By
Jennie Hansen
Christmas
shopping is on the minds of most of us and high on most
shopping lists are books. What would a Christmas shopping
list be without a few of the latest LDS novels? More LDS
novels are sold in the weeks leading up to Christmas than
any other time of the year and I thought it might be helpful
to take a look at some of the choices being offered this
year. All of the books I’ve reviewed this past year would
make wonderful gifts, but here are a few brief notes about
some other recent releases which are well worth spending
your Christmas shopping dollars to give to loved ones.
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If
there’s a sports fan or teenage boy on the shopping list,
consider Jeff Call’s Rolling with the Tide which
begins with missionary companions assigned to a seemingly
impossible area. Through hard work and a severe trial of
their faith they accomplish the seemingly impossible, then
return home to begin college. Gunnar Hanshaw with a lot
of pushing and encouragement from Preston Brady works his
way up from a walk-on quarterback at Snow College to the
star quarterback of the University of Alabama football team.
Their missions and their continued commitment to the Gospel
along with the missionary spirit firmly entrenched in their
hearts are major factors both in their college careers and
the lives that follow. This novel shows a great deal of
improvement over Call’s first book , Mormonville. It
is both better written and the premise is far more believable.
There are fewer typos and editorial errors as well, though
some of those found in this new book are quite humorous.
On page 193 I found “He certainly wasn’t the first college
football to play at the age of 25.” Call’s expertise in
the sport of football is apparent and he blends testimony
and sports into a powerful, faith-promoting story.
Rolling
with the Tide by Jeff Call, Bonneville Books, 243 pages,
$15.95.
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Also
for teenagers, both girls and boys on your list, take a
look at The Long Road Home by Cheri Crane. This
thought-provoking novel deals with the importance of each
individual gaining a personal testimony. A testimony based
on a good family, habit, and the expectations of others
isn’t enough is the strong premise Crane presents in this
novel. Reese Clark discovers that not even being raised
in a faithful LDS home, being popular as both a classmate
and an athlete in high school, and persuading his girlfriend
to take the missionary lessons are enough without a personal
testimony of his own. When tragedy strikes, his faith is
not strong enough to carry him and he falls away from the
Church. Finding his way back is a road fraught with hardship
and pain. Not everyone who grows up with a superficial
testimony, then falls away from the Church falls as far
as Reese does and his failure feels a bit extreme, but the
important element of the story that testimonies are earned
through hard work and effort and not by simply drifting
through pleasant circumstances carries through making this
novel a spiritually rewarding experience as well as just
plain enjoyable reading.
The
Long Road Home by Cheri Crane,
Covenant Communications, 269 pages, $14.95.
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Lynn
Gardner is back! Rubies and Rebels is a roller coaster
ride fans of fast paced action drama are bound to love.
Allison and Bart Allen are expecting an addition to their
family and plans are for Allison to stay home while she
prepares for the event, but as agents for Anastasia, an
undercover anti-terror organization, they wind up in Armenia
by different routes. Gardner’s impressive knowledge of
the twists and turns taking place in world events today
as well-known terrorists plot and destroy to gain power
lends credence to the story. Her previous books have been
exciting and have garnered her many fans, but this book
is bound to increase her following as readers discover a
deeper, more spiritual message along with the most compellingly
realistic adventure she has written to date.
Rubies
and Rebels by Lynn Gardner,
Covenant Communications, 356 pages, $14.95.
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Where
I Belong by Rachel Nunes is Nunes at her finest. This is a
story that will warm the heart of any mother on your shopping
list and thrill all those romance fans, though I hesitate
to refer to Where I Belong as a romance because it
is so much more. It isn’t just the story of best friends
who fall in love, but delves into the choices a woman blessed
with great talent must make between her art and the fulfillment
of her womanhood. Heather Samis is a gifted artist who
believes with all her heart that her gift is from God and
that she must magnify the talent she has been given. She
also has seen the sacrifices her mother has made to bear
and rear children and believes she can not make sacrifices
so large as those her mother has made. Nunes doesn’t placate
her audience with easy answers, but through the medium of
art and loving relationships with other women she allows
Heather to not only see a bigger picture, but to paint a
multi-faceted canvas of her own. A subtle exploration of
faith and the meaning of sacrifice add to this book’s depth.
Where
I Belong by Rachel Nunes, Bonneville Books, 206 pages, $14.95
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a
familiar ring by rk terry strikes a familiar chord just as the author
intends. Jerry Carlson is a man whose life has gone very
wrong. His girlfriend left him, he lost his job, then his
apartment, and now he’s homeless, living on the streets.
He’s too discouraged to do anything about his life until
Max leaves him a cell phone and some instructions. Suddenly
his life is moving upward and Jerry grasps happiness and
love with both hands because he knows it’s all temporary.
Some day he has to give it all back. The story is Christmasy
sentimental and predictable, the reader easily guesses what
is going to happen next, but can’t put the book down anyway.
If you have someone on your list who loves to give--or even
a Scrooge, this book will give that person reason to pause
as well as delight him or her. a
familiar ring by rk terry, Covenant Communications, 202
pages, $14.95.
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Above
Suspicion by Betsy Brannon Green will thrill readers who love
mystery served up with a bit of romance and a twist of humor.
The Haggerty crowd show up at a Bed and Breakfast Inn run
by Mary Grace O’Malley who is reeling from the sudden arrival
of a man she was once strongly attracted to, but who disappeared
from her life when their lives took sudden opposite turns.
He is now a news journalist pursuing a twenty-five year
old murder. He finds not only a woman he thought was lost
to him, but discovers more mystery than he had bargained
for. As always Green delivers a spell-binding mystery with
numerous twists and turns, a gentle love story, and a lot
of Southern humor in the shape of her gang of well-meaning
old ladies.
Above Suspicion by Betsy Brannon Green, 266 pages, $14.95
Over
the past ten years LDS historical fictional series have
dominated the Christmas book market. What a gift of love
it has been to give those dear to us the latest volume in
a Gerald Lund, David Woolley, Ron Carter or Dean Hughes’
series. For anyone who started giving these series as gifts
please finish the series for those special people on your
list. Lund, for obvious reasons, doesn’t have a new novel
this year, Woolley’s Volume Three of the Promised Land
series, Place of Refuge, is scheduled for release
December 8. This third volume tells of the clash between
faithful Jews who retain their hope for the coming messiah
and the corrupt Jewish society surrounding them in the sixth
century before Christ. It narrows the story’s focus to
those, particularly Lehi’s family, who flee to the desert
seeking a place of refuge as foretold by Isaiah. Rich in
history and a veritable feast of holy land detail, this
volume is also a hard-to-put-down cliff-hanger adventure.
Place
of Refuge by David Woolley, 489 pages, $23.95
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Carter’s
up to Volume Seven in the Prelude to Glory series
with the Impending Storm (make certain you haven’t
missed a volume), and Hughes has recently released his third
installment of the Hearts of the Children, with How
Many Roads? (Hans is still my favorite character in
this series). Carter’s book feeds a hunger many of us have
to understand the lives and events that led up to the restoration
of the gospel through the establishment of a unique government
on the North American continent.
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This
book recounts a time when the war is considered over, the
Americans have won, but one of the greatest battles for
democracy is still waging as thirteen separate governments
begin the steps to become one united nation. Hughes has
made the Thomas family a dearly loved part of Fictional
LDS lore. This family, along with Lund’s Steed family,
have become so much a part of the fabric of our collected
family history it is sometimes hard to remember these people
aren’t real, though the experiences they lived through were
all too real.
Impending
Storm Vol 7, Ron Carter, Bookcraft, 560 pages, $25.95
How
Many Roads?, Dean Hughs, Bookcraft,
467 pages, $22.95.
Two
of the strongest series volumes this year are Land Divided,
Vol 2 in Robert Marcum’s House of Israel series
and Through the Perilous Fight, Vol 3 in the Faith
of Our Fathers series by N. C. Allen. Marcum’s book
goes a long way toward giving the reader an understanding
of the terrorism and conflict raging today in the Middle
East. With Marcum we see the peoples of cultures that existed
side by side in a land neither one owned or controlled for
thousands of years turned into bitter enemies by the holocaust
and the political and economic greed of neighbors and supposed
allies. We are reminded that even in the days when Jesus
walked that land, it was owned by neither the Arabs or the
Jews. The return of the Jews to Israel following the holocaust
in Europe would appear to be the fulfilment of ancient prophecy,
but with Marcum the reader learns that more than a physical
return to a revered piece of ground is involved in the fulfilment
of the prophecy. The real return will occur only when the
hearts of the Jews return to their God. Allen’s book is
equally compelling in granting an understanding of the ideology
that nearly severed the United States as a nation and the
after effects that still divide us in many ways, particularly
in how we view and define equality and race. One other
way these two books are alike is in their cliff hanger endings.
One thing is for sure if these books are given as gifts
there will be that many more of us biting our nails and
waiting anxiously for the next books in the series.
Land
Divided Vol 2, Robert Marcum, Covenant Communications, 456
pages, $22.95
Through
the Perilous Fight, N.C. Allen, Covenant Communications,
423 pages $$22.95
