Yep! She did it again! - Another Dawn by Kathryn Cushman

I had to look through my older posts, and I found, as I suspected, I had done a review for a Kathryn Cushman book. Yep! She wrote it in first person, which I think all of you know my views on, and Yep! I still liked the book, despite that.

Another Dawn tackles a couple of very difficult subjects. The first of which is who is in control of your life, and on the flip side, who is actually better to be in control of your life. (This particular subject is not one of my favorites. Possibly because it's one I struggle with frequently.) :-) The other is how our decisions affect people around us (both known and unknown), whether we want them to or not.

Grace Graham has basically been given an ultimatum. Her sister said come take care of dad or you're not in the family. The timing works outs because things are getting a little hard for Grace with her job and her fiance', and this is her M.O. Things get hard, so it's easier to run. So she packs up her four-year-old son and heads back home for a couple of weeks. However, when decisions she made years ago begin to come out and affect people in the small town of Shoal Creek, Tennessee, what will she do? Will she face the consequences and stick it out or will she run away again?

I found myself being swayed for and against the heroine, Grace, several times. I could understand this point of view. I couldn't understand why she did this or that. I love books that can do that.

There's a couple of plot lines I would have liked to see develop a little more, like her fiance's roll in the story, and her dad and mom's history within her life, but all in all, I think it's a good book.
I don't know that this book will make it to my must read over and over shelf, but I could probably read it again and still like it.

I would definitely recommend this as a read you will enjoy.

This book was provided to me for review by Bethany House Publishers.

Book Review: Love & Respect

Love and Respect
by Dr. Emerson Eggerich

"What if your son grew up and married someone like you?"

A wife has one driving need – to feel loved.

A husband has one driving need – to feel respect.

When either of these needs is not met, the Crazy Cycle will begin.

Love and Respect is a book by Dr. Emerson Eggerichs, a former pastor, and a marriage counselor with over 30 years experience that explains a simple, but revolutionary message that will profoundly change the way you look at and respond to your mate. Backed by scientific and biblical research, Dr. Eggerichs and his wife, Sarah, have been taking this message across the country since 1999 and are changing the way spouses are reacting to each other.

I had heard Dr. Eggerichs speak at a marriage conference I attended several years ago, and I figured this book would be mainly review for me. I confess, the first few chapters were a little hard for me to get into, but the sentence above caught my attention and from there I was hooked. Love and Respect was definitely not merely a review of what I had previously heard or been taught. Dr. Eggerichs plainly explained the three cycles that every marriage can go through and how to go from Crazy to Energizing to Rewarding to make your marriage the best it's ever been. This book explains the best ways to react to your spouse (love for women/respect for men), why they work, and gives the scriptures to back it up. My favorite part of the book was during his explanation of the final cycle where Dr. Eggerichs stated that our ultimate goal in giving love and respect to our spouse is not just to please our spouse, but to be in obedience to God. This is the crucial key that is so easily forgotten.