An Indian Mail Order Bride by Florence Livington

Wicapawakan’s father promised her as a wife to another indian on their reservation. Unfortunately, her father doesn’t believe the stories told about the man’s violent nature and believes he would never harm his daughter. But he’s wrong. Wicapawakan chooses to escape this arranged marriage and runs away in the middle of the night, keeping moving from one place to another, never staying anywhere for too long. She places an advertisement in the Matrimonial Times hoping to find a safe haven where even if her would-be husband finds her, she will already be married to someone else and will be safe.

Harve, the man who responds to her letter and offers to marry her, doesn’t realize that he was writing to an Indian woman, and while he wants to help protect her, he knows that his extended family are unlikely to accept a marriage to a native american woman. They were expecting him to choose a woman of high social standing to be his wife. And a native american woman does not, in his mother’s eyes, meet that standard.

I read a review copy of this interesting mail order bride novel. I enjoyed the story, as I have all of Ms. Linnington’s other books. This one had some interesting twists and turns, most of them I expected, though there were some surprises. One of the themes in this book seems to be how if someone looks different than you, then you shouldn’t be with that person. And though this seems to be how the two main characters were raised to believe, as they get to know each other, they come to realize that while there are differences between them, as there are between any two people, those differences did not make either of them better or worse than the other. And of course, another theme seems to be that in the end, love conquers all.

And as always, you can expect that no matter the difficulties the characters face, there will be a happy ending for the characters. If you enjoy sweet romances with some inherent difficulties, mail order bride stories, any of Ms. Linnington’s other books, then you will likely enjoy this book as well.

Amazon requires me to state that I have an Amazon Associates account that I use to generate the links to the books on their website. Purchasing something after following those links will earn a few pennies for me off the sale, though as of yet I have not earned anything from my Amazon Associate links.

"Quinn's Faith" by Diane Garner

Quinn and Ajax have had difficult lives. Quinn nearly died in a car accident one winter, but was saved from drowning in a car she couldn’t escape from by the Angel Michael. Ajax grew up with his father in another town. His father was involved in criminal activities and trying to raise his son to follow in his footsteps. But Ajax does not want to be a criminal or to hurt others, and so he does what he can to escape the life his father had planned for him. It won’t be easy, but he is determined to stay out of that lifestyle.

Quinn and Ajax knew each other as small children, but hadn’t seen each other for many years. Now that he is back in town they have a chance to get to know each other once again. There is just one rather large problem.... A demon is after Ajax’ soul, and now is tormenting Quinn as well. Can they be Saved? Free Will prevents the Angel Michael from actively interfering in what they choose to do, though he does what he can to help. The outcome of this battle between Heaven and Hell for their souls depends on a choice Quinn must make. Is she strong enough to save them both from Hell?

While the story itself was interesting, I had a number of problems with this book. The first half had a few typos, but not too many and the editing wasn’t bad, but the farther I got into the book, the more typos and other errors I started to run into. There were portions of the book where some text had been moved and appeared elsewhere in the book where it clearly didn’t belong. It made parts of the story more than a little confusing and difficult to understand what was supposed to be happening.

Quite often I also ran into spots where either spaces were left out (causing words to run into each other) or where extra spaces were added in where they didn’t belong (causing breaks in the middle of words.) I saw far more typos in the second half of the book than in the beginning. It was as if the editor quit partway through the book. It’s too bad, as I was enjoying the story and more than a little interested in seeing how it would end. I did finish the book, but it would have been much easier to read and far more enjoyable for me had the author done a better job with the editing. I do hope that she will hire someone who can spend some time and fix the problems I ran into in this book so that others may enjoy it without all the problems I encountered. As I said above, the story itself was interesting but the book needs some work before it can be truly enjoyable.

"The Waystation: 'Cause Dead's Not Really Dead" by Laurie Jameson

First of all, I want to start off by letting you know that the author of this book contacted me and asked if I would read and review her book. In exchange for doing so, she provided me with a free digital copy of “The Waystation.”

I’m not normally all that fond of highly spiritual books, but I did really enjoy this one. While there are a great deal of religious overtones to the story, these aspects are presented in a way that those who are not highly religious will still enjoy the tale the author has woven.

The Waystation in the story is a resting spot part-way between death and a person’s final destination. Some who arrive are taken from the Waystation directly to their reward; some remain for a time, helping to run the Waystation and to provide comfort and refreshment for those passing through; and as expected, some are on a journey that none would enjoy.

Be warned, there is some violence in this book. Some of the characters are drug dealers, others are drug users/addicts, and some are in relationships with them. It is not a constant aspect of the story, but in this case, it is a necessary part and to have left it out would have done a disservice to the tale as a whole.

After an initial description of the Waystation and it’s current caretakers, we are dropped into the story of Cara, Tony, Rachel, & Marco. While each also has their own tale, these four have very intertwined stories throughout the book.

Tony is Cara’s boyfriend. He sells meth for Marco and has also begun taking steroids to help him “bulk up.” Unfortunately for Cara, the combination of the drugs and steroids makes him often quite unstable. When he loses his temper, he takes it out on her. Cara asks Rachel to talk to Marco (Tony’s supplier) in the hopes that Marco can calm him down. Unfortunately, this backfires and Rachel blames herself for what happens next.

The stories are all very intertwined, both before any of their deaths and through to what happens when they arrive at The Waystation and each begins the next portion of their journey. We also learn the tales of those who have been the caretakers at the Waystation for a while. As with my other reviews, I don’t want to go into more detail here because I believe you will enjoy reading those tales yourselves.

I did run across a few issues with typos while I was reading, but only a few and not enough to spoil my enjoyment of the book. As you have probably guessed, I do not read a lot of religious themed books, though I did really enjoy reading this one. Too often such tales leave me feeling that the author was trying to beat me over the head with a religious theme, but I didn’t feel that way reading this book. While there is often a very religious theme within, it is so greatly intertwined with a well-written story that I enjoyed it. I would recommend giving this book a try, as the story it told had me hooked enough that I have already recommended it to several of my friends.