Mars...With Venus Rising by Hope Toler Dougherty

Travel to the small town of Mars, where you'll find a meddling horse, paper bag floors, and a flying saucer on the town square—in Hope Toler Dougherty's book, Mars . . . with Venus Rising. Penn Davenport dreams of passing the CPA exam and moving away from the two aunts who reared her after her parents died in a plane crash. When John Townsend—full of life and the joy of living—moves to town, he rattles Penn's view of herself, her life, and her dreams . . . which isn’t such a bad thing until she falls for him and discovers he’s a pilot.

Celebrate Hope's Mars . . . with Venus Rising blog tour with a Kindle Fire Prize Pack giveaway!

 

One grand prize winner will receive:

• A copy of Mars . . . with Venus Rising
• A $25 Amazon gift card
• A Kindle Fire

Enter today by clicking the icon below. But hurry! The giveaway ends on May 18th. The winner will be announced May 19th on Hope's blog.

About the Book

★★★★✩
Goodreads | Amazon

A meddling horse, paper bag floors and a flying saucer on the town square. The little town of Mars has it all---including a brand new resident who might spell heartache for one of its own.

Twenty-something Penn Davenport yearns for an exciting life in the big city and wants to shed the label of orphan that she's worn for years. To achieve that dream, she must pass the CPA exam then move away from the two aunts who reared her after her parents died in a plane crash.

When John Townsend---full of life and the joy of living---moves to town, he rattles Penn's view of herself, her life, and her dreams…which isn't such a bad thing until she falls for him…and discovers he's a pilot.

Mars...With Venus Rising offers its readers a cute but straightforward contemporary Christian romance. Set in a quirky little town with plenty of personality, it follows longtime resident Penn Davenport and handsome newcomer John Townsend through many humorous scenarios (a few specifically engineered by her matchmaking aunts to encourage love) and personal growth. It’s entertaining and encouraging (and mouth-watering, with its delicious references to sweet treats - Hope Toler Dougherty thankfully provides several recipes at the end), and I enjoyed it. Readers in need of a delightfully heartwarming read this summer should consider Mars...With Venus Rising.

Thanks to LitFuse Publicity Group, I received a copy of Mars...With Venus Rising and the opportunity to provide an honest review. I was not required to write a positive review, and all the opinions I have expressed are my own. To read other opinions, be sure to check out what other reviewers think here, and purchase a copy of the book here.

About the Author

Hope Toler Dougherty holds a Master's degree in English and taught at East Carolina University as well as York Technical College. A member of ACFW, RWA and SinC, she writes for Almost an Author. Before writing novels, she published non-fiction articles on topics ranging from gardening with children to writing apprehension. She cheers for the Pittsburgh Steelers, ACC basketball, and Army West Point Football. Hope and her husband, Kevin, live in North Carolina and have two daughters and twin sons.

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Waiting on Wednesday: The Ringmaster's Wife & One Paris Summer

Hosted weekly by Breaking the Spine 
to spotlight eagerly-anticipated upcoming releases.

Title: The Ringmaster's Wife

Author: Kristy Cambron

Publisher: HarperCollins Christian Publishing

Expected Publication Date: 7 June 2016

What is revealed when you draw back the curtain of the Greatest Show on Earth?

Rosamund Easling is no stranger to opulence. As the daughter of an earl, she’s grown up with every comfort money can buy. But when hard times befall the family’s Yorkshire estate in the aftermath of the Great War, Rosamund’s father sells her beloved horse, setting the stage for a series of events that would extend beyond even her wildest dreams.

Though expected to marry for a title instead of love, Rosamund feels called to a different life – one of adventure outside the confines of a ladies’ parlor. She abandons all she’s known and follows in pursuit as her horse is shipped to the new owner – an American entertainer by the name of John Ringling. Once introduced to the Ringling Brothers’ circus and knowing she has much to learn, Rosamund agrees to a bareback riding apprenticeship in the shadow of the Ringlings’ winter home—Ca’D’Zan. It is at that mansion, in what would become the last days of the enigmatic Mable Ringling’s life, that Rosamund finds a deeper sense of purpose in the life she’s been given, and the awakening of faith in her heart.

With a supporting cast of characters as mysterious and dazzling as the Ringlings’ big-top world, Rosamund’s journey takes her from the tradition of the English countryside to the last days of America’s Roaring ‘20s—a journey that forever changes what one life might have been. 

Title: One Paris Summer

Author: Denise Grover Swank

Publisher: Blink

Expected Publication Date: 7 June 2016

Most teens dream of visiting the City of Lights, but it feels more like a nightmare for Sophie Brooks. She and her brother are sent to Paris to spend the summer with their father, who left home a year ago without any explanation. As if his sudden abandonment weren't betrayal enough, he's about to remarry, and they’re expected to play nice with his soon-to-be wife and stepdaughter. The stepdaughter, Camille, agrees to show them around the city, but she makes it clear that she will do everything in her power to make Sophie miserable.

Sophie could deal with all the pain and humiliation if only she could practice piano. Her dream is to become a pianist, and she was supposed to spend the summer preparing for a scholarship competition. Even though her father moved to Paris to pursue his own dream, he clearly doesn't support hers. His promise to provide her with a piano goes unfulfilled.

Still, no one is immune to Paris’s charm. After a few encounters with a gorgeous French boy, Sophie finds herself warming to the city, particularly when she discovers that he can help her practice piano. There’s just one hitch—he’s a friend of Camille’s, and Camille hates Sophie. While the summer Sophie dreaded promises to become best summer of her life, one person could ruin it all.

Broken Ground by Karen Halvorsen Schreck

★★★★★
Goodreads | Amazon

When a young oil rig widow escapes her grief and the Texas Dust Bowl, she discovers a surprising future—and new passion—awaiting her in California in this lyrically written romance by the author of Sing for Me.

Newly married to her childhood sweetheart, twenty-one-year-old Ruth Warren is settling into life in a Depression-era, East Texas oil town. She’s making a home when she learns that her young husband, Charlie, has been killed in an oil rig accident. Ruth is devastated, but then gets a chance for a fresh start: a scholarship from a college in Pasadena, CA. Ruth decides to take a risk and travel west, to pursue her one remaining dream to become a teacher.

At college Ruth tries to fit into campus life, but her grief holds her back. When she spends Christmas with some old family friends, she meets the striking and compelling Thomas Everly, whose own losses and struggles have instilled in him a commitment to social justice, and led him to work with Mexican migrant farmworkers in a camp just east of Los Angeles. With Thomas, Ruth sees another side of town, and another side of current events: the forced deportation of Mexican migrant workers due to the Repatriation Act put into place during President Herbert Hoover’s administration.

After Ruth is forced to leave school, she goes to visit Thomas and sees that he has cobbled together a night school for the farmworkers’ children. Ruth begins to work with the children, and establishes deep friendships with people in the camp. When the camp is raided and the workers and their families are rounded up and shipped back to Mexico, Ruth and Thomas decide to take a stand for the workers’ rights—all while promising to love and cherish one another.

Broken Ground tells a beautiful and poignant historical story, as Ruth Warren makes a fresh start in California after the unexpected and sudden death of her husband. Author Karen Halvorsen Schreck employs excellent storytelling, rich in vivid description and complex characters, that kept me interested and engaged with Ruth every step of her journey. I can easily say that I really enjoyed reading Broken Ground - it’s a worthwhile and thought-provoking read and highly recommend it to interested readers. 

Thanks to Howard Books, I received a copy of Broken Ground and the opportunity to provide an honest review. I was not required to write a positive review, and all the opinions I have expressed are my own.

Top Ten Tuesday: Characters I'd Love to Revisit

Hosted weekly by The Broke and the Bookish.



As much as I love the satisfaction of finishing a book, a few questions always linger, like:

Now what?

What does this character do with the rest of her life? 

Does this couple really live "happily every after"? Or break up?

Rarely do I get answers to satisfy my curiosity, which is fine (I suppose), but if it were possible, here are a few characters I would love to revisit after several years:

-Artemis Fowl of Eoin Colfer's Artemis Fowl series: He is one of my favorite characters, and I'm pretty sure I could never get tired of reading about him. I absolutely want to know who he becomes when he grows up.

-Eleanor & Park of Rainbow Rowell's Eleanor & Park: Their story is so cute, and the ending is so open to possibilities. What happens to these two after high school? Who do they grow up to be? I want to know.

-Gretchen & Daniel of Anne Blankman's Prisoner of Night and Fog and Conspiracy of Blood and Smoke: Really, I just want to know (and I wondered throughout my reading of both books) what happens to them during the war. What do they choose to do? Do they survive?

-Lara Jean of Jenny Han's To All the Boys I've Loved Before and P.S. I Still Love You: Lara Jean is just a sweet, likeable character and I would love to know the story as she goes to college and beyond.

-Maggie & Barack of Lynne Gentry's Carthage Chronicles series: These two characters are still young at the end of the series, and after all the drama they experienced, I'd be really interested to see what happens to them in the following years.

-Basically any couple from one of Sarah Dessen's novels: Again, just the basic questions. What happens to these characters after high school? College? Jobs? Break-ups?

Honorable Mention

-Ron Weasley of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series: While Ron Weasley is another one of my favorite characters and I would love to find out more about his life post-Deathly Hallows, Rowling's comments since finishing the series make me think I should just be content with the details supplied in the Epilogue.

So... what characters would you want to revisit?

The Inheritance by Michael Phillips

About the Book

★★★★✩
Goodreads | Amazon

The death of clan patriarch Macgregor Tulloch has thrown the tiny Shetland Islands community of Whales Reef into turmoil. Everyone assumed Tulloch's heir to be his much-loved grandnephew David. But when no will is discovered, David's calculating cousin Hardy submits his own claim to the inheritance, an estate that controls most of the island's land. And Hardy knows a North Sea oil investor who will pay dearly for that control. 

While the competing claims are investigated, the courts have frozen the estate's assets, leaving many of the locals in dire financial straits. The future of the island---and its traditional way of life---hangs in the balance.

Meanwhile, Loni Ford enjoys a rising career in a large investment firm in Washington, D.C. Yet, in spite of outward success, she is privately plagued by questions of identity. Orphaned as a young child, she was raised by her grandparents, and while she loves them dearly, she feels completely detached from her roots. That is, until a mysterious letter arrives from a Scottish solicitor…

Past and present collide in master storyteller Michael Phillips' dramatic new saga of loss and discovery, of grasping and grace.

Enjoy a trip to the Shetland Islands in Michael Phillips’ latest book, The Inheritance - I certainly did. Prose rich in vivid detail easily allowed my imagination to see the scenery and culture of this setting and created an excellent backdrop for the story’s drama of family and mystery. Though the plot of the story does progress slowly, its various characters intrigued me, and as I read through the short chapters, I was especially interested in discovering how they connected to one another. By the end, I found The Inheritance to be a quite satisfying read and now look forward to reading the next of the Secrets of the Shetlands books, The Cottage. 

Thanks to LitFuse Publicity Group, I received a copy of The Inheritance and the opportunity to provide an honest review. I was not required to write a positive review, and all the opinions I have expressed are my own. To read other opinions, be sure to check out what other reviewers think here, and purchase a copy of the book here.

About the Author

Michael Phillips is a bestselling author who has penned more than seventy books, both fiction and nonfiction. In addition, he has served as editor/redactor of nearly thirty more books. Over the past thirty years, his persistent efforts have helped reawaken interest in the writings of nineteenth century Scotsman George MacDonald. Michael and his wife, Judy, spend time each year in Scotland, but make their home near Sacramento, California.

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