the scripture and devotion to ones self.
I have really enjoyed these and will be recommending them to the ladies of our church.
Thanks to B&B Communications for this review copy.
The Spirit Of Texas, Winton Menzies
If you are a history buff or maybe just a proud Texan this book is a good read. Walter Menzies has compiled a historical account of his family and Texas dating to the earliest years of the state. I chose this book because I thought it was a comprehensive look at the history of the state of Texas. I was a little surprised to find that it is more a history of one family who has been in Texas for generations. However, I was not disappointed. Menzies has done an excellent job of compiling historical information, data, and pictures to make a beautiful book about the actual "Spirit" of Texas. Being a native born Texan and having living in another state for some time before returning I realize that Texan's have a pride about our state. Some have viewed this as an arrogance, but truly being a Texan is a mindset. This proud state was founded on the backs of strong and courageous men and women who braved the wild frontier. The battles fought here were historical great in our nation and the men and women who built this state are proud to be a part of one of the largest states in the union.
This book is a historical account of one great Texan family but it captures the essence of the Texan pride and strength. I am using this book in our history curriculum as required reading.
Thanks to B&B Media for this review copy.
www.winstonmenzies.com
Published by Creative Publishing.
This book is a historical account of one great Texan family but it captures the essence of the Texan pride and strength. I am using this book in our history curriculum as required reading.
Thanks to B&B Media for this review copy.
www.winstonmenzies.com
Published by Creative Publishing.
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