The Wedding Dress by Rachel Hauck

One dress, four women. The Wedding Dress by Rachel Hauck is the story of how one wedding dress touched four different women's lives. It gave them the courage to do what was right, it was uplifting in a time of need, it was comforting in a time of grief, and it gave a future. The book follows the lives of two women very closely. Charlotte, a young engaged woman who owns her own wedding dress shop where she prides herself with finding the perfect unique dress for each bride.  She bought a trunk at an auction and when she opened it she found a pristine wedding dress inside that was around 100 years old. Emily, the bride who the dress was originally designed and made for. She lived in 1912 where she was expected to marry the man her father picked for her because his family had the best social standing in town. 


I really enjoyed this book. I wasn't sure at first that I would like it since I normally don't like modern day romances, but since half the book took place in 1912, it was a good mix of modern and old-fashioned. I thought the story was very well-written. Rachel Hauck did a great job of switching back and forth between the two main stories with the other two stories intertwined. I thought that the concept of the story was great. The fact that one dress could touch and change four different women through time was a great idea.  The characters were very real. They weren't perfect. They had moments of weakness and strength that we could all relate to. 
I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who wants a heart warming story to brighten up their day. 


 I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze®.com book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

Hearts Awakening

So, yesterday, I read yet another book. My total of books read this week is 5 1/2. Best week I've had in a while. I bought an ebook off of christianbookstore.com and stayed up really late reading it. The book was Hearts Awakening by Delia Parr. It was a book that I had been keeping my eye on, but didn't want to spend too much money on, so when I found it for pretty cheap, I went ahead and bought it. I really liked the book. It was my typical Christian historical romance that I usually read. It was about a single, 31 year old woman, who in that day was a spinster. She agreed to a marriage of convenience in name only, to a man who had two little boys and needed someone to take care of them. She wanted to escape her cousin who had taken her in after her parents died and who viewed her as a burden that was forced on him. Both she and him had many issues to overcome as they learned to live together. Both their relationships with each other and with God are challenged. I thought that it was a very well written book. It did have a very predictable twist near the end, but I find as a whole that most of the books in the historical romance genre are pretty predictable. This book was a tear jerker, but that may have just been me. I tend to cry a lot during books and movies and any sad things in them tend to draw out tears. This is a book that I would really recommend to someone who likes a story of strength and overcoming difficult pasts, with some romance sprinkled in, along with two adorable little boys who really steal the whole book :)

The Hunger Games

This week I read The Hunger Games. I read all three in 48 hours over the span of three days. Don't ask me why, but I take great pride in how fast I can read books. After reading the books, I am really excited to see the movie, I just hope it is as good as the book.
I really enjoyed this series. I like trilogies so it was no surprise that I would like this series. I did wait a while before I read them, though. I normally do not like reading books when they are popular, but my friend had them on her Kindle and since they were such easy access, I decided that I probably should read them. I thought it was an excellent trilogy and very well written. There were times when I was frustrated because of how dense Katniss could be, but that was her character so I just accepted it. These were books that I will probably read again. If you like futuristic fantasy books, these would be a great choice.

Really good video

I was on Facebook today and one of my friends posted a video from Youtube entitled Sex has a price tag. This is an excellent video and I would recommend that everyone watch this. The speaker makes excellent points even if you are not a Christian. I fully believe in no sex before marriage and both my husband and I were virgins when we got married. We even saved our first kiss for the altar. This is an wonderful video to show all teenagers and those who think that having sex before marriage is not harmful and just for fun.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFYPigFlp7w

Random Thoughts...

I am going to try to write something everyday, doesn't have to be much, just some of my random thoughts.
So, today I finished reading Just David by Eleanor H. Porter, for about the tenth time. I adore this book. It is one of my favorite books of all time and I try to read it about once a year. If you are looking for a good, wholesome, sweet book to read that won't take much of your time, this would be an excellent choice. It is about a little boy named David living in a mountain home with his father. He lived for his violin and played heavenly. His father became ill and they had to leave their mountain home. The book follows the journey of David as he learned to adjust to a world so different from the one that he was used to and how he touched so many lives with his spirit, his view on life, and mostly, his violin.
If you are at all interested, you can find a free download of this book at amazon.com.

Heart of Gold by Robin Lee Hatcher

“Heart of Gold” by Robin Lee Hatcher is about a Southern preacher and his daughter relocating to Idaho during the Civil War. It follows the girl through her struggles with being in the north and her feelings about the war to finding love in the place that she least thought possible.

I found the book kind of short. It may have been because I read it on the computer, but the story seemed to be very short.  The story line was very predictable. Girl and boy meet, they don’t like each other, something brings them together, they fall in love, something else pushes them apart, and then they get together at the end. It didn’t seem like it had a lot of depth to it. Shannon fell in love with Matthew awfully fast and it seemed to have more to do with attraction than actual love. She really only mentions once about how he was a great Christian man and that is one of the reasons she loved him. They didn’t seem to really talk and connect that way. It seemed slightly superficial to me.  It was a fun, enjoyable read, but it wasn’t a book that I would probably read again.

The Harvest of Grace by Cindy Woodsmall

The Harvest of Grace by Cindy Woodsmall is about a girl, torn by her loyalty to her family and a secret that she believes is too terrible to reveal, who makes the decision to leave her family and work far from home. She starts a journey that will eventually lead her to forgiveness from her family, from God, and from herself.

This book is the third in a series and I have yet to read the first two books. I know that I would have definitely understood the characters better if I had read the other two books first, but the author did a good job with explaining the characters so that not much was lost by not reading the first books. This was my first plunge into Amish Christian fiction and I was very impressed. I liked how the author developed the character of Sylvia. She did a great job with showing the different layers of her personality and character. Sylvia was a tough character to fully understand. This book was mainly the story of Sylvia, but there were also four other love stories that gave depth to the book. The different stories intertwined beautifully and built on each other very well. It could have been overwhelming to try to straighten out the different stories from each other but the author did a wonderful job with intertwining the stories without confusing the reader. Overall, I thought this book was an excellent read and I would recommend it to anyone.

I received a complimentary copy of The Harvest of Grace from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for the purpose of writing a fair and honest review.  I received no other compensation.