Desperate Households: How to restore order and harmony to your life and home By Kathy Peel

Kathy Peel is the Family Manager extraordinaire.  In Desperate Households, she covers 10 areas that can cause stress to Family Managers.  These areas include: dinnertime, clutter, finances, priorities, self-development, and others.  With real-life examples and great tips/ideas that can be easily implemented, this book is a must read for any Family Manager in need of some de-stress tactics.  Is your morning routine causing issues within your family, or do school days send you into a whirlwind of lost shoes?  Then I highly recommend this easy read!  You can even skip right to the chapter that really speaks to your current need!  I suggest tackling one area at a time rather than trying to hit all 10 at once.  That would cause you more stress!  Great hints from her own experience and that of other women will set you on the road to order and easy-breathing.  Don't be "desperate" anymore - read Desperate Households!

Friendship for Grown-Ups by Lisa Whelchel

I moved back to my home state over a year ago and have since struggled to develop friendships.  The struggle has taken a toll on me, but I know that God has a plan for me and for my friends.  God is good!
I was in the library looking for books and found Friendship for Grown-Ups by Lisa Whelchel on the shelf and decided to check it out.  What a great book!  As I was reading, I kept thinking "I've been there; I know what she's saying."  Books where I connect with the author that way are so powerful to me.  I want to internalize her words, follow her suggestions, learn from her mistakes/fumbles.  Lisa goes through her journey on the road to friendship in this book.  She tells the reader the low points, the high points, and the in-between.  I am both hopeful and a little scared about stepping into the real world of friendship.  The road to deep, meaningful friendship is not always going to be easy or free from potholes.  Why?  We're human!  This book is ideal for a discussion group or just some self-evaluation.  In the back of the book, Lisa includes useful helps in growing your friendship and great starter questions to ask your friends or your friends-to-be.
I wish I could tell you the emotions I went through as I read her words about women who may only have a thimbleful to give and those who have even more.  Or the feelings I had when I read about addressing bricks before a wall is built.  So many helpful tools!  If you want to learn more about friendship, real, deep, abiding friendship, check this powerful book out.  And, if anyone wants to do a study of it with me, let me know!!!

Fools Rush In by Janice Thompson

Fools Rush In by Janice Thompson is a fun, quick read.  The story has comedy and romance!  I enjoyed reading Bella's story.  She is unsure of herself in some areas of her life, but through the tale in this book she comes to understand her abilities, giftings, and beauty from the words spoken by those around her.  Bella is part of a large Italian family that mostly resides under the same roof making for some interesting encounters and great family moments.  Throw in a parrot with a dirty mouth and your story is almost complete.  All that's left to add is a special Texan cowboy.  Wonderful first book in the Weddings by Bella series!  I'm looking forward to reading the next one very soon!  :)

Finally & Forever by Robin Jones Gunn

For those of you who don't know this about me, I've been a huge Robin Jones Gunn fan since Christy Miller.  If you're a fan too, you know what I mean.  So, of course, I've been trying for years to follow the journeys of all my dear friends.  They have been such a part of my life now for nearly 2 decades.  How could I not continue on their journey with them?
I finally picked up Finally & Forever the other day and proceeded to read it in less than 48 hours.  I can honestly say that I never guessed that Katie would end up in Africa.  She has always been an important character in Robin's line up.  A great supporting role for her best friend Christy, but I never pictured her falling for an unknown like Eli and ending up in Kenya.  All of this being said, I am glad that Katie ended up where she was truly supposed to be.  I found myself turning page after page wanting to know where the story would go next.  Katie flew to Africa with Eli to see what was there for them.  She arrived in a new culture and soon fell in love with her surroundings.  Along the journey in Africa, Katie and Eli have bumps in their relationship.  Are they truly supposed to be together?  Do their desires for ministry mesh?  What is God's plan?  Heart searching happens and soul searching and the answer comes.  The realization comes that they can mesh their ministry desires and become one in marriage.  The end of the book is grand - what a creative way to do it!
Go get your copy of Finally & Forever, and see the amazing sights of Kenya.  There may even be a miracle in their somewhere too and a chance to see what God's plan for your own life might be.  Thank you, Robin Jones Gunn, for a great book!  Could you write about the wedding now and bring the whole gang back together one last time??

A Wedding Inivitation by Alice J. Wisler

It has taken me a really long time to finish this book, which isn't to say that I didn't enjoy it.  Alice Wisler's writing style is a little different that what I normally read.  It's gritty, heart searching, and sometimes feels very real emotionally.  She takes you into the lives of her characters and has you try on their emotions, their feelings, and their past. I enjoyed reading Samantha Bravencourt's story of teaching in a refugee camp in the Philippines and her life experience years after that has been saturated by her year abroad.  Her story has heartache, doubt, faith, and renewal.  This book has some Southern flair mixed in with the dirty streets of the refugee camp.  Two very different worlds collide in this book as we learn Samantha's history and her present.  A deep-reaching book with a lot of light thrown in.  Great book club read for a group, and there are discussion questions in the back!

Disclaimer:  This book may have been provided free for review by Bethany House Publishers.

A Love That Multiplies by Michelle & Jim Bob Duggar

This is another great book from the Duggars!  I really enjoyed all the details and insights they shared about a variety of topics.  Their stories are rich with so many ideas that can be applied in everybody's life, especially those with children (whether you have one or four or seven or more).  Many of the concepts they talk about I would love to try to implement in my young family (I have a 2 1/2-year-old, an almost 10-month-old, and one due in November).  They are honest and forthright about their thoughts and beliefs on many topics, and I congratulate them on that.  Not everybody is willing to put themselves so much out in the public eye as they do and be truly who they are all the time.  I imagine it can be quite difficult at times.  I, myself, cannot imagine having 19 children, but that doesn't mean that I disagree with their beliefs on the topic or their reasoning behind the choices they've made.  Even if I did, it wouldn't matter because it is not my place to say if what they are doing is the right thing or not.  I enjoyed the recipes that were shared throughout the book and the many pictures of the family.  They seem to be a very rich family in the way that counts most.  I highly recommend this wonderful book from the Duggars.  Reading their own words and stories really sheds so much light not only on their lives but also on your own life.  A true treasure of a book!

Talk of the Town by Lisa Wingate

Very enjoyable book!  Mandalay and Imagene are two wonderful characters who are easy to relate to.  Their stories are heartfelt and honest.  Daily, Texas, is a town I'd certainly like to visit so I could get to know some of the locals; they are very kind, helpful people.  This story is rich with great characters, emotions, humor, and so much more.  Mandalay is striving for something that she really doesn't want anymore if she ever truly did.  Imagene is still mourning the loss of her husband and living a secluded life.  Amber is trying to do the right thing despite all the bad press surrounding her.  Carter is starting on a new journey for good reasons.  These people are really, fun, happy, sad, etc.  And Daily is certainly a town full of wonderful people.  My one issue with the book is that the charcters' relationships with Christ are a little less than I'd like.  Overall, Talk of the Town was very hard to put down.  A great read and a wonderful choice for book clubs.  Get your cowboy hat on and head on down to Daily, Texas, for some great times with some genuine folks.

Disclaimer:
May have been provided free for review by Bethany House Publishers.