Freedom's Price by Christine Johnson - A Book Review

     I carried my Kindle around with me, room to room, in the car, almost everywhere I went, reading every spare minute, compelled to find out what was going to happen to Catherine Haynes as she traveled from England to Louisiana to meet the family who had disowned her mother following her marriage to an Englishman. An adult, but orphaned nonetheless, Miss Haynes seeks to reconnect with her mother’s family, only to find that her mother’s beloved plantation, Chêne Noir, has been left in the hands of an unscrupulous property manager. Will she have the strength of mind and body to reclaim her place within the family and her rights to her share of the plantation, or will she fall prey to the villainous DeMornay? The answer seems to lie within her budding relationship with a Key West sailor, Tom Worthington, but things are not always what they seem.

     The title of this book holds the key to its theme. I read this book following Memorial Day when our nation focuses on the price of freedom, and the heroes who pay that price. John 15:13, “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends,” tells us the price of freedom. Readers of Freedom’s Price will witness someone willing to pay that price. Who will it be?

    I recommend Freedom’s Price; it is even better than the previous books in this series, and I had given them quite positive reviews. I thank Revell, a division of Baker Publishing Group and NetGalley for providing a copy of Freedom’s Price in exchange for my honest opinion. I received no monetary compensation for writing this review.  

The Return by Suzanne Woods Fisher - A Book Review

   

     I first met Anna in Anna’s Crossing, a story of one of the first groups of Amish to leave Germany to settle in the New World. The Return is largely the story of Anna’s daughter, Tessa, although many others play major roles in the story’s development. The story is one of finding one’s self and one’s place in the world. Some discoveries are made quite by surprise, some grow out of tragedy, and some are slowly revealed. Not all those seeking to know themselves and the direction of their future are as young as you might anticipate.

     While this book, in my opinion, got off to a slow start, by the end of the book, I was lost in the story, unable to put it down. Fisher develops the characters in a way that causes her readers to care about what happens to them, both those they have a strong compassion for, and those they find a bit irritating. The scenario they find themselves in during the last third of the book compels the reader to read on to find out how things work out. For some the ending is tragic, while others discover possibilities that didn’t exist before.

     I would encourage readers of The Return to hang in there if they too feel like the book is a little slow at the beginning. It is well worth reading to the end. There is enjoyment to be had and lessons to be learned. I thank Revell publishing and the Christian Fiction Blog Alliance for providing this book in exchange for my honest opinion. I received no monetary compensation for providing a review of this book. 

Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate - A Book Review

      

     No work of fiction has touched my heart as deeply as Before We Were Yours, not even The Memory Keeper’s Daughter or The Secret Life of Bees. I would definitely put this book in the league with those titles and To Kill A Mockingbird. That is high praise indeed in my book.

     About halfway through Before We Were Yours, I felt compelled to do a little online research of The Tennessee Children’s Home Society and Georgia Tann. How I had not heard of Tann and the Memphis branch of this society that operated from the 1920s through the 1950s, I cannot imagine. Tann arranged thousands of questionable adoptions. She and her network of informants tricked uneducated parents, poor parents, and single parents into surrendering their children, others were simply stolen off porches, on their way to school, and other places children might be found without adult supervision. In addition to the thousands that were adopted out, often to the crème of society, hundreds did not survive the life they were forced to live within the wall of homes run by Tann and the society. Most biological parents never knew what had happened to their children.

     While the sons and daughters of Queenie and Briny Foss were fictional characters. Their experience with the Tennessee Children’s Home Society mirrored those of real life victims. Wingate tells their story in such a way that the reader is fully engrossed and completely overwhelmed with the raw emotion evoked by the tale. I found myself praying for those real-life children and families who were victimized in this decades-long tragedy. While this book is no fluffy beach read, I would suggest that if you don’t read any other book this summer, read this one.

     I thank Ballantine Books a division of Random House and NetGalley for making this book available in exchange for my honest review. I received no monetary compensation for providing this review.