Category Archives: Historicals

Love Finds You In Last Chance, CA

Love Finds You In Last Chance, California by Miralee Ferrell

Paperback: 320 pages
Publisher: Summerside Press (February 1, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1934770396
ISBN-13: 978-1934770399

From Amazon.com:
Product Description
It’s 1889 and Alexia Travers is alone in the world. Her father has died unexpectedly, leaving her burdened with a heavily mortgaged horse ranch. Marrying one of the towns all too willing bachelors would offer an easy solution, but Alex has no interest in marriage. Instead, she dons mens clothing and rides the range, determined to make the ranch a success on her own. Help arrives when Justin Phillips, an acquaintance of her father’s, comes to Last Chance with his young son. Justin’s and Alex’s combined effort to save the ranch quickly turns into a fierce competition between cowboy and tomboy. But when disaster threatens Travers Ranch, they must work together to save someone they both love. Can these two independent people learn to depend on God and on each other? Love Finds You is a series of full length romance novels that give readers a peek into local life across the United States. The novels are uniquely named after actual American towns with quirky, interesting names that inspire romance and are just plain fun! This means that each fictional story draws on the compelling history or unique character of a real place. Our fresh, original love stories will feature everything from romance kindled in small towns, to old loves lost and found on the high plains, to new loves discovered at exciting vacation getaways. Love Finds You promises to deliver the best of romance, travel and escape, all in one inspirational fiction package.

About the Author
Budding author Miralee Ferrells debut novel, The Other Daughter, released in October 2007 with excellent reviews. Romantic Times Book Reviews magazine awarded it 4 out of 4.5 stars, and two major motion picture studios are considering the book as a possible family movie. She is working on the book’s sequel, scheduled to release in 2008. Miralee lives in a rural community in Washington with Allen, her husband of 35 years. Together they have two grown children. She serves on staff at her local church and is actively involved in ministry to women.

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My thoughts? I haven’t read the book yet, but I’ll be posting a review once I’ve read it! I did enjoy this author’s earlier book, The Other Daughter, so I’m pretty sure I’ll like this one too! Once I’ve posted my review, I’ll be giving this novel away, so look for my review sometime in the future!

~Cecelia Dowdy~

Diamond Duo

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Diamond Duo by Marcia Gruver

Paperback: 288 pages
Publisher: Barbour Publishing, Inc (October 1, 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1602602050
ISBN-13: 978-1602602052
From the back cover:
Bertha Biddle is desperately in love with Thaddeus Bloom….
Trouble is, she’s not sure he returns her affection.
When a stranger named Annie Monroe comes to Jefferson, charming every man in town, Bertha is determined to learn her beguiling secrets. But just how far will she go to win Thad’s heart?
Thad is more than smitten with Bertha. But his father plans to send him away to military school. Will Thad follow his father’s dream at the cost of losing Bertha’s love forever?
When Annie’s unsavory companion enters the scene, foul deeds are afoot, testing faith and hearts. Will a murder provoke a startling twist of fate—in this world and the next?

This was a good story with well-developed characters. The story was intriguing, and, from reading the back cover, I knew a murder was going to happen to one of the characters, and I tensed whenever something happened, wondering if the murder had taken place.

I also thought Marcia did a great job with how she portrayed Sarah and Henry, an African-American couple in the story. Sarah misses her home, and Henry wonders if he’s made a mistake, bringing Sarah so far away from her loved ones. The couple deals with problems faced by a number of marriages, including infertility.

I loved the way the author showed the attraction between Bertha and Thad. I know this is sometimes hard to do, and still keep the story sweet and tender.

Also, as you see Annie suffer from the abuse of her male companion, your heart aches for her, and you’ll find yourself hoping the woman will learn to lean on Jesus to help with her pain.

This story was a love story, and a story of friendships, it is also a story of how we need to embrace God’s grace, especially during times of hardship.

I’d also like to point out that this post is just one part of Marcia Gruver’s blog tour. If interested, here are the rest of the participants of the tour! Be sure to check out their blogs to see what they had to say about Diamond Duo:

A Latte and Some Words

A Little Bit of Sunlight

Dawn Michelle Michals at ShoutLife

Erica at ShoutLife

Fictionary

God With Us – Finding Joy

Mary Connealy – real life

My Christian Fiction Blog

Simple Living Christian Style

Tamara Lynn Kraft

Terri Tiffany

The Friendly Book Nook

The Writer’s Tool

Writing by Faith

~Cecelia Dowdy~

Catching Katie By Robin Lee Hatcher

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Hardcover
Publisher: Tyndale (2003)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0739440012
ISBN-13: 978-0739440018

Re-released as a paperback:
Paperback: 300 pages
Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers; Reprint edition (January 1, 2004)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0842360999
ISBN-13: 978-0842360999

From the inside cover:

Katie Jones is committed to fighting for the cause of women’s suffrage. She has no time for romance, especially not with her best friend Ben Rafferty. But when Katie’s column in Ben’s newspaper, The Homestead Herald, stirs things up, sparks begin to fly. Ben is set on winning Katie over, but Katie is just as determined to stay true to her 1916 feminist ideals. With such strong obstacles in the way, their relationship can’t possibly progress. Unless somehow love finds a way…

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I purchased this book from Crossings a few years ago, but just got around to reading it. I loved this book! The romance was heartwarming, tender, and oh, so good! Not too long ago, I was talking about building believable characters. Robin Lee Hatcher has built a believable character when she created Katie Jones. Katie is educated, smart, determined, and stubborn. She is passionate about the Women’s Suffrage Movement, and feels that God has called her to make a huge difference by helping to provide equal rights for women.

However, she feels that she should not get married in order to properly heed this call. Her desire to not marry, in order to heed her calling provides a perfect conflict for a romance novel.

Ben Rafferty falls in love with Katie when she breezes back into town, demanding he allow her to have a weekly column in his newspaper. All he wants is to see Katie happy, but he finds himself sacrificing his own dreams in order to provide Katie with the happiness that she thinks she wants. Katie soon discovers that she’s unsure of what she wants in order to be happy. Although she fiercly believes in the movement, she’s unsure if this is what God has called her to do.

I was so into this book that it almost made me want to go out and read more about Susan B. Anthony and the Woman’s Suffrage Movement on my own. The book is so good and well-written that I think it could prove to be a useful tool in the classroom when a history class studies women’s suffrage.

Also, this was kind of strange. In the version I was reading from Crossings, Katie is described in the book as having black hair. However, the cover shows her hair as more of a light brown. Since she looks this way on the cover, the mental image I had of Katie in my mind while reading the story was of Kate Winslet (Rose) in the movie Titanic. I don’t think Kate Winslet’s hair was light brown? I think it was red, however, I pictured Kate Winslet with light brown hair whenver I read about Katie Jones. It appears that the cover was fixed for the re-released paperback version. As you can see above, the cover for the paperback version has Katie with dark hair.

I love Robin Lee Hatcher’s books and below, I’ve listed a few others that I’ve read and enjoyed. I can’t give full-blown summaries as I’ve done for the one above since I read them so long ago. However, I just want to recommend these titles. These titles are also good examples to read if you’re trying to break into the Christian romance market with your own work:

Speak To Me Of Love
ISBN: 0842360980
Pub. Date: August 2003

The Forgiving Hour
Series: Heartquest Series
Paperback
ISBN: 1578562775
Pub. Date: February 1999

There are two others I’ve read (maybe more) but the titles escape me. I scrolled through amazon, but there are a lot of titles under her name, too many for me to sort through with my limited time! If memory serves me correctly, I read one of her novels in the Coming To America series! Also I read another that I believe took place on a sheep farm and it’s a historical? I also recall the hero had served time for a crime he did not commit? If anybody can tell me the title of the sheep farm book, let me know, and I’ll gladly add them to this blog entry.

Cecelia Dowdy
www.ceceliadowdy.com