Top Ten Books That Would Be On Your Syllabus If You Taught X 101

Top Ten-ish(Though I have more than ten individual books on this list, in my defense there are less than ten series listed. I couldn't leave out any of my favorites!!!)Books/series that would be on my syllabus if I taught Christian romantic suspense 101

-The Women of Justice series by Lynette Eason-

1. Too Close to Home

2. Don't Look Back

3. A Killer Among Us

Bonus short story: Gone in a Flash

-The Guardians of Justice series by Irene Hannon-

4. Fatal Judgment

5. Deadly Pursuit (One of my personal all time favorites!)

6. Lethal Legacy

-The Alaskan Courage series by Dani Pettrey-

7. Submerged

8. Shattered 

9. Stranded 

10. Silenced 

11. Sabotaged

-The Deadly Reunions series by Lynette Eason-

12. When The Smoke Clears

13. When A Heart Stops

14. When A Secret Kills

Bonus short story: Retribution

Bout of Books 14 Wrap Up!

I had a really great Bout of Books, I was able to participate in all of the challenges, and pretty much the whole week the weather was either extremely hot or raining so it made for a ton of inside reading time! I had thrown the goal of reading 7 books out there as a wouldn't-it-be-nice kinda goal, never thinking that I would actually reach it, but I am so beyond thrilled that I did!

The books I read during Bout of Books 14 (In the order I read them!)

1. Target by Lisa Phillips 

2. The Bones Will Speak by Carrie Stuart Parks 

3. Guard Duty by Sharon Dunn

4. The Art of Falling by Julie Jarnigan

5. The Rescuer by Dee Henderson

6. Soul Surfer by Bethany Hamilton

7. The Selection Stories-The Prince. The Guard. by Kiera Cass

8. A Match of Wits by Jen Turano (Read first 20 pages!)

Bout of Books Day Seven Challenge!

What to read next challenge!

For this Challenge, you need torecommend 3 books (and only 3 books) that you have read this year that you think should be recognized as something great - something everyone should have on their TBR list for this fall.  If you can, say a short little something about why you recommend these books. 

1. Always on My Mind by Susan May Warren-This is the fourth book of an amazing series and I totally think that this one and all the others in the series should be on the TBR list of everyone who loves contemporary romance stories that feature a close knit family!

2. From The Start by Melissa Tagg-Words truly can't describe the sheer awesomeness of this author's writing, I absolutely adore everything she writes and this book was no different, I read in under twenty four hours and hope to have the time to re-read it soon! Another one that I recommend to all fans of contemporary romance!

3. With Every Breath by Elizabeth Camden-This book was actually published in 2014 but I didn't read it until this year! It is such an amazing book, the best historical I've read so far this year, will be on my list of favorite reads for the year and is tied with Against The Tide for my favorite of this authors books (Though there are still a couple of hers I haven't read yet, I don't think that opinion will change!) 

Bout of Books Day Six Challenge!

Book Road Trip

My go to answers for these kinds of things are Ireland and Italy but I will try to avoid using those two this time around!

Alaska: The Alaskan Courage series by Dani Pettrey

Washington D.C: The King by Steven James

Spartanburg and Columbia, SC: The Women of Justice and Deadly Reunions series by Lynette Eason

New York City: A Most Peculiar Circumstance by Jen Turano

Bout of Books Day Five Challenge!

 Character Soulmates Challenge  

It's great because we are going to be shipping characters from different books. Have you ever thought __(person)__ from this book would be just perfect with __(person)__ from this other book? Well here is your chance to finally pair them up and watch the sparks fly.

1.) Pick two characters from two different books who you think will be great together in a romantic relationship. These characters must have never been in the same book together or met before.

2.) Make a post telling me which characters you picked and what books they are from. You can't forget to give them a cool ship name too! An example of a ship name can be "Percabeth" for Percy Jackson and Annabeth Chase. If you have a blog or a youtube channel, you can also just put this info in a post/video and leave a link to it in the comments.

3.) Give me a short reason as to why you paired those two as a cute couple. Convince us that it is meant to be.

This was actually a really hard challenge for me because most of the books that I read are romances that end with the couple either engaged or married, and even though they are fictional characters I just couldn't bring myself to break up their relationships for the sake of this challenge! So I decided to pick two characters that either did not have a soulmate at the end of their book or their story just hasn't been written yet! 

I chose...

Megan from From The Start by Melissa Tagg and Josh Martin from Worth The Wait by Laura Jackson!

Nickname: Jogan

Why: I love both of these characters (There is a bit of an age difference but since the year isn't mentioned  in either book, I'm just going to imagine that From The Start is set about four years after Worth the Wait, which would make Josh and Megan the same age!) I love Megan's spunky, determined, sarcastic personality which hides a deeply wounded heart, she is so strong and admirable  and Josh is such a sweetheart (But yet he's not afraid to fight for what he believes in and those he loves!) I would love for Megan to realize that God has a true gentleman out there for her! I know without a doubt that Josh would stop at nothing to help her see that she is adored and cherished (Not only by him but also by Jesus) Josh is one amazing young man and I know he would fall head over heels for Megan and he would be a great father, I have no doubt that he would love Megan's  unborn child as his own! 

Bout of Books Day Four Challenge!

Four seasons of book covers challenge

For this challenge, you need to convey the four seasons in book covers – through color, title, cover, etc. You can be literal or take a more creative approach. Anything goes! Just show me four seasons in book covers. 

Winter

Spring

Summer

Fall

Bout of Books Day Three Challenge!

MASH

I live in a House in Deep Haven, Minnesota with my husband Mitch Morgan, and our eight kids. I work as a riding instructor, drive a Volvo XC-90 and have my horse OGEN as my pet! :) LOL! 

To make this book oriented all of my "Husband" choices were some of my favorite book heroes (For example, Mitch Morgan is the star of Deadly Pursuit by Irene Hannon) and the cities I used were all cities where some of my favorite series take place, two of which were real, the others (Including Deep Haven, Minnesota from the Christiansen family series by Susan May Warren) were fictional. This was a really fun challenge! :)

Review: The Bones Will Speak by Carrie Stuart Parks

5 Stars!

This was my first read by this author and it most definitely will not be my last! This was an excellent mystery/suspense novel! I had never read a book about a forensic artist before and I found Gwen's profession to be quite fascinating, especially knowing that the author is a forensic artist herself so she wrote a lot from personal experience. I really liked all the characters, but I think perhaps Gwen's friend Beth--with her love if all things purple and penchant for using uncommon words--was quite possibly my favorite of this cast, but they truly were all so well written. I'm not going to lie, this is a very chilling story, if you have a weak stomach you may want to skip this one. But it was amazing how complex the mystery was--and yet I was still able to follow everything without a problem, while I had many guesses as the villain's identity, they kept changing all the way through until it was finally revealed who the villain was, let's just say I was sufficiently stumped which is not an easy thing for an author to do! Brava, Carrie Stuart Parks! I found myself hooked by this story from page one, I was overwhelmed by a desire to see what would happen--so much so that I read this book from cover to cover in about 24 hours--which kept the pages flying! While there are obviously few similarities; while reading this book I found myself thinking that Gwen kind of reminded me of a female version of Patrick Bowers (The Bowers Files by Steven James are one of my favorite series!) 

So I would recommend this book to anyone who likes chilling suspense/thrillers, particularly the Bowers Files! 

Overall I really enjoyed this book and look forward to reading more of this author's work in the future!

I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher through the BookLook bloggers review program in exchange for my honest review, which I have done. All thoughts and opinions are one hundred percent my own.

Bout of Books 14 Day Two Challenge!

Book Scavenger Hunt:

1. A Book that begins with “B”  (for Bout of Books!) Blur by Steven James

2. A book your planning to read/currently reading for Bout of Books: Currently reading The Bones Will Speak by Carrie Stuart Parks

Plan to read: Guard Duty by Sharon Dunn

3. Blue Book(s): Submerged by Dani Pettrey

4. Book from your favorite genre! Gone Without a Trace by Patricia Bradley

5. A book on your TBR shelf, or your full TBR shelves: Through Waters Deep by Sarah Sundin

A Match of Wits by Jen Turano

Top Ten Authors on my Auto Buy List!

Top Ten Of My Auto-buy Authors 

These are in no particular order!

1. Dani Pettrey

2. Becky Wade

3. Melissa Tagg

4. Katie Ganshert

5. Steven James

6. Lisa T. Bergren

7. Susan May Warren

8. Karen Witemeyer

9. Lynette Eason

10. Irene Hannon

Bout of Books 14 Day One Challenge!

Fictional World Travel 

Today's challenge is to list 3 to 6 books of fiction that take place in countries other than the one you currently reside in. Some countries are easy to find books set in them, but possibly the more challenging of picks will be the ones that intrigue the most. All you need to do is list the books of choice on your blog, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, YouTube, etc., and display them how you wish. BE CREATIVE! 

Torrent by Lisa T. Bergren (Third in the River of Time Series)-Medieval Italy

There You'll Find Me by Jenny B. Jones-Contemporary Ireland

Fairchild's Lady by Roseanna M. White-Historical France

The Tutor's Daughter by Julie Klassen-Historical England

Bout of Books 14 Sign up!

The Bout of Books read-a-thon is organized by Amanda @ On a Book Bender and Kelly @ Reading the Paranormal. It is a week long read-a-thon that begins 12:01am Monday, August 17th and runs through Sunday, August 23rd in whatever time zone you are in. Bout of Books is low-pressure. There are challenges, giveaways, and a grand prize, but all of these are completely optional. For all Bout of Books 14 information and updates, be sure to visit the Bout of Books blog. - From the Bout of Books team

I can't wait to participate in this read a thon yet again!!! :)

Top Ten Tuesday on Monday Night!

I'm posting this tonight since I won't have time to do it on Tuesday!

Top Ten Authors I've Read The Most Books From 

(According to Goodreads!)

1. Lynette Eason (15 books)

2. Steven James (11 books)

3. Irene Hannon (10 books)

4. Lisa Tawn Bergren (10 books)

5. Jody Hedlund (9 books)

6. Susan May Warren (8 books)

7. Karen Witemeyer (8 books)

8. Dee Henderson (7 books)

9. Rachel Hauck (6 books)

10. Jennifer Hartz (6 books)

Monthly Reflections #25 and 26!

I've been super busy the last two months and didn't get around to listing my Monthly Reflections so I am now posting what I read in both June and July!

My goal for June was to read at least six books! 

The books I read in June were:

1. Married til Monday by Denise Hunter

2. The Prayers of Jane Austen

3. Aire by Lena Goldfinch

4. The Wonder of You by Susan May Warren

5. Haunting Joy by Lena Goldfinch

I didn't set a goal for July but the books I read were:

1. The Sheperdess of Siena by Linda Lafferty

2. Early Sunday Morning by Barry Denenberg 

3. One eye laughing, the other weeping by Barry Denenberg

4. West to a land of plenty by Jim Murphy

5. The Elite by Kiera Cass

6. The Truth Seeker by Dee Henderson

7. The Protector by Dee Henderson

8. Face of Betrayal by Lis Wiehl and April Henry

My favorite read of the last two months is a tie between Married til Monday and The Wonder of You!

I don't think I'm going to set a goal for August, I will just try to read as many books as I can!