Wonderful story of love and acceptance
347360
"A Woodland Miracle" by Ruth Reid was a book I didn't want to put down.  Ben Eicher has disappointed his father for the last time and he sends him from Florida to the lumbercamp in Michigan.  The first person he meets when he gets there is Grace Wagler.  She gets the wrong impression of him right from the beginning.  Why is he so concerned with getting her to see the truth?  Grace doesn't need another relationship that is only based on pity for her disability, so she locks up her heart and gives Ben the cold shoulder.  When things around the community start going missing and then Grace herself is put in grave danger, will Ben be able to face his past to move on and will Grace be able to accept the future in order to truly live in the present?

I got caught up in the book.  I felt transported into the story.  The characters were real people with real issues to deal with.  I liked Ben.  He had the bad boy image, but at heart, he just wanted to help.  I liked that he grew through the story and wasn't the same as when the story started.  Besides the romance aspect of the story, there is also the suspense and adventure of what was going to happen to Grace and if Ben would be able to help her in time.  Being from Michigan helped me to understand the setting on an intimate level!

I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who loves a clean Christian romance, especially if they like Amish stories.

I received a free ebook copy of "A Woodland Miracle" from booklookbloggers in exchange for my review.  The opinions are my own and I received no other compensation.
3544305
The author is good at mixing histories with people and coming out with enjoyable novels that hold your interest.
This book as her others of love stories triumph  over many obstacles, holding you to the plot and characters. Hoping they find a way to get together happily while incorporating their extended families.
Acceptance is what her novels seem to tell you all about and how love gets better with the right person.
I will definitely read more of her stories and will pass along to others to enjoy her stories too.

Thank you.
4728213
Chapters is a warm and genuine story of a family full of tremendous love, a love which carried them through a terrible loss. Dianna's story-telling is as engaging as the gatherings and adventures she describes. You truly wish she and her friends and family lived down the road so you could join in this tight-knit and welcoming crew. Thank you for sharing your story, I hope to read more someday!
2209756
This is a tender story about people with extraordinary love and patience for each other.  It allows the reader to feel how it is to be  blind  and how this person is compensated in other ways by sound and senses an ordinary person does not possess.  The culture is most interesting and people so loving in the worst of conditions.  I liked this book...it lifted me out of myself into someone else's life that does not require material things.
3004234
What I loved about this story was that it was more than a Love story about two people. The story was unique in that we saw a love a person had for her best friend that was deep and real but one she knew would never be enough for either of them and she needed to be strong to let it go.  That is the  beautiful part of this story, among many others.

The love among the friends is so refreshing to experience. The openness to embracing others into your circle is just heart ache but in the most amazing way possible.

There is a real story here that doesn't involve unneeded drama and just speaks to the reader.  As a reader I appreciate the honesty the story invokes - thank you

Can't wait to read about Alex.
3251625
A wonderful story of love and acceptance. I could feel the love between Ruth and Heck.
Ruth was happy and worked hard to  fit into Heck's rustic lifestyle.  Then she began to miss the luxurious life she had left. In the struggle to convince her husband to leave the cowboy life he loved things were getting very difficult between them.  I was shocked by  the ending and very sad.. such a wonderful book. I would recommend this book and am looking forward to reading more of Liz Adairsville writings..
3509213
Wonderful story about the amazing love of God and how accepting the truth of that love can change our lives forever!
454713
Absence of Grace is a beautiful love story that has both a human aspect and a spiritual application. This is a story of platonic friendships, mentors and those they advise, the love of man and woman, and the love of God for mankind.  I enjoyed the author's back and forth between "then" and "now", telling the stories of Clen, her family, and Gerrum, the man with whom she falls in love. It is the story of life as a sheltered child in post-World War II Middle America and the experiences that caused her to question, lose faith, examine and find grace. Through this, Clen  finds peace, contentment, happiness, and joy.

Always hard on myself and having unrealistic expectations for myself made it easy to relate to Clen, the main character in Absence of Grace. As I read her story, I saw myself and gained insight into some of my life challenges. In doing so, I learned with Clen that grace abounds when we open up to letting go, forgiving ourselves and others, and accepting the possibilities of a life of love.
413985
I enjoyed this book greatly, the only fault I could find would be wishing the story started with the mothers childhood and then went sequentially. This true story showed such b)ravery and love. It showed the racial struggles of being bi racial through the mid sixties and up. I am a year younger than the daughter, and had a best friend with diabetes (but she has been really lucky with the Dr.'s she saw, she seemed to always be in trials for the most advanced treatments and never went through what the authors daughter did) . I thought the author was very brave keeping and raising her child at such a young age. I thought the relationship the author had with her foster family was beautiful seeing how selfless and unconditionally loving a foster parent could be and how their relationship could last and be so impacting. I never had a relationship with my family that was loving or as beautiful as the authors with her foster family and daughter (if I knew that going to a foster family could be so wonderful I might have not stayed in my loveless family situation. I really think this book shows what true love, faith, family, being brave, and what selflessness truly is. This is a great book for a young adult because it cover loss of a parent, teen pregnancy, faith, racial prejudice and how it could seperate a family, teen/adults befriended the wrong people and getting in trouble, deals with diabetes, alcoholism, dialysis, cardiac problems, facing death and how to deal with it, how important life is and how you live it, and it shows the power of love in various relationships, and how true unconditional love is enough and all you need, and it also deals with fighting the right battles, and adoption/foster care. This book is a touching exceptional book for adults too. There are religious undertones but they are needed to express the culture and the situations, it is not in your face for those who dislike this, and it doesn't concentrate on specific religions per say its more generalized. I also enjoyed the incorporation of the dreams the mother and daughter had. They are profound and eerie how they were so similar. I do believe that in dreams that we remember and are in a deep sleep yet are interacting will fully in the dream, that these do show meaning and it reminds me of a shamanic journey. I truly feel for all the people in the book but the reason I don't feel bad for them is because through their life journey full of struggles and joy they all lived fearlessly because they had unconditional love, which exemplifies the saying " its better to have loved and lost, then to never have loved". I really highly recommend this book.
1928739
This is an beautiful and well written story!  James and Theodore come together and learn to love each other through some tough times.  I love the concept, that just because we are not 'perfect' we can have love. Each person has to define their own normal and in today's very complex world, we are all touched with sadness and pain.  Learning to be the anchor for another person and experiencing the honesty that is required to develop this kind of relationship was beautifully done. i laughed, cried and had my heart put back together with this book.  Masterfully done!!!
3407394
A wonderful story of love lost and rediscovery for a heart grown weary. Karen Barnett does an excellent job of taking the reader through the mental gyrations of Dr. Gerald Larkspur as he finds his life taking a surprising turn in a direction he'd never dreamed. From the entertaining dachshund and human elements of awakening love, to the disastrous emotional turns, this book will keep you turning the page. It is well written and sings of second chances, the human will, and God's grace.
2080607
This is a beautiful story of love and forgiveness, and the choices we make in life. Wonderfully written and intriguing!
904281
Wonderful story of forgiveness and self acceptance. I was taken back to a time we would rather forget; when children had to conform and be a "perfect" copy of what adults thought was right for them. Highly recommend as an uplifting read!
482599
This is my review for the audio version of this book:

This is a wonderful story of finding love, friendship, and acceptance in a traveling carnival in the early 1900's. Jonah is a small town preacher's son, and he has been kicked out of his home and beaten for the "perversion" of being attracted to another man. Rafe is the owner and leader of the carnival where Jonah takes refuge, and he has his own secret past and reasons for trying to escape. The two men are instantly attracted, and they quickly begin changing each other's lives for the better.
I found this story thoroughly entrancing. Jonah, Rafe, and the other carnival workers, are all brialliantly brought to life, through both the authors' words and the fantastic narration. There were moments that brought me to tears, and there were times I smiled happily. I enjoyed this world and the people who inhabited it. Jonah and Rafe stole a piece of my heart.
I was provided a copy of this audio book in exchange for an honest review.
1447324
A wonderful book full of heart and acceptance. My kids love the story and the illustrations as well.  Highly recommend.
533601
I found myself completely absorbed in this story. The couple has been married for twenty years and even though they love each other they've grown apart. They decide to divorce even though neither wants to, but to do so they must remodel their house to be able to sell it. What found so wonderful about this story was how true it was. Marriage and love are so easily lost because both parties feel unloved or underappreciated. When the couple looked inside themselves and each decided to give to the other, they rediscovered their love for each other and who they were as a couple. It was such a heart-warming story and reminded me that I need to show love to my hubby more often. The more love you give away the more you receive. I did receive a copy of this story for free in exchange for an honest review. But I loved the story so much I read it in one sitting and late into the night.
4390102
This story was well written and beautiful. I was reminded of just how much my Savior adores me. I have been challenged to love the unlovable people in my life. You will not regret reading this book. I will definitely be reading more of Francine Rivers work. You can really sense her relationship with the Lord through her writing.