Here is a BIG giveaway! These are the books that I chose as my favorite among all the books I read in 2008. Just in case you haven't had a chance to enjoy these wonderful books, I am giving away a copy of each of them. RULES FOR ENTERING: a. Post a comment to this blog post. Be sure to indicate which books you would like to have a chance to win. b. Enter on or before February 27. Winners will be drawn on Feb. 28. Claim your prize, if you win, within 10 days of being notified or I will redraw. (In other words, let me know you want the book and where it should be sent, should you find out your name was drawn. c. Check back for the next giveaway!
These are not necessarily publised in 2008, but rather books that I read in 2008. For my reviews, click on the book titles to see the original book review post.
The books in this giveaway are:
1. Every Good and Perfect Gift by Sharon K. Souza
Description:
From the Back Cover
"I'm not the strong one. I've never been the strong one."
So believes Gabby Whitaker in her friendship with DeeDee McAllister. They've been best friends since sixth grade, when headstrong and courageous DeeDee began mapping out their lives. But after twenty years with her husband, DeeDee changes the plan. Nearing forty years old, she wants a baby--now! Two years of infertility, prayers, and outrageous behavior finally result in the birth of DeeDee's demand.
Gabby is present for all of it, noting the increasingly strange behavior of her lifelong friend after the baby's birth. Then comes a diagnosis that threatens to shatter their world. Now Gabby must find the strength and faith to carry DeeDee and herself through the dark unknown, but is she up for it?
2. Riven by Jerry Jenkins
Description:
Raised in a dingy trailer park, Brady Wayne Darby has only a death sentence to show for his sad, sorry life. But when weary man of God Thomas Carey meets this no-account with nothing left to lose, the seismic wave of rebirth and redemption will shake a state---and the nation---to the core!
3. When Crickets Cry by Charles Martin
Description:
Travel to a sleepy town square in Georgia, where a 7-year-old child sells lemonade to raise funds for a heart transplant, an onlooker watches, and a speeding truck comes around the bend, changing both lives forever.
4. Healing Stones by Nancy Rue and Stephen Arterburn
Description:
When Demetria Costanas finally confronts a fellow professor to tell him that their affair is over, it's more than the relationship that's finished. After a photo is delivered to the university president and her husband, she may lose her career and marriage, too! Will sorting things out with Christian counselor Sullivan Crisp help?
5. The Lauren Holbrook Series (Miss Match, Rematch, and Match Point) by Erynn Mangum
Description:
Lauren Holbrook has decided to add a side career to her regular job as a photographer: matchmaking for the romantically challenged. After successfully hitching her sister and her new husband, Lauren decides to sets out to strike sparks between her carefree singles' pastor, Nick, and her neurotic, obsessive compulsive coworker, Ruby. However, Lauren finds that certain combinations of people results in explosions, rather than sparks, and her foolproof plan begins to unravel. As Lauren is faced with disaster after romantic disaster, will she rethink her matchmaking role as well as her vow to her father to remain single forever?
Description:
Lauren Holbrook believes that God matched couples before time began, but some just require a coordinated introduction. No one plays love connection better than Lauren, an undercover Cupid on a mission to connect clueless friends! The next couple in waiting? Brandon and Hannah, two unsuspecting pals who are perfect for each other in every way. They just don't realize it yet. But as Lauren grows closer to her friend Ryan, and her single father unexpectedly falls in love, she discovers the joy found in trusting God's perfect plan instead of her own.
Description:
Now that she's successfully matched four couples, Lauren Holbrook is wondering if she'll always be the bridesmaid and never the . . . or will she finally admit that she and Ryan are more than "good friends"? But handsome Keller Stone may try to convince her otherwise. A riotous, romantic conclusion to Mangum's caffeine-laced series!
6. Happily Even After by Marilynn Griffith
Description:
I marry a gorgeous executive, have a baby, lose all the weight (most of it)-and move to a fine house in the suburbs with a welcoming new church. Wait-did I say welcoming? One teeny waaah! and new mothers and their crying babies are exiled to a separate room. At least there's some enlightening conversation. Like about my husband and issues I didn't even know about! And then there's my aptly named mother-in-law, Queen Elizabeth, who can't stand me. I'm about to lose my mind! So it's high time for a visit to the Sassy Sistahood for some much-needed advice about men, marriage and motherhood!
7. My Hands Came Away Red by Lisa McKay
Description:
Cori signs up to take a mission trip to Indonesia during the summer after her senior year of high school. Inspired by happy visions of building churches and seeing beautiful beaches, she gladly escapes her complicated love life back home. Five weeks after their arrival, a sectarian and religious conflict that has been simmering for years flames to life with deadly results on the nearby island of Ambon. Within days, the church building the team had constructed is in ashes, its pastor and fifty villagers are dead, and the six terrified teenagers are stranded in the mountainous jungle with only the pastor's teenage son to guide them to safety. Ultimately, Cori's emotional quest to rediscover hope proves just as arduous as the physical journey home.
Suspense books are my favorite and the ones I liked the best last year were:
8. The Day of Evil Series (When the Day of Evil Comes, The Soul Hunter, My Soul to Keep) by Melanie Wells
Description of When the Day of Evil Comes:
Soon after a "coincidental" encounter with an eerie, sickly-looking stranger, Dylan Foster's crisply ordered world seems to become a battlefield invaded with disturbing, mysterious events. How does she separate spiritual from earthly, angel from devil---and friend from foe? Will she discover that she is in the eye of heavenly warfare---requiring God's armor?
Description of The Soul Hunter:
Peter Terry Returns A knock at her door. A bloody axe. A murder weapon in her own living room. The elusive white man with the slash on his back is out hunting again, chasing souls. Peter Terry is haunting minds, invading dreams, and wrecking lives. As Dylan Foster searches for answers, she stumbles upon a dark cult of angel worship. Harking back to the days of Noah, it's now blinding and intoxicating young people, leading them to their deaths. In this battle for souls, everything's up for grabs, leaving Dylan grasping for strength as the battle rages around her. When at last she discovers the truth, it is far from the truth she expected.
Description of My Soul to Keep:
It's psychology professor Dylan Foster's favorite day of the academic year-graduation day. A day of pomp, circumstance, and celebration. And after all the mortar boards are thrown, Dylan and some of her best friends will gather around a strawberry cake to celebrate Christine Zocci's sixth birthday. But the joyful summer afternoon goes south when a little boy is snatched from a neighborhood park, setting off a chain of events that seem to lead exactly nowhere. Police are baffled, but Christine's eerie connection with the kidnapped child sends Dylan on a chilling investigation of her own. Is the pasty, elusive stranger Peter Terry to blame? Exploding light bulbs, the deadly buzz of a Texas rattlesnake, and the vivid, disturbing dreams of a little girl are just pieces in a long trail of tantalizing clues leading Dylan in her dogged search for the truth.
9. The Best of Evil and Shred of Truth by Eric Wilson
Description:
“Spare your soul,” he ranted, “and turn your eyes from greed.…”
The tattoos on his arms still reading “Live by the Sword” and “Die by the Sword,” Aramis Black is ready for a fresh start. Determined to set aside his violent tendencies, he opens an espresso shop in Nashville and begins to put his childhood memories behind him. The past isn’t finished with him, though. One ordinary day at the shop, a man is shot before his eyes, speaking dying words to Aramis that are all too familiar.
Aramis realizes that his path to freedom will demand forgiveness–forgiveness from God and forgiveness of others. Along the way, he must uncover the conspiracy behind a centuries-old mystery and the shocking truth of his mother’s death. The question remains: Will Aramis be able to conquer his past, or will evil get the best of him?
Description:
Haunted by a dark past, Aramis Black fears a shadow from his former life has returned for retribution! Following a bizarre attack on his brother, the blade of an arrogant sociopath takes aim at Aramis, challenging him to "face his sins." Can Black escape the guilt of old ways---or will vengeance cut him down?
10. The Pawn and The Rook by Steven James
Description:
Special Agent Patrick Bowers has met only one person he's feared---until now. Working on a North Carolina serial murder case, he's caught in a macabre game of cat-and-mouse with a cunning killer called the Illusionist. The pieces of the puzzle don't add up. Can Bowers unravel the pattern in time to save the next victim?
Description:
While investigating a series of baffling fires in San Diego, FBI Special Agent Patrick Bowers is drawn into a deadly web of intrigue where nothing is as it appears to be. With his own criminology research being turned against him and one of the worlds most deadly devices missing, Bowers is caught up in a race against time to stop a criminal masterminds trap before it closes around him and the people he loves.
11. A short story non-fiction book that's beautiful is Hope Rising by Kim Meeder
Description:
Kim Meeder has seen horses go where no one else can tread - stepping through the minefield of a broken child's soul in a dance of trust that only God can understand. From a mistreated horse to an emotionally starved child and back again, a torrent of love washes away their barren places. Kim's ranch is a place where this miracle happens over and over again. It is a place where the impossible flourishes, where dreams survive the inferno of reality - a place where hope rises.
