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Friday, September 9, 2016

Innocents Pray by Lisa J Lickel - Five Star Review and Excerpt



Innocents Pray  - New Release
Lisa J. Lickel

Print ISBN 13: 978-0-9904281-0-7
ISBN 10: 0-9904281-0-9
$14.95
340 pp

Ebook 
ISBN-10: 0-9904281-1-7
ISBN-13: 978-0-9904281-1-4
$4.99

Release: September 1, 2016




Justice, mercy, and humbleness collide when four people pray for different answers to the same situation. How will God answer all of them?


What is wrong with trying to cure cancer? Brother Able, hospice chaplain, asks himself that question every day. His boss, Dr. Rich Bernard, performs closet genetic experiments at Paradise House. He blackmails Able into keeping his secret. When a grieving husband asks Able to pray for his dying wife, Able finally breaks his silence.
Libby Davis might be prepared to accept death, to sacrifice herself for Rich’s greater cause but fails to comprehend the love of a husband who cannot let her go and the son who’s a whisper from the edge of reason. Brother Able wades into battle for those innocents in her life. If he wins, it won’t be only Libby’s family he saves.


FIVE STAR REVIEW OF INNOCENTS PRAY 

The question is: They’re praying, but how should God answer? And whose prayer?

Innocents Pray carries a varied cast of characters, but each is important, and each has their own spot to play in this novel from:

Brother Able the hospice chaplain, who has his own troubled past
Dr. Rich Bernard, a researcher, and a caring, yet determined person
Victor and Libby Davis: one sympathetic and sacrificial to Dr. Rich Bernard’s mission and the other so in love and hurt.
Jordan, troubled, hurt, and only a snap away from serious trouble
And then, there’s the website posts.

Lickel does a powerful job of creating the subtle tension throughout the story, increasing it chapter by chapter until all the events, all the emotions collide--not in some tornado-like storm, but in an even deeper, emotional collision that is shocking and extremely mind-blowing in its depth.

Choices have consequences, and each of these characters will either learn from those choices or suffer the consequences.

One of those books that doesn’t leave you easily and keeps you thinking long after you’ve read it. Highly recommended. 

--Carole Brown, author of the Award-winning The Redemption of Caralynne Hayman, and several mystery/suspense series


EXCERPT OF INNOCENTS PRAY


When I think back on my death and life, I recall Jordan’s eyes in perfect detail. I realized that, as his mother, I should have known, should have understood him. But if I had, I wouldn’t have lived.
Events were changing too fast for me to control that morning, I realized, as I lay trapped in the nether moments between sleep and wakefulness. Jordan’s eyes were black holes threatening to pull me in. I knew that if I let that happen, I’d be lost forever.
He wanted me gone. I’ve known that for the last three years. This time he might get his wish.
Shaking, I came fully awake. When I saw the clock, I knew I would have to pull myself together in a hurry so I could say good-bye before Nona took my son to school. At fourteen, it was easier for him to be seen with anyone but his mother. The tingle in my left thigh that bothered me on and off for the past six weeks turned into a throb as I made my way down the stairs. In the kitchen, I heard Nona quiz him about homework and the contents of his backpack. Good, she would cut him no slack.
She thrust a cup of coffee into my hands as I shuffled in. I greeted her and Jordan, who looked at me with a smile that went no further than his father’s dimples. Could he see my fear? Smell it or feel it?
“Morning, Libby,” Nona said. “I took a message off the machine earlier. Mrs. Rodgers asked you to make matching napkin rings for the coasters she ordered last year.” Nona shrugged into her jacket and jingled the car keys. “I left the note at your table.
“Thank you. Have a great day, Jordan. I love you,” I said to my son’s back. I’d been lobbing “I love you” at him for eighteen months. So far, he hadn’t cracked and sent one back.


*~*~*~*




Author Lisa Lickel is a Wisconsin writer who lives in a hundred and sixty-year-old house built by a Great Lakes ship captain. A multi-published, best-selling and award-winning novelist, she also writes short stories and radio theater, is an avid book reviewer, blogger, a freelance editor, and sometimes magazine editor. Visit http://www.LisaLickel.com.

Friday, September 2, 2016

Knight in Shining Apron by Carole Brown



About the Book
Starli Cameron gave up her career plans to be a concert pianist to marry the man of her dreams. He turned out to be a nightmare. When he dies in a car accident, Starli takes the insurance money and builds a successful and upscale restaurant: Apple Blossoms in rural West Virginia.  Threats from someone determined to ruin her life and the suspicious romantic advances from her new chef force Starli to search her heart and finally turn to God for real healing.

Sir Joel Peterman-Blair, top notch chef from England, is roped by his uncle, into filling in as head Chef at Apple Blossoms. Joel, with his sanguine-personality, has always laughed and flirted his way through life. But now, confronted with and attracted to the most beautiful woman he’s ever met, Joel has to prove his sincerity and depth of character to his icy-cold employer. Can his love for God and for this woman reach out far enough to rescue her from her own mistrust and bitterness? Will he learn that life is not all play?

And can they both work together to find the source of threats that seem to be coming from Starli’s past?

Print:11.99
Ebook: 2.99
Buy on Amazon

Lisa's review

Hints of an abusive relationship between restauranteur Starli and her late husband are the focus of this romantic intrigue. When first introduced, it seemed Starli had a huge chip on her shoulder and was at odds with many in the town, including her former brother-in-law, a policeman, who constantly threatens to avenge his sibling’s death. Starli has more on her plate to deal with as her former head chef abruptly leaves, with an ominous note “accidentally” left for Starli to find, vandalism and sabotage taking place in her business, a youngster in the kitchen who thinks she’s management material, an over-confident, over-the-top knighted British chef stepping in at the request of her maĆ®tre d, and a boring confidant banker who wants to be more. What’s a widow to do?

Book Two of the Appleton, West Virginia Romantic Mysteries (after Sabotaged Christmas) is a charming follow up. Told in alternating points of view, Sir Joel tasks himself with uncovering his new boss’s skittish untrusting persona as he repays his uncle for past kindness in rescuing this damsel in distress. Starli deals with scary parts of threats and well-meaning friends and employees who think it’s time she get out and live again after the death of her terrifying husband. Clues, plenty of red herrings, several twists all make the reader keep turning pages…and that’s only in the first quarter of the book. A proposal gone awry, a dreadful accident, and a surprise confession all bring this sweet and savory story to a satisfactory conclusion.

A huge cast will keep you entertained as well as guessing and salivating during the courses of Knight in Shining Apron.


Carole shares about Trust Issues
Trust Issues by Carole Brown

We’ve done a lot of marriage and spiritual ministry through the years, and one of the biggest issues is trust. In this world of immoral lifestyles, it’s easy for one or the other marital companion to mistrust the other. It takes two people committed and determined to stay together.

In Knight in Shining Apron, Starli Cameron has serious issues with trust because of her past abusive and unfaithful husband. Although Joel keeps assuring her that she can trust him, she needs to see that faithfulness and sincerity from him in action. The least little thing from him shoots her doubts skyward again.

Though Joel is happy-go-lucky and has always been confident in himself, his God and others, he slowly learns that it takes more than enthusiastic assurances to convince her that he is for real.

Only with Joel’s persistence and striving to be what he says he is--and God’s help--does Starli finally learn to let go of her bitterness and fear, to live and love again.  

About Carole
Besides being an active participant of many writing groups, Carole enjoys mentoring beginning writers. She loves to weave suspense, tough topics, romance and whimsy into her books, and is always on the lookout for outstanding titles and catchy ideas. She and her husband reside in SE Ohio but have ministered and counseled nationally and internationally. Together, they enjoy their grandsons, traveling, gardening, good food, the simple life, and did she mention their grandsons?

Connect with Carole:
Barn Door Book Loft: http://www.barndoorbookloft.net/

Thursday, September 1, 2016

Living A Secure Life In Christ: Meet Lorilyn Roberts, Author of Children of Dreams...

Living A Secure Life In Christ: Meet Lorilyn Roberts, Author of Children of Dreams...: Title: Children of Dreams By: Lorilyn Roberts ISBN: 978-1602643864 Review Date: August 29, 2012 Reviewed by: CBM Christian Book Marketing ...





Children of Dreams won bronze in the 2016 Readers' Favorite Book Awards for Best Memoir. You can download a free version by signing up for my email list at:  https://payhip.com/b/Xhl2