the winner of the veggietales DVD!

Congratulations Alicia you have won!

Veggietales review and giveaway!

So I’m super excited to feature The Penniless Princess today. This is the newest DVD out from VeggieTales and Big Idea.

Here is the synopsis of the story:

It doesn’t matter what you have…it matters what’s in your heart!

Sweet Sara Crewe has everything a little girl could want – a loving family, lots of friends and a closet full of frilly dresses! But when life takes a turn and Sara goes from riches to rags, will she realize that her true worth lies not in what she has, but what’s in her heart? Find out in this inspiring new story from VeggieTales, based on the beloved classic novel “A Little Princess,” that reminds kids who they are in God’s eyes.

Lesson: Knowing Your True Worth

Verse: Whatever is true, pure and lovely…practice these things.” – Philippians 4:8

My thoughts:

Personally I loved it, it was great. I've always been a fan of VeggieTales since I first saw it when I was a kid. And I still watch them as an adult, they are always so great and witty and honestly the story does strike a chord in me too. So really its not just for kids. I had brought the dvd to a friends house while watching their 4 kids ages 9-4 and they totally got stuff out of it, they understood it and even asked questions while watching. It was a great experience to share with them. One thing I didn't enjoy was the silly song, it totally made my head spin I couldn't pay attention to it. A few other things I loved were the fact that the french peas had a dog. The story was totally touching to me it almost made me cry. And it really made me think about how ungrateful we can be if things don't go our way. Another thing I REALLY loved was the fact that one of the girls that was an asparagus she had artichokes for pig tails. That was genius. I also loved the fact that the french peas were chimney sweeps and they had such a kind heart to help the girls that were penniless. All in all it was an amazing DVD. When I have kids I will show them these and all the VeggieTales.

And the best part is you all get to have a chance to win a DVD! Just comment and leave your email address. The giveaway will be open until August 5^th. US residents only.

The Penniless Princess will be available on August 11 at Christian retailers and everywhere else on August 14th. Below is a link to the trailer for this show for you to learn more about the product.

Thank you VeggieTales for providing this for me to review! These thoughts are all my own and I was not compensated in any way.

Thank you for the comments on my last post. Right now I want to share with you bags that I <3! 

A few months ago I sold my old camera body and got a "new" to me one. With that old body went my bag. It was a Lowepro messenger like this.

It was too small with my lens and everything else I tend to bring with me. So I began the hunt for a new bag. And these are the ones that I <3.

The Epiphanie Lyric:

I love the slouchiness of it and the colors they have. I like either the slate blue or the mustard. You can fit a fair amount of lenses in this one which is good. It also has two different handles which is nice.

I like the Epiphanie clover in teal.

I think mostly cause its big but its also pretty too. I think it would be too big for me as I’m kinda small.

The Rose from Jo Totes is amazing!

I think its so cute and I love that on the top it has these snaps that make the bag slimmer on the top it makes the functionality of the bag easier. Especially if you are small like I am.

Next up is the Tamrac rally 7

I love how big it is, the thing I don't love is the fact that it doesn't come in a lot of vareity as far as color goes.

And finally the best for last. I just found this type of bag while researching bags the other day.

It is the Tenba Messenger!

For one Tenba is just kinda fun to say. But their bags are SO awesome. They come in different colors and seem like they will last forever. I love how many compartments are in the messenger bags and in general they look pretty stinking awesome. They also come in three different sizes, a mini, small and a large.

I hope you'll stay tuned for more from the blog, I have some reviews coming up, one is the new Veggietales DVD, and I’m gonna post about some books and ones that are coming out soon. I'm excited to share with you guys!

It is time for a FIRST Wild Card Tour book review! If you wish to join the FIRST blog alliance, just click the button. We are a group of reviewers who tour Christian books.  A Wild Card post includes a brief bio of the author and a full chapter from each book toured.  The reason it is called a FIRST Wild Card Tour is that you never know if the book will be fiction, non~fiction, for young, or for old...or for somewhere in between!  Enjoy your free peek into the book!




You never know when I might play a wild card on you!

Today's Wild Card author is:

Roger Thurow

and the book:

The Last Hunger Season: A Year in an African Farm Community on the Brink of Change

PublicAffairs (May 29, 2012)

***Special thanks to Rick Roberson, The B&B Media Group for sending me a review copy.***

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

 For 30 years, Roger Thurow was a reporter for The Wall Street Journal, 20 of them as a foreign correspondent.  He has reported from more than 60 countries, including two dozen in Africa.  He was co-author, along with Scott Kilman, of ENOUGH: Why the World's Poorest Starve in an Age of Plenty. Their coverage of famine in Africa was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in International Reporting in 2004.  In 2005, they were honored by the United Nations for their reporting on humanitarian and development issues, and in 2009 they received Action Against Hunger's Humanitarian Award.  ENOUGH won the Harry Chapin WHY Hunger book award and was a finalist for the New York Public Library Helen Bernstein Book Award for excellence in journalism and a finalist for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize.  Since 2010, Roger has been a senior fellow for global agriculture and food policy at The Chicago Council on Global Affairs.



Visit the author's website.

SHORT BOOK DESCRIPTION:

Africa's small farmers, who comprise two-thirds of its population, toil in a time warp, living and working essentially as they did in the 1930s. Without mechanized equipment, fertilizer, or irrigation; using primitive storage facilities, roads, and markets; lacking capital, credit, and insurance they harvest only one-quarter the yields of Western farmers, half of which spoil before getting to market. But in 2011 one group of farmers in Kenya came together to try to change their odds for success-and their families' futures. Roger Thurow spent a year following their progress.

In The Last Hunger Season, the intimate dramas of the farmers' lives unfold amidst growing awareness that to feed the world's growing population, food production must double by 2050. How will the farmers, Africa, and a hungrier world deal with issues of water usage, land ownership, foreign investment, corruption, GMO's, the changing role of women, and the politics of foreign aid?

Product Details:

List Price: $26.99

Hardcover: 304 pages

Publisher: PublicAffairs (May 29, 2012)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 1610390679

ISBN-13: 978-1610390675

AND NOW...THE FIRST CHAPTER:

P R O L O G U E









I wasn’t in western Kenya long before I met my first Wanjala.





He was Francis Mamati, a smallholder farmer, unfailingly gra- cious, who smiled relentlessly as he lugged chairs and tables from the dark sitting room of his little house to the expansive shade of an avocado tree. With a slight breeze stirring, Francis began telling the story of his life as a farmer. He mentioned that he was born in 1957. We were the same age. I asked the date of his birth.





“I don’t know a day,” Francis said, “but I think it must be May or

June.”





“Why’s that?”





“Because my mother gave me a third name: Wanjala,” he said. “Wanjala is our word for hunger, for the time of year when we run low on food. The hunger season. And that is usually May and June.”





Francis Wanjala Mamati. “You can call me Hunger,” he said.





In western Kenya, the Luhya people like to name their children for the time of year in which they are born. Sitawa, for instance, is a girl born during the time of flying termites. Wamalwa is a boy who arrived during the brewing season. Nasimiyu is a girl delivered during the hot, dry months. Particularly popular are boys’ names that match the rhythms of the growing season: Wafula (rains), Wanyonyi (weeding), Wekesa (harvest).





The most common name of all, it seems, is Wanjala. There are an awful lot of people called Hunger. That is because the hunger sea- son can be the longest, stretching from the time the food from the previous harvest in August and September runs out to the time when the new crops begin to come in. It is a time when food prices soar with the shortages, and parents scramble for whatever income they can find and scrounge whatever assets they can sell to afford daily nourishment. Household food rations are cut and meals elimi- nated. Three meals become two, then one, and then, on some days, none. Work in the fields slows, children drop out of school, the lit- tlest battle for survival. May and June are the high season for hunger in western Kenya, but for some families the wanjala can begin in April or even in January.





After Francis, I would meet many more Wanjalas, and Nanjalas, the female version of the name. Teachers, preachers, taxi drivers, shopkeepers, aid workers, farmers. Especially farmers.









HUNGRY FARMERS. That is perhaps the most confounding, trou- bling phrase on a confounding, troubled continent. “Hungry farm- ers” should be an oxymoron. How can farmers, who rise every morning to grow food, be hungry? But in my frequent travels to Africa’s hunger zones as a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, I knew that phrase to be one of the continent’s saddest truisms: her small- holder farmers, the people who grew their own food, were also her hungriest people.





It was this discordant fact that brought me to the hardscrabble homesteads of western Kenya, a paradoxical region of breathtaking beauty and overwhelming misery. The area that stretches from Lake Victoria north to the slopes of Mount Elgon on the border with Uganda is one of Kenya’s breadbaskets, especially for the produc- tion of corn, which is known across much of Africa as maize. But it is also the region that leads the country in malnutrition and poverty. Collectively it may boast the nation’s highest agriculture output per acre, yet individually millions of smallholder farmers struggle to grow enough to feed their families throughout the year. Few fami- lies escape the annual wanjala.





Hungry farmers are the legacy of the “criminal negligence” of agricultural development foretold by Norman Borlaug, the father of the Green Revolution, for which he won the Nobel Peace Prize in

1970. “We will be guilty of criminal negligence, without extenua- tion, if we permit future famines,” Borlaug warned back then. And that is indeed what came to pass. After Borlaug’s new breeding sys- tem produced a wheat strain that conquered famine in India, Pak- istan, and other places in Asia in the 1960s and ’70s, and after the Malthusian worry that the world would run out of food was dif- fused by the transformation of formerly hungry countries into new food powers, a long era of abundant and cheap food dawned, and the world turned away from agricultural development. The move- ment to spread new farming advances to hungry countries derailed before it could reach Africa. Aid to farmers and investment in rural areas in Africa by both the international community and the conti- nent’s governments declined precipitously, shrinking to negligible levels through the 1980s and ’90s and into the twenty-first century. The private sector, particularly the agriculture industry, likewise largely ignored the smallholder farmers tending less than five acres of land, deeming them too poor and remote for its attention. Neglecting the well-being of the largest segment of the population

on the world’s poorest continent defied logic. Yet this was the pre- vailing development philosophy in the United States and other rich precincts of the world: our farmers, who are heavily supported by our governments, are producing vast stockpiles of food cheaper than farmers anywhere else. Better the poor countries buy their food from us than produce it themselves. And if they are hungry—if famine were to flare from drought, turmoil, or evil politics—we’ll feed them with our food aid.





And so it went for decades, even as the world’s population grew and strains mounted on the global food chain—until the worldwide food crisis of 2007 and 2008. Shrinking stockpiles of some major grains sent prices skyrocketing, triggering food shortages and riots in dozens of countries. The ranks of the chronically hungry on the planet soared past one billion. The era of cheap, abundant food was over. Once again, the prospect loomed of a wanjala for all mankind.





I FIRST MET ANDREW YOUN in the middle of a Chicago snow- storm at the end of 2009. He was just back from western Kenya, where the hot, dry season reigned, but he insisted on keeping our appointment, even as blizzard conditions escalated. We ordered warm drinks in the café area of a bookstore.





Andrew eagerly told me about the farmers he had encountered when he arrived in western Kenya a few years earlier. He was a budding social entrepreneur, then working on his MBA at North- western University’s Kellogg School of Management. He didn’t know much about farming, but he did know that what he was see- ing on the rural homesteads didn’t add up. With all of the agricul- tural advances in the world, he wondered, how was it that the farmers he met couldn’t feed their families for the entire year? The rain was plentiful; the soils, though overworked and depleted, were laden with potential. Yet the wanjala persisted.





It was there, during the hunger season, that Andrew had his epiphany. For the first time in his life, he had come face-to-face with hunger. He watched one farmer ’s adolescent daughter stretch a thin mixture of maize porridge for the family’s only meal of the day. It was an image he couldn’t shake from his mind. He founded a social enterprise organization to reverse the neglect of the smallholder farmers by providing access to the seeds and soil nutrients and planting advice that never made it deep into the rural areas. The “social” aspect was to banish the hunger season; the “enterprise” part was to do it as an efficient business. He called his operation One Acre Fund.

“The existence of a hungry farmer is completely crazy. It’s mind- boggling. A hunger season shouldn’t exist,” Andrew said on that cold Chicago day, as the wind howled and the snow drifted beyond the bookstore’s windows. “Our mission as an organization is to make sure it never, ever happens.”





In that bleak winter setting, far from Africa, I recognized this passion, for it was also mine. I repeated to Andrew what an aid worker for the World Food Program (WFP) had told me during the Ethiopian famine of 2003: “Looking into the eyes of someone dying of hunger becomes a disease of the soul. You see that nobody should have to die of hunger.” It was that profound connection that led me to write the book Enough: Why the World’s Poorest Starve in an Age of Plenty with my Wall Street Journal colleague Scott Kilman. And it was what subsequently led me to leave the Journal to continue to pursue the story that had come to seem more important to me than any other, and one I felt unable to stop covering regardless what else was dominating news headlines that day or that year: Why were people still dying of hunger at the beginning of the twenty-first cen- tury when the world was producing—and wasting—more food than ever before? For me and my own diseased soul, Enough hadn’t

been enough. From my new post as senior fellow at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, I set out in search of smallholder farmers I could follow for a year to both chronicle the impact on people’s lives of the “criminal negligence” Dr. Borlaug had warned of, and to illustrate these farmers’ potential to grow enough to escape the hunger season and benefit the global food chain.





Andrew told me that One Acre was then working with nearly twenty thousand farmers who were doubling and tripling their maize yields. He was optimistic they had the wanjala on the run. “I really believe,” he said, “that agriculture is the fundamental human- itarian challenge of our time.”

The urgency of attacking that challenge was palpable. We both believed that smallholder farmers, who were the majority of the population in most African countries, would be central to any suc- cess. In the wake of the 2007–2008 food crisis, agriculture econo- mists and development theorists had begun clamoring that the world needed to nearly double food production by 2050 to keep up with a growing global population and the growing prosperity of that population. Estimates placed another 2.5 billion people on earth in that time, which would be the equivalent of feeding another two Chinas or two Indias. In addition, there were already one billion people in the world who were chronically hungry. Adding to the challenge, this doubling would need to happen on roughly the same amount of arable land and with less water than was being used in the existing agricultural breadbaskets. All the while, a growing demand for biofuels that was channeling more and more food, corn especially, into gas tanks instead of stomachs, and extreme climate patterns that were wreaking havoc on harvests from the Russian steppe to the Texas panhandle, would be adding to the unprece- dented strains on the global food chain.





Where would the needed doubling come from? Likely not from the present breadbaskets of the United States, Canada, Europe, and Australia, where the great jumps in yields over the past decades have been narrowing. Nor can we confidently count on repeat per- formances of the large gains in productivity in green revolution stars such as India, China, and Brazil, where future growth depends on continued costly investments in infrastructure and research. In fact, under some scenarios, water scarcity in India and China could cut wheat and rice production by 30 to 50 percent by 2050, even as demand for these crops in those countries was expected to rise by the same amount over the same period.





From where, then, will come the quantum leaps in production?





Only from Africa, food’s final frontier. Because it is so far behind

the rest of the world agriculturally, Africa now has the potential to record the biggest jump in food production of any region by apply- ing technologies and infrastructure and financial incentives that are common most everywhere else. Africa, where the hybrid seeds that revolutionized American agriculture in the 1930s are only now beginning to spread, is the one continent where yields of maize, wheat, rice, beans, and an array of local crops, have yet to have their growth spurts, and lag as much as 90 percent behind the yields of farmers elsewhere. With only 4 percent of its farmland irrigated, Africa has water resources that are underutilized. With one-third to one-half of its harvests routinely going to waste, Africa could give an immediate boost to the world’s food supplies with improved storage facilities and more efficient markets.





With all this potential, Africa’s long-neglected smallholder farm- ers, who produce the majority of the continent’s food, have thus become indispensable for our future. It will be impossible to multi- ply global food production without creating the conditions for them to grow and bring to market as much as they possibly can—to at least feed themselves, their communities, and their countries—and to not only stop being a drain on the world’s food supply, but to add to it. They need to be at the vanguard of a new agriculture economy for the twenty-first century, an economy where all farmers are encouraged to grow as much nutritionally beneficial food as possi- ble and then be rewarded through the global market for doing so. The farmers who have been fed by the world’s food aid are now needed to help feed the world. We continue to neglect Africa’s smallholder farmers at our own peril.





Andrew Youn embraced all this. He invited me to come to western Kenya and meet the farmers.









INCREDIBLY, much of rural Africa is the same today as it was in the 1930s when a classic tale was told about farming in Kenya.





“I had a farm in Africa, at the foot of the Ngong Hills,” begins Karen Blixen’s endearing and enduring memoir, Out of Africa. Her farm, a coffee plantation in the central Kenyan highlands, was in many ways typical of white landholdings during the colonial period in Africa. It was a sprawling six thousand acres, full of var- ious crops, and wildlife, too. But even more typical were the farms of her African neighbors, who worked on her farm and tilled their own small plots called shambas in a corner of her land. She wrote,





Whenever you walk amidst the Kikuyu shambas, the first thing that will catch your eye is the hind part of a little old woman raking in her soil, like a picture of an ostrich which buries her head in the sand. Each Kikuyu family had a number of small round peaked huts and store-huts; the space between the huts was a lively place, the earth hard as concrete; here the maize was ground and the goats milked, and children and chickens were running.









That stooped farmer raking in her soil, children and chickens running over concrete-hard dirt between her tiny mud house and the flimsy small round storage huts with peaked thatched roofs— that’s Leonida Wanyama and Rasoa Wasike and Zipporah Biketi, and it is Francis Wanjala Mamati. You will meet them all in the pages of this book. One Acre Fund farmers, they have been working their shambas at the foot of the Lugulu Hills in western Kenya in much the same manner as Karen Blixen described three-quarters of a century ago. The political landscape of Kenya has changed greatly since the time of Out of Africa; the country gained its independence in 1963. But life on the shambas is still very similar. Kenya’s, and Africa’s, smallholder farmers toil in a time warp, living and work- ing essentially as they did in the 1930s.

If anything, the rhythm of the seasons has grown harsher, and the harvest yields more miserly over the years. The romantic ideal of African farmers—rural villagers in touch with nature, tending bucolic fields—has hardened into a horror scene of malnourished children, backbreaking manual work, and profound hopelessness. No one should dare mistake the romantic for the reality, for rural Africa is a nightmarish landscape of neglect. There is, in the main, no electricity or running water. Health care is distant and meager. Sanitation is rudimentary. Roads are wretched. Growing food is the driving preoccupation; buying additional food consumes almost every spare shilling. And still the farmers don’t have enough to eat. The wanjala abides.









THIS IS THE STORY of a year in the life of African farmers, in par- ticular four farmers in western Kenya—Leonida, Rasoa, Zipporah, and Francis—on the brink of change.





As their year began, international efforts to finally reverse the neglect of agricultural development couldn’t have been more

important—or more threatened. In the first days of 2011, staple food prices were soaring to record highs around the globe. In another part of Africa, north of the Sahara, the outrage ignited when a food vendor in Tunisia lit himself on fire was spreading. Unrest partly fueled by the escalating cost of food and deepening poverty was roiling North Africa and the Middle East, toppling governments. A drought was creeping across East Africa, including Kenya, threatening millions with famine. In Kenya itself, commod- ity prices and the value of the country’s currency, the shilling, were beginning a turbulent ride (the shilling/U.S. dollar rate jerked from 80 to more than 100 and back to 80 again). In rich world capitals, the building debt crisis was eroding promises to invest more in agricultural development. In Washington, DC, President Barack Obama and his administration were readying for battle with Con- gressional budget cutters to save his Feed the Future initiative, which sought to assert American leadership in the push to end hunger through agricultural development, particularly among smallholder farmers.





And on the shambas of western Kenya, the farmers were stirring with the fervent hope that this would be their last hunger season.

I am in a huge blogging slump. i don't know what to write or if anyone really reads it? this was an unintentional break and i'm working up to getting more active again! if anyone is out there let me know! also let me know what you'd like to see on here?!

It is time for a FIRST Wild Card Tour book review! If you wish to join the FIRST blog alliance, just click the button. We are a group of reviewers who tour Christian books.  A Wild Card post includes a brief bio of the author and a full chapter from each book toured.  The reason it is called a FIRST Wild Card Tour is that you never know if the book will be fiction, non~fiction, for young, or for old...or for somewhere in between!  Enjoy your free peek into the book!




You never know when I might play a wild card on you!

Today's Wild Card author is:

Martha Rogers

and the book:

Spring Hope
(Seasons of the Heart (Book 4))

Realms (May 15, 2012)

***Special thanks to Althea Thompson | Publicity Coordinator, Charisma House | Charisma Media for sending me a review copy.***

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Martha Rogers’ novel Not on the Menu debuted on May 1, 2007, as a part of Sugar and Grits, a novella collection with DiAnn Mills, Janice Thompson, and Kathleen Y’Barbo. Her series Winds Across the Prairie debuted in 2010 with Becoming Lucy, Morning for Dove, Finding Becky, and Caroline’s Choice. Her other credits include stories in anthologies with Wayne Holmes, Karen Holmes, and Debra White Smith; several articles in Christian magazines; devotionals in six books of devotions; and eight Bible studies. Martha served as editor of a monthly newsletter for the writer’s organization Inspirational Writers Alive! for six years and is the state president. She is also the director for the annual Texas Christian Writer’s Conference and is a member of American Christian Fiction Writers, for whom she writes a weekly devotional. Martha and her husband are active members of First Baptist Church.





Visit the author's website.

SHORT BOOK DESCRIPTION:

Can runaway Libby Cantrell finally get a new start?



Libby Cantrell’s life has gone from bad to worse since her mother’s death. After working in a brothel to support her abusive father, she sees no hope for her future until one cold winter night when she finds the courage to escape.



When she collapses in Portersfield, Texas, exhausted, ill, and hungry, Sheriff Cory Muldoon finds her and takes her to the doctor. Against Cory’s better judgment, Seth and Erin Winston take her in and offer her a job as a nanny for their young son. As a minister, Seth sees it as his duty to take care of her. As a deputy, Cory needs to know the truth about her even as he is attracted to the waif of a young woman.



As Cory’s feelings for her grow and winter becomes spring, will he be able to accept her as she is now and truly forget and forgive her sordid past?

Product Details:

List Price: $13.99


Paperback: 304 pages

Publisher: Realms (May 15, 2012)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 1616386185

ISBN-13: 978-1616386184

AND NOW...THE FIRST CHAPTER:

Porterfield,  Texas

February 1891





THE COLDEST NIG!IT  of winter thus far chilled Deputy Sheriff Cory Muldoon to the bone as he made his rounds in the alleyways of Porterfield. Cold wind howled around the corners of the buildings now closed up for the  night. Most  everyone in Porterfield had gone home  to their  families  and  warm  homes. This  was all the  winter he cared  to experience, and  even this would be only a few days, as the weather in Texas could change in a heartbeat, summer or winter.

Lights and music from the saloon rang out and mocked the dark  silence  of its  neighboring buildings. Friday  nights  found cowboys and lumberjacks both squandering their  hard-earned money  on  liquor  and  women. Tonight would  be no different





despite the cold, near freezing temperatures. Most likely at least one or two of them would end up in the jail for a spell.

Cory turned up the collar of his sheepskin-lined jacket and shoved his hat farther down on his head. When he rounded the corner of the livery, the gentle nickering and snorts of the horses boarded there broke the quietness of the night.

A cat skittered out from behind the general store, and a dog barked in the distance. Ever since the bank robbery last fall, he or the sheriff had roamed the alleys behind the main businesses every  night to  make sure everything  remained locked tight and secure. So far he’d seen only a typical Friday night, with everything as routine as Aunt Mae’s  boarding- house meal schedule. Of course, being Friday the thirteenth, anything could happen.

They already had two men put up for the night back at the jail. Sheriff Rutherford took the night duty to keep the jail cells warm so Cory could have Saturday  off for his Aunt Mae’s wedding. Ole Cooter probably got drunk and disorderly just so he’d have a warm place to sleep tonight and not have to go out to his shack. Cory held no blame on the man for that. Durand, the saloon owner, caught the other man cheating at cards and had him arrested. Maybe the card shark would move his game on to some other town.

He shivered despite the warm coat and hoped Abigail and Rachel would have dinner waiting for him back at the board- inghouse. What  with Aunt Mae’s  wedding tomorrow, those two women had taken over mealtimes until his aunt returned from her wedding trip.

What appeared to be a pile of trash sat outside the back

door  of Grayson’s  mercantile. Ordinarily the  store owner





wouldn’t leave a heap out in the open like that. Cory hesitated in making an investigation, but the snuffling and nickering of a horse grabbed his attention. His hand caressed the handle of his gun. No one and no animal should be here this time of night.

The horse, a palomino, stood off to one side. He wore a saddle, but the reins dangled to the ground. Cory went on alert, his eyes darting about the alley in search of a rider. He reached for the reins and patted the horse’s mane, then ran his hand down its flank. “Whoa, boy, what are you doing out wan- dering around?” No brand on his hindquarters meant he didn’t belong to a ranch around here, and Cory didn’t recognize the horse as belonging to any of the townspeople.

Then the pile by the back door moved, and along with the movement, a moan sounded. With his hand on his gun, Cory approached the mound. An arm flung out from the heap, and another cry. This was no animal. He knelt down to pull back what looked like an old quilt.

When the form of a young woman appeared, Cory jumped as though he’d  been shot. Every nerve in his body stood at attention as he reached out to remove more of the cover. A woman lay huddled under the quilt, and her body shook from the cold while a cough wracked through her chest, followed by another cry.

On closer inspection he realized she was younger than he first thought. Her smooth, unlined face and tangled hair were that of a young woman. She couldn’t be more than twenty, the same age as his sister Erin.

He bent over her to pick her up, and she started to scream,

but another coughing spell prevented it. When her blue eyes





peered up at him, they were so full of fear that they sent dag- gers of alarm straight to his soul. This girl was in trouble.

“Don’t be afraid. I’m the deputy sheriff. I won’t hurt you, but tell me your name and let me take you to the doctor.” He pointed to his badge in hope of reassuring her.

Instead her gaze darted back and forth as she pulled the blanket up under her chin. Her ungloved hands trembled with the cold. He removed his glove and reached out a hand to touch her forehead then yanked it back. She burned with fever. “You’re sick. We need you to get you to Doc Jensen’s right away.” He slid his hands beneath her to scoop her up into his arms. He almost lost his footing as he rose, thinking she’d be a heavier burden than she was. Light as a feather meant she was

probably malnourished too.

She moaned against his chest. “I’m so cold.”

Her voice, weak and hesitant, touched a nerve in him. He had to get her warm. Cory made sure the blanket covered her then grasped the horse’s reins. A low whistle brought his own horse closer. “Follow us, Blaze. We’re going to the infirmary.”

He held the girl tight to his chest to transfer some of his warmth to her. The quicker he could get her to the doctor, the quicker Doc could warm her up and treat that cough.

No time to worry about drunken cowboys or lumberjacks tonight.





The man who called himself a deputy carried her in his arms. With his gentle touch and voice, this man wasn’t like others she had known. Her body burned with heat then turned ice





cold with shivers.  So much pain racked her body that she didn’t have the strength to resist him anyway.

The man cradled her to his chest. “We’ll be at Doc Jensen’s in just a few minutes. Hang on, little lady.”

Little lady? Little, maybe, but certainly no lady by his stan- dards. Another cough wracked her chest and set her throat afire with pain. Her thin jacket and the quilt had been no match for the cold, especially after she’d crossed the river. Not enough heat in the day to dry her clothes before chilling her to the bone and causing this cough. She’d lost count of the days since she left home and had no idea how far she’d come. She’d avoided towns as much as possible, only entering long enough to pick up food at a mercantile.

Pa had to be on her trail by now, or he’d  have  others searching for her. Either way, she didn’t plan to get caught and be dragged back to Louisiana. Even now the memory of all that she had endured because of Pa made her stomach retch. She’d die before she let anyone take her back to that.

The man called for someone named Clem to go get the doc, and he’d meet him at the infirmary. Maybe he was a sheriff after all since he was sending for help. She didn’t dare open her eyes, lest he’d see her fears again. Until she could be absolutely certain he meant her no harm, she’d stay still and quiet.

She inhaled the masculine scent of horses, sweat, and leather. He smelled like hard work and not a trace of alcohol. Unusual for a man, even a lawman. In the background raucous music came from a saloon. She’d  recognize the tinny sound of saloon piano anywhere. It disappeared in the distance, and they proceeded down the street and up what felt like stairs or

steps onto what must be a boardwalk or porch.





He set her on her feet, and she peeped with one eye while he fumbled in his pocket then pulled out a ring of keys. In the next minute he had the door open and strode through it, car- rying her once again.

Antiseptics, alcohol, and carbolic acid greeted her nose. This must be the doctor’s  office. Not until he laid her on a hard surface did she open her eyes, half expecting him to be leering over her. Instead he had walked away to light a lamp, which filled the room with flickering shadows dancing on the walls. A glass door cabinet stood against the wall, and another bed sat a few feet away from where she lay.

He returned to stand beside her, and she almost shrank in fear at his size. Well over six feet tall, he’d removed his hat to reveal a mass of dark red hair curling about his forehead. His hand caressed her forehead, but she did not flinch, even though every inch of her wanted to. No need for him to know her fears.

“I see you’re awake. The doc will be here in a minute. He’ll fix you right up.”

Instead of resisting, her body relaxed at the gentle tone of his voice. He certainly didn’t  fit her idea of a lawman or a cowboy. No one but her ma had ever treated her so kindly. Most people treated her like trash under their feet and didn’t care whether she was well or sick. Still, he was a man. She had to be careful.

A woman’s voice sounded, along with another man’s. She turned her head to find a beautiful red-haired woman and an older man entering the room.

The one who must be the doctor stepped to her side.





“Well, Cory, what have we here?” His eyes held only concern and kindness behind his wire-rimmed glasses.

“I found  her in the alley behind the general store. She must have come in on horseback and fallen there.”

The woman brushed hair from Libby’s face. “Can you tell us your name?”

Her heart thumped. What if Pa came looking for her? But if she lied and stayed here, she’d have to keep lying. Another fit of coughing had the woman holding her upright and rubbing her back. When the spell ended, Libby whispered her name. “Elizabeth Bradley.”

The woman helped her lie back down. “Hello, Elizabeth. I’m Kate Monroe, the doc’s nurse, and this fellow who brought you in is my brother, Cory. He’s deputy sheriff in town.”

Just  having her there gave  Libby a sense of safety she needed with two men in the room. Her kind eyes, a green color that reminded Libby of the fake emeralds some of the saloon girls wore, had a tender look to them.

The doctor listened to her chest with a funny-looking bell on something hanging from his ears. He frowned then pulled the contraption down around his neck.  “I hear a lot of conges- tion in your lungs, young lady. How long have you been out in the cold?”

“I don’t know. I think it’s been several days. I left home in the middle of the night on Tuesday.” The days and nights had run together as she lost all track of time.

The doctor shook his head. “This is Friday night, so you’ve been out at least three days. No wonder your lungs are so con- gested.” He turned to the one called Kate. “Get a bed ready for

her. She’s staying the night and maybe longer.”





Libby tried to sit up but began coughing again. She couldn’t stay here. Pa would find her. Her plan had been to head west then south, where the winter temperatures were not as severe. She’d lost all sense of direction after the first night and had no idea which way she’d come.

Kate’s warm hands pushed her back down gently but firmly. “Lie still, Elizabeth. The doctor is right; you have to stay here.”

Tears welled in Libby’s eyes, and she squeezed them tight to keep the tears from falling. Though hard, this bed was so much better than the ground where she’d slept the past nights. Hospitals and doctors cost money. That’s why Pa wouldn’t go for the doctor until Ma was too sick to recover.

The doctor gave  her something that  tasted bitter, but she swallowed it and then lay back against the pillow Kate had placed beneath her head. The low murmur of voices ran together in a blur. One of the men said he’d stay, but the other one said something about a wedding. Who was getting mar- ried? Maybe they’d forget about her.

The tension ebbed from her body as the medication took over. Someone, most likely the deputy since the doctor was an old man, picked her up and took her into another room, where he laid her on the bed. She almost sighed at the cotton softness of the mattress beneath her. So much better than pine straw and hard-packed dirt.

Kate’s  voice followed  behind then shooed the man from the room. “I’m going to help her get settled for the night, so she doesn’t need you. Go on back to the boardinghouse. I’m sure you’ll find Abigail has something for you to eat.”

A few minutes later Kate had removed Libby’s still damp

and dirty clothes and slipped a warm gown over her head.





When Libby slid her arms into the sleeves, she realized it was her own gown. “How did you get this? It’s mine.”

“Cory  brought in the satchel you carried on your horse, and I found the gown in it. I warmed it by the wood stove in the other room.”

That warmth, along with the medication earlier, eased away the pain, and Libby let her eyes drift closed. Perhaps this was the place she should stay after all. She pulled up the covers and turned on her side. She’d think about that tomorrow. Tonight she’d sleep warm and dry for the first time in too many days

to count.

Book Review: Waiting For Sunrise by Eva Marie Everson

Waiting for Sunrise: A Cedar Key Novel by Eva Marie Everson.

Patsy Milstrap wishes that she could escape the shadow of her past and leave it behind her. Even though she strives her best to put on a brave front for her family, the wounds still ache, and the scars on her soul are still deeply felt. So at her husband's insistence they take a vacation from South Carolina to Cedar Key, an island off Florida's gulf coast. A week in paradise he thinks will do them some good.

But she never dreams that she'll find a totally unexpected, familiar face at a seaside restaurant there, and now Patsy knows that she just can't run from her past any longer. What will happen when old wounds are freshly reopened? And what could the future hold?

Eva Marie Everson is an amazing writer. This novel did not disappoint one bit. At first I hoped that it would not end up more on the bland side as my interests have really been in suspense lately. But as I starting digging into it further it really began picking up and I just couldn't put it down. I really love that Eva continued with some of the characters in the first Cedar Key book. She took a different angle through going into Patsy's past instead of just the present, which brought a whole new fresh dimension to the story. And this novel is rich with bittersweet pain and hurt in Patsy's life and the lives of her family. The amount of suffering is unbearable and really tugs at the heartstrings. It makes the book that much better and more realistic. I highly recommend this. Though it is not the typical light beach read it will be sure to enthrall you.

Available June 2012 at your favorite bookseller from Revell, a division of Baker Publishing Group.

Please go check out and enter the contest for the kindle fire on Evas site also. 

 http://www.evamarieeversonauthor.com/#!kindle-contest