THE SCARLET THREAD by Francine Rivers

Francine Rivers, The Scarlet Thread (Tyndale, 1996, 2012).

Available in hardback, paperback, Kindle, Nook, CD and cassette audio book

Christian Fiction

Recommended by Barbara Penrod Andrey

This book follows the story of two women from two periods of time, Sierra Madrid and Mary Kathryn McMurray. Sierra is a contemporary character. Mary Kathryn traveled along the Oregon Trail ending up in California. Both women went through many trials. Both women also found joy when they gave their lives over to Christ. 

I highly recommend this book to any one in a relationship. It makes you reflect on how you treat your significant other. It also causes you to reflect on your life in general. I absolutely love this book.  

You can listen to an interview with Francine Rivers at Interview with Francine Rivers.

 

COMING HOME: A STORY OF UNDYING HOPE by Karen Kingsbury

Karen Kingsbury, Coming Home:  A Story of Undying Hope (The Baxter Family) (Zondervan, 2012).

Karen Kingsbury, Coming Home: The Baxter Family, Audiobook read by Gabrielle de Cuir and Stefan Rudnicki (Zondervan.com, 2012)

Also available on Nook and Kindle.

(FICTION)

Reviewed by Wilda Morris

When I was given the CDs of Coming Home: The Baxter Family, I was not familiar with the novels of Karen Kingsbury, although she has been at the top of the charts in the field of Christian fiction. Thus, when I put Coming Home in the CD player in my car, I had no idea that  Kingsbury had featured members of the Baxter family in fourteen previous books (The Redemption Series, The Firstborn Series, and the Sunrise Series). If you think you might like to read or listen to Coming Home, you might want to read the earlier books first. Coming Home is a “stand-alone” book that you can understand without having read the others, but it gives away much of what happens in the earlier volumes.

There was a major problem with listening to Coming Home while I was literally “coming home”—driving from Green Lake, Wisconsin to my home to Illinois: crying and driving are not really compatible activities. The story provides a lot to cry about.

The set-up for Coming Home is that John Baxter is about to celebrate his seventieth birthday. One daughter wants to bring all her siblings and their spouses to her home in Indiana to celebrate with him. She thinks the best gift would be for each of John’s children to write a letter to their dad, telling him what he has meant to them.

As the novel switches focus from one branch of the family to another, old family secrets (revealed in earlier Baxter family novels) come to light in a way that makes me suggest that this book might be considered an epilogue for Kingsbury’s Baxter family books. Each character relives old experiences of joy and loss, and of times they let their father down and found him unwilling to give up on any of them.

The birthday party does not go off as planned, because . . . . well, should I give it away? Let’s just say the books deals with a lot of loss. In addition to the question of why God allows tragedy, the book takes on such issues as jealousy, organ donation, open and closed adoption, sex outside of marriage, forgiveness, and redemption. For all the sorrow in the book, there is also joy. As members of the Baxter family deal with loss, they have their weak moments, but in the end, lean on each other and their shared faith to get through difficult days.

Kingsbury is a best-selling author, beloved (I have since learned) by readers of Christian fiction, and is a highly-regarded speaker. Her book Like Dandelion Dust was made into a major motion picture. Besides the fact that the book kept making me cry, it was a bit preachier than I prefer. There is no question, though, that Kingsbury’s books are well-written and “wholesome.”

THE EYE OF GOD: A FISHERMAN’S TALE by Marilyn Huntman Giese

Marilyn Huntman Giese, The Eye of God: A Fisherman’s Tale (Xlibris, 2010).

Also available on Kindle and Nook.

(CHRISTIAN FICTION)

Reviewed by Dorinda Kauzlarich-Rupe

Written as an autobiography of Simon Peter, this book begins when Simon, a young man, is living with his pregnant wife, her mother, and his brother and fishing partner, Andrew, in Capernaum. The death of his wife during the birth of their son, Mark, leaves Simon restless and searching for who he is and how he fits into life. The book continues through Simon's life, including his call by Jesus to become a fisher of men, through the period of Jesus’ life, Peter’s role as the rock of the early church, and finally to his arrests and expected execution by hanging in Rome, including his request that he be hanged upside down, rather than be given the same death that Jesus had suffered. He feels unworthy.

Giese skillfully interweaves the lives of most, if not all, the persons recorded in the Bible interacting in some way in the life of Jesus, some before they followed Jesus or even knew him. I was impressed that Simon knew that he was a man with faults/sins all of his life.  It is obvious, as you read the book, that the author knows the scriptures and had done much research into the history of Israel, the politics and religious climate of the time, the culture of the period, etc. At the end of the book she gives a list of “Selected References.” There were times when I wished that she had footnoted some of the book, giving me some idea of where some particular information was gleaned and where she was using her own imagination within the framework of the culture, politics, Jewish faith, etc. That very likely would have added many pages to the book.  She did no quoting of any of her references, except in the epilogue, which is drawn from the First Letter by Peter. This is a very easy-to-read book, and is quite interesting; it pulls you into the story. I think that some of her insights can be helpful in reading the actual scriptures. I would love to read it again. There is a lot of information told as a story.

REDEEMING LOVE by Francine Rivers

Francine Rivers, Redeeming Love (Multnomah Publishers, Inc. 1997).

Also available on Kindle, Nook and CD.

(CHRISTIAN FICTION)

Reviewed by Barbara Penrod Andrey

Redeeming Love is a retelling of the book of Hosea in the Bible. It takes place in California during the Gold Rush. Angel is a prostitute in the brothel Pair a Dice. She is the one men fight over. Three days a week she goes for a walk with a bodyguard and all the men pause just the get a glimpse of her.

One day a farmer, Michael Hosea, takes notice. Then something totally unexpected happens. He hears the voice of God telling him that this woman will be his wife. He spends the next week trying to convince Angel that he can give her a better life. After she gets a terrible beating by that same bodyguard who took her on walks, Hosea is able to take her away, but not before she agrees to marry him and they are wed.

As Angel begins to experience what real love is her heart begins to soften. Every time this begins to happen she runs. At first Michael goes after her until God tells him he needs to let her go. Angel finally learns to trust the soft voice that Michael always talked about.

This book is a true love story. I have read it numerous times and every time I learn something new about myself. I recommend this book to everyone who wants a life-changing story of God's unconditional, redemptive, and all-consuming love.