Reading, Writing & Pondering

A Life Once Dreamed by Rachel Fordham tells the story of Agnes Pratt, or Miss Aggie,  a school teacher in the small town of Penance, South Dakota. Miss Aggie ran to the Midwest from a secret she discovered about herself when she lived out East. Miss Aggie felt the secret would keep her former sweetheart James Harris from loving her or wanting her. Then James gets a job as a doctor in her little town after her dying mother reveals where Aggie is living. Is everything Miss Aggie thought true--would that secret really hinder their relationship? As a whole, I enjoyed reading A Life Once Dreamed . I enjoyed Fordham's first two books so I was looking forward to this one. If I wasn't familiar with the author, I know I would have been drawn to the beautiful, rich cover design. I liked the people in the town of Penance. I did feel a little frustrated with Miss Aggie at times and how long she felt she had to keep her secret. I could understand why she felt she couldn't share i...

Before I Called You Mine is my first Nicole Deese book--but it won't be my last. I so enjoyed this book. Lauren Bailey is a first-grade teacher in Idaho. She is in her early 30s and has given up on men and decided to adopt a child from China because she wants to be a mom. Then Joshua Avery shows up at her school as a substitute teacher and Lauren finds him fascinating, unlike so many men in her past. How will she make a difficult decision to choose between the two? Oh my goodness! All the feels for this book! I so loved Joshua Avery. I love Lauren too but for different reasons. :) Deese's writing of this story left me laughing out loud in a few places as I delighted in some of Joshua's antics. I also teared up as the character's made some difficult decisions. One of the other aspects I especially liked about this book is that it felt so realistic throughout much of the book. Lauren's family wasn't very nice and I didn't care for those characters to st...

It has been said before, and also in this book, that everybody has a story. In Before and After by Judy Christie and Lisa Wingate, the authors share the real-life stories of orphans who survived the Tennessee Children's Home Society. I was immediately drawn in to Before and After as I started the book. I struggled to put this book down just as I did Lisa Wingate's book, Before We Were Yours. Before We Were Yours is a fictionalized account of orphans similar to the real-life stories in this book. I found these stories to be fascinating. It is hard to believe that anyone could be as unkind and unfeeling as Georgia Tann who ran a black market child adoption business in Memphis through the Tennessee Children's Home Society from the 1920s until 1950. Over 5,000 orphans were cleared for adoption through her agency so literally thousands of orphans and families were affected by this corrupt agency. If you haven't read Before We Were Yours , I would encourage you to re...

When Natalie and her husband got married, like many of us, they had a plan. However, after a few years, God showed them a new plan that was completely different than theirs. Natalie Gwyn shares how her and her husband doubled the size of their family through God's plan of adoption in Okayest Mom . Natalie Gwyn shares her family's story in Okayest Mom starting with when they received God's idea of adding to their family through adoption between her and her husband, and then sharing the idea with her two biological children, and finally sharing how they did indeed adopt four children from Ethiopia and how the early years of that adoption went for them. While this adventure is mostly shared through her eyes, at times she also shares details about this adventure from everyone's point of view throughout the book. She shares the details, the ups and the downs throughout the process. If a reader is looking to adopt, this would be a great book for them to read. Okayest M...