what would you do?

What would you do if you lived in Germany in the 1930's?  Would you leave the only home you ever knew?  Would stay and fight for a change?  Would you keep your head down and hope for the best?  Rebecca and Eli are a Christian/Jewish couple who have to make this decision.  "The Day the Flowers Died" by Ami Blackwelder in an e-book I received for free from www.librarything.com.  Blackwelder starts the book with Rebecca and Eli meeting, dating and falling in love, in regular traditional fashion.  Eli is Jewish and Rebecca is Catholic.  Neither is a die-hard practicer in their faith.  It's more like their parents are religious and they celebrate the holidays.  To start off with their religious difference make little or no difference.  But as Blackwelder plays out social and political control of the Nazi party and its growth, it comes to matter more and more. 
The beginning starts off in a play-by-play style, making it hard to get into, but then Blackwater starts to hit her stride.  She gives reasoning on how and why Nazis and Hitler came to power and how easy it was with a government that is evenly balanced and at a stand still with a weak president.  Sound familiar?  Once she got going Blackwelder became a marvelous writer who hooked the reader.  The best part was that it didn't cover the usual Nazi/Jew story and tell of life in the camps.  It is about the build up of the power and the attempts to get out of the country.  The sensitive will need tissues at the end.  Just to warn ya.

unstoppable

Learn about this phenomenal book and man:

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johnny's war review

This is one of the best books I've ever read.  And I've read a lot of books.  Jim Braly makes John Cutter, the main character in "Johnny's War" seem so real, I was surprised that he wasn't.  I actually looked to see if the author was an Iraq vet and expected the novel to be semi-autobiographic.  It's not at all.  Jim Braly is a newspaper writer.  Now he is a superb novelist.
The novel is told in three parts.  The first being Cutter's time in Iraq, 2006, as a private in the American army. He is new to the desert.  He is niave and soaking it all in like a sponge.  His buddies and leaders are tremendously developed in character. The second tells his time in  recovery from extensive wounds. He travels from Iraq to Germany and on to Walter Reed.  The author holds nothing back when writing on the injuries Cutter sustanes. His nurse is a hoot. The third tells of his AWOL/vacation across America. He hits the sights with his army buddy and learns to care for himself.  He also learns what he can and cannot handle with his new life. And for some reason he doesn't want to see Kansas. (but it's so exciting) The research of army life is detailed and descriptive.  The characters seem so real that the reader will take each disappointment and achievement personally.  It is hilarious, it is thought provoking, sad, AMAZING.  I was hooked instantly.  I received this e-book for free from www.librarything.com.

in the heart of texas is a rocky mountain high

"Blue Straggler" by Kathy Lynn Harris is a novel about a Texas girl who goes to Colorado to find information about her grandmother and winds up finding it about herself. Imagine Jennifer Weiner writing a book about Chelsea Handler. It is funny, odd, adventurous, and makes you want to travel. It starts off with Bailey in Texas with her wacko family and her screwball friends.  After a couple of drunken binges and a one night stand, Bailey finds a picture of her great grandmother, whom no one will talk about.  Annie, the grandmother, left her family and went to Colorado.  She then proceeded to marry over 5 times.   Bailey is on the search.  When arriving in the small town in Colorado, she proceeds to have more drunken binges and one night stands, thus, she comes to face the fact that she understands a little more about Annie then she first expected.  She then meets Adam, your traditional sensitive mountain man.  She starts a new life.  Then Texas comes calling and a decision must be made.  This is a quick read, but enjoyable.  Would recommend it for women.  I received this book for free from www.librarything.com.

wildflowers review

"Wildflowers From Winter" by Katie Ganshert is a novel about an appearingly selfish and rude woman who has left her hometown with a strange fear of returning, to make it big in Chicago.  She returns for the illnesses and eventual deaths of her friend's husband and her own grandfather.    Bethany, had a rough childhood, but still comes across as hard to like for the most part.  However, that doesn't stop "Wildflowers" from being a book you can't put down. 
The basic agenda of the book is that being Christian is a good thing, and that those that judge others in the name of Christianity tend to be nutjobs and not actually Christian.  This book gives the reader an understanding on the difference.  It is predictible, but most romances are.  Romance is a side story to the Christian vs nutjobs storyline.  I like this one and I think most will too.  Especially if you are on the fence about being Christian or not due to PC appearance.  I received this book for free from bloggingforbooks.com. 

august, now that's more like it

August was more like it.  I liked August a lot better.  The kids went back to school, fair was over, father-in-law was no longer sick ( went to heaven, RIP), VBSs are over, weather went back down to a nice 90+ instead of 100+.  Things calmed down.  We are now doing Football and band, a  little 4-H, work hours are decent, and I might even take a little thing called a va-ca-tion.  Whatever that is.  I read 11 books this month.  9 real books, one digital, and one audio.
The Kennedy Club- GP Schultz
The Hand of a Woman- John Morris (interesting take on the Jack the Ripper mystery)
The Lost Years- Mary Higgins Clark
The Winter Palace- Eva Stachniak
When the Soul Mends- Cindy Woodsmall
Hope Road- John Barlow
Bees in the Butterfly Garden- Maureen Lang
The Fiddler- Beverly Lewis
Bad Luck & Trouble- Lee Child
Memory Keeper's Daughter- Kim Edwards
The Next Best Thing- Jennifer Weiner (highly recommend)

Lewis does it again

"The Fiddler" by the Beverly Lewis, the Great Lady of Amish Fiction has done it again.  In a tie-in story to the Katie Lapp series, "The Fiddler" tells of a Englisher violinist named Amelia and her on-the-fence Amish new love Micheal.  Micheal and Amelia meet by chance in a cabin in the woods when both have "run away" from their lives to contemplate their futures.  That meeting brings their futures into one.  Needless to say, it doesn't go over well with their families.
The Katie Lapp series is the best series that Beverly Lewis has ever written, well, in my opinion, anyway.  Since then there has been a reoccurring theme of Amish women misplacing their babies.  "The Fiddler" has no babies.  So this is a refreshing change, but still written in the style and formula from the Lapp books that put Lewis on the map.  The romance is fresh and innocent, yet still mature and adult.  Micheal will make you wish more men were like him.  There should be a Micheal tree out there somewhere.  I received this book for free from Bethany House Publishing.