Review: A Heart's Betrayal by Colleen Coble

Emmie finds shelter in the arms of a soldier in Fort Laramie, Wyoming, but will her big secret drive them apart? Find out in book four, A Heart's Betrayal, of Colleen Coble's A Journey of the Heart series. Suddenly displaced, powerless, and ashamed, Emmie can’t stay in Wabash, Indiana. She makes a hopeful start for Fort Laramie to find her friend Sarah Montgomery and a new beginning. But when she arrives, she discovers she’s pregnant—and without a husband. The new start she’d hoped for slips from her fingers.

Melt into summer with a new giveaway from Colleen: four books (books one–four in Colleen's A Journey of the Heart series) and a box of chocolates to pair with your new books!

 

One grand prize winner will receive:

• A copy of A Heart's Betrayal
• A box of Colleen's favorite chocolate truffles from DeBrand Fine Chocolates
• A copy of A Heart's Disguise
• A copy of A Heart's Obsession
• A copy of A Heart's Danger

Enter today by clicking the icon below. But hurry, the giveaway ends on June 30th. Winner will be announced July 1st on Colleen's website.

Spoilers in the Book Description. Again.

Well done, Thomas Nelson (and Litfuse Publicity). Yet again you’ve done Colleen Coble the huge disservice of giving away the key plot twist in the book description. I understand that writing these advertising blurbs is hard, but let me give you a hint: the objective is to hook the reader into buying and reading the book, not give them a plot synopsis. Here's the Amazon Book Description:

Emmie finds shelter in the arms of a soldier, but her secret could drive them apart.

When Emmie Croftner answered the door to her late husband’s home, she discovered an awful truth: her deceased husband was a bigamist. And what’s more, the home she thought she inherited never belonged to her at all.

Suddenly displaced, powerless, and ashamed, Emmie can’t stay in Wabash, Indiana. She makes a hopeful start for Fort Laramie, Wyoming, to find her friend Sarah Montgomery and a new beginning. But when she arrives, she discovers she’s pregnant—and without a husband. The new start she’d hoped for slips from her fingers.

But then she meets Isaac Liddle, a handsome soldier with a kind heart. When he begins to court her, Emmie wonders whether she could ever really be his—and whether she dares to tell him she is carrying another man’s baby.

No, Emmie doesn't find shelter in the arms of a soldier, at least not in this novella. She's not also worried about any secret which cold drive them apart—she doesn’t discover she’s pregnant until the final chapter of this novella. Despite the book description, she meets Isaac when she arrives in Indiana, weeks before she discovers she's pregnant.

The writing is good, the characters are interesting, and I have to say I’m interested in the story of Emmie Munroe/Croftner. This is partly because I’m interested in her dilemma as the pregnant non-wife of a bigamist, and I want to know why she is so different from her rotten brother, Ben, who persecuted Sarah and Rand in the first three novellas in this collection. But I should have listened to my own advice (in my review to the first novella, A Heart’s Disguise) not to read the book descriptions. Because I’m now afraid I already know everything important that happens in these three novellas, which takes away any possibility of suspense (which Coble is known for) or even surprise.

Thanks to Litfuse Publicity and NetGalley for providing a free ebook for review.

Review: Ragamuffin Gospel by Brennan Manning

A Christian Classic: Recommended

I discovered the music of Rich Mullins on Christian radio in the early 1990’s through a song called Allrightokuhuhamen. In 1993 he released an album called A Liturgy, A Legacy and A Ragamuffin Band. I’ve only now, twenty years later, understood the reference: to The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out, by Brennan Manning, first published in 1990.

In The Ragamuffin Gospel, Manning speaks of God’s amazing grace, of how God loves us based on His standards not our own, about how Christianity is a grace-laden mystery. Manning’s theme is that we underestimate grace, we fail to understand that God loves us no matter what. It’s The Ragamuffin Gospel, “written for the bedraggled, beat-up and burnt-out”, for those who are weary and discouraged.

Manning’s message hasn’t been universally accepted. Many churches preach what has been called a “Jesus-Plus” gospel: to be a proper Christian, you have to have Jesus and tithe your 10%. To be a proper Christian, you have to have Jesus and attend church three nights a week and twice on Sunday. To be a proper Christian, you have to have Jesus and pray for an hour a day. This is wrong.

This is a church that preaches the grace of Jesus but doesn’t always practice it, and it’s bringing Christians under condemnation for never being good enough. That’s what Manning is saying: we will never be good enough on our own, but we are all good enough in Jesus. All we need is to accept God’s grace. It’s not that tithing, attending church or praying are bad—they’re not—but they don’t affect our salvation. God loves us unconditionally, and can’t love us any more or any less.

And that’s The Ragamuffin Gospel. Jesus, and his grace extended to me and you. It’s not what you do; it’s Who you know. Recommended.

Thanks to Blogging for Books for providing a free ebook for review. You can find out more about Brennan Manning at his website.