Review, Guest Post, and Giveaway: Going Up South by Janet W. Ferguson

To purchase your own copy of Going Up South, click here.

About the Book

No one told him he had a son.

Actor Dylan Conner is furious. Not only has he been left out of his child’s life, the baby boy has been given another man’s last name. Determined to be a better father than the sorry guy who’d left him and his mother, Dylan fights to ensure a significant place in his son’s life. Unfortunately, his bad-boy reputation overshadows his good intentions. Only one woman in this small town sees beyond his Hollywood image. And he’s falling for her. Too bad she’s the custody mediator.

After her scandalous divorce in the small town of Oxford, Mississippi, attorney Cassie Brooks has no intentions of practicing law again. The humiliating experience left a bitter taste for love, marriage, and her profession.

Now friends need Cassie’s help in a custody negotiation, and her role demands she remain objective. She never expected to be drawn to Dylan Conner—the actor who everyone warns is bad news. Not only is the mediation at stake, but so is her heart.

My Review:

Author Janet W. Ferguson has written a heart tugging and heartwarming novel in Going Up South.  This is my first read by this new to me author and I really look forward to more.  This is a story of two hurting individuals who now need to navigate through life a bit differently than they had been.

Actor Dylan Conner is a bit of a playboy and got himself into a mess that he did not know the ultimate outcome until he met his baby son at the funeral of a mutual friend of the baby’s mother.  This was not a woman he loved; they just spent one night together.  She and her new husband had moved on until Dylan found out he was the father.  Too make matters more complicated, Dylan pines for another woman who has married recently as well.  Talk about a mess.

Well, in steps Cassie Brooks, who as a friend to the families tries to mediate between Dylan and them.  Cassie, struggling as well, has just gone through a terrible divorce and is raising her 16 year old son the best that she can.  Dylan, Cassie, and Ben, Cassie’s son all form a bond of friendship as all peoples involved try to get through this complicated mess.

We get to watch first a beautiful friendship bloom than a sweet, slow love story develop.  One of my favorite parts was the mission trip and the good works that was described that took place.  This is a story of friendship, forgiveness, love, and ultimately healing when it seems people have messed up so badly there is no hope of reconciliation. 

I received a copy through Celebrate Lit for an honest review and the opinions are my own.

About the Author

Janet W. Ferguson grew up in Mississippi and received a degree in Banking and Finance from the University of Mississippi. She has served her church as a children’s minister and a youth volunteer. An avid reader, she worked as a librarian at a large public high school. Janet and her husband have two grown children, one really smart dog, and a few cats that allow them to share the space

Guests Post from Janet W. Ferguson

Hi, I’m Janet W. Ferguson, and I’m so excited to meet the readers of Celebrate Lit!

I’ve always been an avid reader, but I’ve had an odd career path prior to writing.

With a Banking and Finance degree, I took my first job working at a brokerage firm handling their mutual fund trades. After the market crashed in the late 80s, I took a job managing a large, upscale apartment community. During this time, I married and became a stay-at-home mom and church volunteer. My volunteering eventually led to a staff position as children’s minister. After five years, I felt my calling had changed, and I left the job, not really sure what God had in store. Haphazardly, my husband suggested I apply at our local schools. Not long afterward, I certified in teaching and became the library media specialist at the large public high school near our home. I met so many wonderful young people as children’s minister and high school librarian.

During my times as a librarian, I had a story idea for about seven years, but never made time to try my hand at writing. Finally, after my elderly parents passed away, and I felt it was time. I wrote every evening for three months, and finished my first story which was Leaving Oxford. I spent the next three years learning about the craft of writing and editing that story. Yes, there was much to learn! In the meantime, one secondary character from Leaving Oxford demanded his own story… From that, came Going Up South.

I tend to write what I know, and I’m from the peculiar and wonderful state of Mississippi. My first story was set mostly in Oxford, Mississippi. The charming town made the perfect backdrop for book 1. So book 2 is also mostly set in Oxford, although the characters go on a mission trip to Honduras.

The hero of Going Up South, Dylan Conner, is a funny and charming actor that made a number of appearances in Leaving Oxford. From outrageous costumes to intense flirting, he just had a personality as large as the characters he portrayed on the screen. In Going Up South, he realizes that he fathered a child, but he had been left out of the baby boy’s life. Though he’d never planned to have a family, due to his disappointment in his own father, seeing the child, his child, changes his mind.
Dylan’s not sure how he’ll raise a child or what to do, but he finds help in his new friend and custody mediator, Cassie Brooks.

The scripture theme for this series comes from Isaiah 61. This particular book draws on “He binds up the brokenhearted.”

The heroine, Cassie Brooks, is still hurting from her scandalous divorce in a small town. Unlike my last heroine in Leaving Oxford, Cassie had done things the way she’d been taught, avoiding alcohol, drugs, and sex outside of marriage. And her heart was still broken by an unfaithful husband. I wanted to show that life just hands out some tough blows, no matter how hard we try to do the right thing, but God is there in the midst of it all. He does bind up our broken hearts.

I pray that you are uplifted by this story, and whatever hurts life has dealt you, that you find comfort in the arms of our faithful Father. Blessings!

Blog Stops

July 7: A Reader’s Brain

July 7: Debbie’s Dusty Deliberations

July 8: Bigreadersite

July 8: inklings and notions

July 9: A Greater Yes

July 9: Reviewing Novels Online

July 10: Chas Ray’s Book Nerd Corner

July 11: Pause for Tales

July 12: Cindy’s Book Reviews

July 13: Daysong Reflections

July 14: Blogging With Carol

July 15: His Grace is Sufficient

July 16: Karen’s Krayons

July 17: Christian Chick’s Thoughts

July 17: Quiet Quilter

July 18: Cassandra M’s Place

July 18: A Bakers Perspective

July 19: Texas Book-aholic

July 20: Book Bites, Bee Stings, and Butterfly Kisses

Giveaway

To celebrate her tour, Janet is giving away some fantastic prizes including a $50 Amazon gift card! Click here to enter: https://promosimple.com/ps/9e33

Review: Rhapsody in Red by Donn Taylor

Rhapsody in Red

Donn Taylor’s Rhapsody in Red was a very intriguing character driven murder mystery story.   Preston Barclay is one of the most interesting characters I have been inside the head of in fiction recently.  He is a widowed 50 years old father of one college age daughter and is just trying to get through life teaching history which is a passion of his.  He also has an interesting syndrome in which he has musical hallucinations, having different music play in his head all the time.  He works at a college that seems to have turned its back on the whole reason it was founded, especially when enrollment dropped. 

Mara Thorn is a fellow professor and a Wiccan that was hired by this Christian university for the religious studies to attract more students.  She comes to Press seeking help concerning another female professor.  However, this other professor ends up dead on campus and Preston and Mara are two of the main suspects.  As all fingers began to point at the two of them, they decide to do some investigating of their own.  All kinds of secrets are uncovered and the other suspects have some really good motive for seeing their fellow professor dead and both are given multiple warnings to quit asking questions.  I was kept guessing who the true murderer was until the very end.

This was a smart who –done- it with some really great questions asked and answered concerning faith that were seamlessly woven into the story.  Along the way, not only did I experience reading pleasure, but I learned some things as well.  I look forward to the next adventure with Professors’ Preston Barclay and Mara Thorn and see just where they may be headed. 

I received a copy for an honest review from The Book Club Network, Inc. and the opinions are my own.

Review and Guest Post: Regina Shen: Resilience by Lance Erlick

Resilience

Regina Shen:  Resilience (Book 1)

Regina Shen is an outcast forced to fend for herself in a world that bans books and artifacts from before the Great Collapse. An approaching storm could be the least of her problems. The World Federation condemns Regina and her family to live on the seaward side of barrier walls. Those walls were built to hold back rising seas caused by abrupt climate change and as a place to dump outcasts.

A hurricane threatens to destroy Regina’s world, tearing her from sister, mom, and home. Now Federation agents claim she has unique DNA that could prevent human extinction. It's too bad she doesn't trust them enough to barter fairly, let alone with her life. Three-hundred-plus-year-old Grand Old Dames rule the all-female Federation using a rigid caste system. Their notorious Department of Antiquities, under the command of Chief Inspector Joanne Demarco, polices barrier walls, destroys knowledge from the past to suppress dissent, and pursues Regina for her genome.

Regina survives by her wits on swampy islands and thrives on salvage from sunken cities, including illegal print books from before the Federation. With her photographic (eidetic) memory, she defies Antiquities by consuming salvaged books not available in the Federation, which makes her an outcast even among her exiled peers. With Antiquities in pursuit, Regina fights to stay alive and avoid capture while hunting for her family. Does she have the resilience to survive both the storm and Antiquities?

​Buy the book:  Amazon   Barnes & Noble

My Review:

Regina Shen: Resilience by Lance Erlick is the story of a fifteen year old girl trying to survive in the receding swamps of what was once Richmond, Virginia during a hurricane.  This is an apoplectic story in a world where greedy, ruthless Grand Old Dames rule; nature has turned hostile; and all the men have long since been wiped out.  That’s right, there are no men.  As a female, myself, I do not find that future wholly idyllic.  Women have managed to get by for several centuries by using Egg Fusion in which someone takes the DNA of one female and morphs it into a sperm; however, that process is failing (guess you shouldn’t have eliminated all the men).  It seems that the only hope for all mankind… uh, I mean womankind, lies in the marginals, people who have been cast out of society and sent to die in the swamps, who Egg Fusion miraculously still works on.  More specifically the hope of a continued existence for all women lies in Regina Shen, a tough, scrappy young marginal.  However, Regina isn’t so sure she wants to let the corrupt Department of Antiquities take her in to study her DNA and probably keep her locked up as a lab rat for the rest of her life; especially not after they kidnap her younger sister Colleen, who she is determined to get back.

This book has both mild language and violence, and I would warn that it is not for the faint of heart.  It also not for romantics, who like to have at least two people they can ship for to get together, as there are, and I know I am repeating this, no men (I’m still trying to wrap my mind around that fact).

My thanks go to iRead Book Tours for providing me with a copy for an honest review.  All opinions are my own.

Reviewed by Nicki

Author's Bio:

He was raised by a roaming aerospace engineer, growing up in various parts of the United States and Europe, as well as traveling through Asia. He took to stories as his anchor, including the works of Asimov, Bradbury, and Heinlein, and has been writing since age eleven.

Growing up, he was inspired by his father’s engineering work on cutting-edge aerospace projects to look to the future.

In an ideal world, Lance would find time loops where he could step out for a week at a time to read and write. Then he would return to the moment he left, without life getting in the way. Of course, since everyone would have the same ability, he suspects life would still sneak in.

Lance is also the author of short stories and novelettes.

Connect with the author:  Website   Twitter   Facebook   Goodreads

Guest Post:

MY MAIN CHARACTERS by Lance Erlick

While Annabelle Scott (the Rebel series) and Regina Shen (the Regina Shen series) are both strong female protagonists, they are very different characters and yet I felt I could identify with them both.

Annabelle had both of her parents taken from her as traitors when she was three by the military elite, a memory that resides more in her gut than in her mind. A state senator in the opposition adopts her and raises her in as much of a loving family as she can in a society filled with suspicions and conflict. While her sister is the “perfect” child in this world, Annabelle simmers. She and her sister are marked for security careers she believes is in retaliation either for her biological parents being traitors or her adoptive mother being in the weak opposition. When she is drafted into the elite military that took her parents, Annabelle has to walk a tight line between duty and conscience.

As an outcast, Regina Shen has grown up in the swamps on the seaward side of barrier walls built to keep her out. She lives with her often-absent mother and babied younger sister. She has a beloved teacher who has picked up on Regina’s eidetic memory, an ability to quickly absorb illegal print books from before the Federation. When Regina isn’t in school or watching her sister, she’s diving salvage from sunken cities for anything to barter for survival. Already, she salvaged preserved cookware she was able to barter for a goat that provided milk to her and her sister. She carves canoes out of fallen tree trunks and salvaged a well-preserved hunter’s crossbow that she has become quite adept with. She is the quintessential survivor, but now faces a hurricane that threatens to destroy her entire world and agents who are chasing her. Then her mom vanishes and her sister gets captured by slavers who sell their catch to the Federation..

I sometimes wonder what it would be like if Regina and Annabelle met, though they live in different centuries. Maybe I’ll invent a time machine and have them meet to find out.

Happy Birthday America!

Happy 4th of July!

Image courtesy of: http://vintageholidaycrafts.com/

Review: Gone to Ground by Brandilyn Collins

Gone to Ground

Gone to Ground was my first book by author Brandilyn Collins, and it certainly was very different from the books I am accustomed to reading.  Lately I have been reading a lot of suspense/thriller books.  However this book was not as suspense filled as I had at first anticipated, instead I would consider it more of a psychological thriller.  It is the story of a small town named Amaryllis that is being plagued by a serial killer, in the past three years the killer has claimed five victims- all women, all living alone, and all found stuffed in  their closets after the murder- and just recently a sixth victim has been found.  The inhabitants of this town do not know what to think.  Amaryllis is a small town with only a population of 1,700, everyone knows each other.  The murderer must be someone from a nearby city, who comes to Amaryllis to commit the murders and then leaves.  The murderer couldn’t possibly be a resident of this town where everyone is either friends, neighbors, or related…

…Except three women believe that the murderer is from their town- someone close to them, and all three of these women have incriminating evidence showing who the killer is.  The only problem is that the different evidence all points to different men.  The first of these women is Cherrie Mae Devine a sixty-two year old housecleaner.  While cleaning the mayor’s house she finds a ring in his possession- a ring that was being worn by the last murder victim the day she was killed.  The second person is Tully Phillips, seven months pregnant, who suspects her husband to be the killer after he arrives home from work late the night of the murder.  The last of these women is Deena Ruckland an independent, thirty-two year old hair dresser who believes the murderer to be her mentally challenged brother Stevie who showed up at her house the night of the murder covered in a substance that eerily resembled blood.

On a whole I found this book fast paced and had it finished the day after starting reading it.  I was kept at the edge of my seat the entire time not knowing who to believe the murderer was.  The one issue I did have with this book, though, is that I did not like how much divorce was in it.  I just wished they could have worked through things.

My thanks go to The Book Club Network, Inc. for providing me with a copy for an honest review.  The opinions are my own.

Reviewed by Nicki

Review: Love is Something You Do by Sherry & Bobby Burnette

Love is Something You Do

Love Is Something You Do by Sherry and Bobby Burnette was not just an inspiring read, but an awe inspiring read. The true story of the life of the Burnettes as they rise above their troubled childhoods to help children in Haiti- the land of voodoo, cruel dictatorships, and extreme poverty. It’s the perfect setting to show sacrificial love and watch as God’s power surmount impossible odds around you and through you.  The Burnettes learn this first hand as they survive zombies, bombings, and even an earthquake and watch as every hardship they face becomes a miracle story and every victim they face meet become an opportunity to show love. Because love isn’t something you say- it’s something you do. And it’s something you do because Christ first loved you.

My thanks go to The Book Club Network, Inc. for providing me with a copy for an honest review.  The opinions are my own.

Reviewed by Jes

Review: The Ringmaster's Wife by Kristy Cambron

About the book:

The Ringmaster's Wife (Thomas Nelson, June 2016)

An ounce of courage. A split-second leap of faith. Together, they propel two young women to chase a new life---one that's reimagined from what they might have become.

In turn-of-the-century America, a young girl dreams of a world that stretches beyond the confines of a quiet life on the family farm. With little more than her wit and a cigar box of treasures to call her own, Mable steps away from all she knows, seeking the limitless marvels of the Chicago World's Fair. There, a chance encounter triggers her destiny---a life with a famed showman by the name of John Ringling.

A quarter of a century later, Lady Rosamund Easling of Yorkshire, England, boards a ship to America as a last adventure before her life is planned out for her. There, the twenties are roaring, and the rich and famous gather at opulent, Gatsby-esque parties in the grandest ballrooms the country has to offer. The Jazz Age has arrived, and with it, the golden era of the American circus, whose queen is none other than the enigmatic Mable Ringling.

When Rosamund's path crosses with Mable's and the Ringlings' glittering world, she makes the life-altering decision to leave behind a comfortable future of estates and propriety, instead choosing the nomadic life of a trick rider in the Ringling Brothers' circus.

A novel that is at once captivating, deeply poignant, and swirling with exquisite historical details of a bygone world, The Ringmaster's Wife will escort readers into the center ring, with its bright lights, exotic animals, and a dazzling performance that can only be described as the greatest show on earth!

Purchase a copy: http://bit.ly/28JxcaK

My Review:

The Ringmaster’s Wife by Kristy Cambron is my first read by her and I am impressed.  This story follows two characters, one fictional and one real life and gives us their viewpoints of a time in American’s history that featured the very popular circus.  The Ringling Bros. circus to be exact and we are treated to a fictional account of how Mabel Ringling met her husband John Ringling and the early events that could have shaped her life.  This story is sprinkled throughout with mentions of famous people and the accomplishments and gifts the Ringling’s gave to society. 

Lady Rosamund Easling is running from a life that might have appeared as a  privileged young lady on the outside, but she is hoping to escape her parents goal of marrying her off to the highest bidder.  She escapes England with her beloved horse with the help of Colin Keary the head manager of the circus.  He sees a talent in her that he believes will make her the next big star.  Rosamund is unsure of herself, wracked with self-doubt, and outside pressures to quit- till she meets Mabel Ringling. 

The main parts of the story take place over a period of a few years with flashbacks throughout giving us a much bigger picture.  This story is filled with the life of a circus performer, animals, jealousy, secret love, danger and a message about forgiving yourself and embracing the life God has given to you.  To paraphrase Rose; we all are broken. 

I highly recommend this read as I was swept back into an entertainment life that though I would not want to live it, it might have been fun to be a part of it for a while.  I received a copy of this book through Litfuse Publicity and the opinions are my own honest ones. 

About the author:  

Kristy Cambron fancies life as a vintage-inspired storyteller. Her second novel, A Sparrow in Terezin, was named Library Journal Reviews' "Pick of the Month (Christian Fiction)" for February 2015.

Cambron is an art/design manager at TheGROVEstory.com storytelling ministry. She holds a degree in art history from Indiana University and has nearly 15 years of experience in instructional design and communications for a Fortune-100 company. She lives in Indiana with her husband and three football-loving sons, where she can probably be bribed with a coconut mocha latte and a good Christian fiction read.

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What others are saying:  http://litfusegroup.com/author/kcambron