Review: Stealing the Preacher by Karen Witemeyer

All Joanna Robbins wants for her birthday is…a preacher. She has been praying that the Lord would send her a preacher to help her win her unsaved father for Christ. She never dreamed that when she told her father that a preacher is what she wanted for her birthday that he would go and get her one.

Crockett Archer was on his way to his future as a preacher in Brenham, TX when an unexpected detour happens. He is KIDNAPPED! What happens next is not what he is expecting, but with the Lord taking the lead he has to follow.

I couldn’t put it down. I didn’t sleep until I finished it. Karen Witemeyer has written a delightful romance about what can happen when we let the Lord lead and direct us in His path, not our own.  The character of Crockett is a rough and tumble cowboy and not what you typically think of when you think of a preacher. The character of Joanna Robbins is a shy and awkward young woman but one who has strength of character and love for her father and her Lord that shines through. Both are written in a way that makes you feel as if you know them. Witemeyer writes in such a way that you feel like you are there. 

Book Review: Be Still My Soul

Be Still My Soul is the first book in the Cadence of Grace series by Joanne Bischof. It is a beautifully written story about two young people who are forced to marry after her father sees them kissing. It takes place in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia in the early 1800’s. Lonnie is a young woman of 17 years who loves the Lord, but earns to be loved because she came from a home where she was abused. Her husband, Gideon, is a young man of 22 years who is fighting against a belief in God and who refuses to take responsibility for his actions when things don’t go his way. When Gideon becomes abusive as he and Lonnie are traveling to Stuart so that he can find work, an older gentleman named Jebediah steps in and then offers Gideon and Lonnie a place to call home. As Jebediah states throughout the book, Gideon “has a few lessons he still needs to learn.” As Gideon grows closer to Lonnie, he also grows closer to a belief in God. This is a wonderful book about a young woman’s faith that God will provide and a young man’s struggle to become the man that he is supposed to be.