Archive | March 2021

Shelter Mountain by Robyn Carr

Mar13

Community Life

Shelter Mountain by Robyn Carr is a delightful contemporary novel and the second book in the Virgin River series. It can be read as a stand-alone.

Once more the community of Virgin River pulls together to welcome a stranger and to help to bring healing and wholeness. The community has a strong sense of right and wrong, and will fight the injustices they see.

There are some hard to read topics of domestic abuse, miscarriage and still birth. The community gathers round to help in whatever way they can.

The older men of the town act as role models for the younger ones, taking them in under their wings.

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My Name Is Leon by Kit de Waal

Mar11

Searching

My Name Is Leon by Kit de Waal is a marvellous debut novel that mesmerised me from the start.

The setting is Birmingham in 1981. I grew up near Birmingham so I know it well. Lots of memories from that time were ignited by the novel. I remember the hype around Charles and Diana’s wedding as well as the race riots. The novel had a very familiar feel to it for me.

The story is magnificently told from the point of view of nine year old Leon. We see the world through his eyes. It is a heart wrenching read as he and his baby brother end up in foster care but his brother white and is adopted. Leon is mixed race and isn’t. The reader feels his pain as his family is torn apart. We understand his anger and his fear of rejection, and his desire to find his brother.

There are kind hearts within the novel who try to bring out the best in Leon, fighting his corner and showing him kindness.

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The Menu by Steven Manchester

Mar10

Love As He Has Loved Us

The Menu by Steven Manchester is a beautiful allegorical tale about the great love of God for all His children for all eternity.

Life is short. Eternity is long. We are all born and we all die, we need to make sure we live well between the dates. The most important and powerful thing that we can do is to love. Live a life of love. Make a difference as you live out love in action.

There are some heart-warming conversations with God in Heaven before birth and after death. God declares “I will be with you in your most joyous moments and unspeakable pains.” This echoes God’s promise in the bible to never leave us nor forsake us. When we cry out to God, He always hears and He always answers.

We need to exercise our faith muscle. “Fear is for the faithless.” When we have faith, we need not fear because God is in control no matter what our circumstances appear to say.

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The Sowing Season by Katie Powner

Mar10

Absolutely Charming

The Sowing Season by Katie Powner is a marvellous Christian debut novel about love and life and family.

Katie Powner has created a delightful set of characters, all misfits in their own way, struggling to make sense of life in the season they are in. The main pairing is a fifteen year old girl and a sixty three year old man. On the surface they appear to have nothing in common, underneath they are both struggling to find their way in life and are not so dissimilar. Both are at, or approaching, a crossroads in life.

The two are both guilty of working to the exclusion of all else and they have both been trying to earn the love of their parents. “The years spent trying to make his father proud. Lost in his brother’s shadow.” Even now, years removed from events, they still have the power to haunt and to hurt. In contrast they both have God as the perfect parent but have yet to enter into a relationship with Him. God loves each of us unconditionally for just who we are.

It is no good trying to live out the dreams of others. We were each created with a unique dream and it is this we need to pursue.

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