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A Hope for Emily by Kate Hewitt – Review by Colleen Noyes

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A Hope For EmilyA Hope For Emily by Kate Hewitt
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

As any good parent knows you spend your whole life trying to decide what is best for your child. You spend seconds, minutes, hours, days, and years struggling to be sure that you don’t make a mistake or jack them up.

How can you protect them? How can you help them? How can you be there for them? How far would you go even if someone told you there was no hope left? What if that person was the other parent? What if that person was every doctor? What if that person was every nurse?
Rachel is a mother who is at her wits end, fighting what feels like an uphill lonely battle not just against what’s destroying her child, but a battle against doctors, the child’s father, and her own inner struggles. This woman must be so incredibly exhausted, but brave. She is a fighter who won’t let anyone decide who she is or what she gets to feel.

Eva is a woman with such a complex marital relationship but even more so a complex relationship with herself. She struggles to figure out who she was, who she is, and who she wants to be. She has an inner struggle of self-worth and forgiveness that can be felt throughout.

James is a man who seems to make everything very black and white. I felt like he often took the easier road, the less traveled road and it wasn’t always the best road. However, don’t let this deceive you for long. As the author brings this story to life the relationships are an integral part of everything going on. You will feel the love, the anger, the despise, and the unexpected camaraderie from the least expected person.

As a parent, reading this story I felt the anguish, the love, the pain, and the intense heartbreak from beginning to end. The author did an amazing job bringing the reader into the fold and I admit I cried several times. Sometimes, the ache in my heart was so much I had to take a small break from reading to compose myself. This is one of the best books I have read this year and I intend to grab all her books. Make sure you have a box of Kleenex handy, and you give the people around you warning that you will be an emotional wreck.

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Daisy’s Darkness (Wheels & Hogs Book 6) by D.M. Earl – Review by Tracy Gutierrez

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Daisy's Darkness (Wheels & Hogs #6)Daisy’s Darkness by D.M. Earl

This book, by far, is one that has made me cry the most. Daisy dealt with so much in her young life. It was just heart breaking the things she endured. She felt she couldn’t go to her family in fear of basically be judged as crazy. She had a circle of friends who, along with her, were being bullied. They had each others backs. It breaks my heart the things that kids who are bullied endured. I felt as if, even though she was mad at first, she felt relieved when her brother found out the secrets she was keeping. It was then she found out her family would support her no matter what. When a friend commits suicide Daisy takes hard. With the help of her immediate and extended family she is able to get the help she needs. I was happy to see that Daisy was able to have a happy ending.

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LOVE on the LINE (Great Expectations Love Stories: The Graykens Book 2) by Laurie Lewis – Review by Debi Kircher

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LOVE on the LINE (Great Expectations Love Stories: The Graykens Book 2)LOVE on the LINE by Laurie Lewis
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

LOVE on the LINE (Great Expectations Love Stories: The Graykens Book 2)

by Laurie Lewis

5x a trillion stars

I will start this review with an excerpt of my review for Love On A Limb…..

“I have read so many books this year, and in my life. Ive many times read and been touched by a book and claimed that it was my favorite for that year or whatever. I can honestly, straight from the heart say that NO BOOK has ever touched me the way this book has. Books often grip me and take my emotions on a ride but this one, this one will hold on forever. Im praying I’ll someday find that she has a paperback of this book because I need this in my life and on my shelf.”

I just finished Love On The Line and reading the acknowledgments at the end is where I will start….Dear Author….your worries of falling short were unneeded…I will not say you bypassed Love On A Limb because that still sits proudly at the top of my favorites of all time, what this addition to that story did was just add a continuation of those same feelings. There are many books I’ve read in my life that do deserve a different category then the rating max we are allowed but these books sit in a category even above that in my mind.

Thank you for keeping this so so real and making me feel these emotions so deeply. I am blessed with this kind of love in my life which made my feelings and understanding of these stories that much more powerful. The care you took in forming all of these words is not even explainable by someone like me that doesn’t have the same way with words.

I’ve read MANY of this authors books and I won’t take away from how much I loved all of them but this story completely knocks me out…I’m not even going into the storyline, I’m praying that anyone that reads this review will go back and read my first review and will take my advice and pick up BOTH of these books…please do not read this one without reading the first…I will usually give in and say you could read this out of order, but not in this case…don’t do it..trust me.

I could go on for days, but will end here with a sincere heartfelt thanks to this author. You seriously have set the bar high and I can’t imagine where you will go next but I do know I’ll be the first in line when you release it.

***sigh*** I hate this is over but can’t wait to read them again and again.

Review by @debikircher

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The Light at Dawn by K.L. Montgomery – Review by Colleen Noyes

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The Light at DawnThe Light at Dawn by K.L. Montgomery
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The Light at Dawn By KL Montgomery Is a book that will truly rip your heart out, tear it to shreds, stomp on it, and then slowly put it back together. This is the first book that I have read by this author and I was not prepared for all of the emotions that it would make me feel. I found myself crying, laughing, and wondering about the world around me. This book is about so much more than one story it is about grief, heartache, overcoming all of the obstacles that life may throw at you, and at the end of the day love.

This book will make you feel emotions that you didn’t know you could feel. I could not have chosen a better first book to read by this author than this one. While it does deal with sensitive issues the author does a brilliant job of making sure you have no idea where she stands on the issue itself. You can tell that the author did an immense amount of research and portrayed the differences In a very humane and compassionate way.

One of the key things that I feel the book shows that maybe it wasn’t intended Is something that I think is so needed in today’s society. This author showed that 2 people or 2 groups can be on opposite ends of an issue, but still care about each other, love each other, and continue to make the world a better place.

I could not put this book down from the time that I started it until the time that I finished it and I don’t believe that you will either. The one warning that I would give you Is to make sure that you have your box of tissues prepared.

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Saving Beck by Courtney Cole – Review by Colleen Noyes

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Saving BeckSaving Beck by Courtney Cole
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Several years ago, I saw a cover of this book on Amazon and it wowed me so I bought the book without reading any of the reviews or the synopsis. The first couple of pages dropped my jaw and I went “WTF am I reading?” because I find it impossible to not finish a book I start, I continued reading and to this day it is in my top 5 best books ever. The entire series blew me away and I fell in love with that author, Courtney Cole.

Fast forward a little over 4 years later and I see she has written a new book called Saving Beck. If you have ever been touched by addiction especially as the loved one of an addict then this book will touch you in so many ways. The author takes a very serious epidemic and weaves it into a heart wrenching story on so many levels. This book will showcase how even when you think it can’t happen to your family, you can never predict. It shows that no matter who you are it can happen to you.

This book had me in tears from beginning to end because I could feel the hurt, the questions, the frustration, the pain, the self-questioning and most importantly the realization that no matter how much you love someone, no matter how much you love the addict, no matter how much you give, sacrifice, and try to mend them, only they can mend themselves. Only they can make the end choice to move forward. It reminds you, that it’s not your battle, that you can’t love them out of the addiction, you can’t anger them out of the addiction, you can’t guilt or beat them out of the addiction, and that sometimes all you can do is sit back, love, hope, and most of all pray that it all works out, knowing that not everyone can be saved.
Courtney Cole, writes this story with such truth and gusto. Her words grab you by the heart and squeeze. She brings you to tears and to your knees, and makes you “hear” all the things you don’t want to hear as the loved one.

Some of my favorite quotes were :

“ Doing drugs is easy. Doing life is hard. And sometimes, we have to hide from it in the best ways we can”

“ People like to carry their burdens with them, she said. We feel like if we punish ourselves long enough for everything that has gone wrong in life, we’ll somehow make it right again by our own misery.”

“They have him on medication to help the withdrawal, but it’s still a struggle for him. Beck is the one who has to do the heavy lifting. He’s the one who lives with the constant need to use. All I can do is be there for him.”

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