Wind over Marshdale by Tracy Krauss

Krauss, Tracy. Wind over Marshdale. Astraea Press (http://www.astraeapress.com/).  June 11, 2012. ISBN: 978-1-62135-041-5 ASIN: B008ARYQPA 556KB List Price: $2.99 Christian Romance, Suspense. Jorja’s Rating: PG-occult theme, mild sex scenes.

Rachel Bosworth arrives to teach kindergarten in the small town of Marshdale, Saskatchewan. Thomas Lone Wolf and Con McKinley both begin to court her. Her landlady, Mrs. Beatry, the town gossip and quickly fills Rachel in on all she knows about the two and everyone else in town.

Thomas Lone Wolf came to Marshdale to pave the way for the cultural interpretation center. The center will house the archaeological finds from Old Man Lake nearby. Thomas is the great-grandson of the last powerful Cree medicine man who enters Thomas’s dreams of buffalo stampedes. He set aside his Cree spiritual legacy to live as a Christian. Even so, this widower and his children experience discrimination and resentment at every turn.

Con suddenly finds himself struggling with his own beliefs and values. He becomes Thomas’s advocate and only friend, not knowing that Rachel is dating them both. He falls deeper and deeper in love with Rachel, but part of him knows he cannot marry her until she embraces Christ as her Lord and Savior

Evil seems to be in the wind. The biggest opponent to the cultural center is the extreme fundamentalist zealot whose twin sister is a witch who, for her own reasons, is stirring up the demons in Thomas Lone Wolf’s history; and capitalizing on the darkness resident among the townspeople. It seems everyone in town, even the pastor at one of the churches, is fighting evil in one form or another.

Rachel finds herself “caught in the crossfire” and terribly confused. She is in love with two men. She does not understand Con’s beliefs or Thomas’s fears. Her landlady seems to know something unwholesome about everyone.

Krauss has written a twisted web of deceit and romantic suspense, a great beach-read or an avenue of escape during the upcoming holidays. The wind over Marshdale blows both hot and cold. This is Krauss’s fourth novel. She has also written several stage plays. Until she has the flexibility to write full-time, she is a high school teacher of art, drama and English.

I received a complimentary Kindle copy of this book from the author for my unbiased opinion.

Dan Walsh. The Reunion. PG-Violence

Walsh, Dan. The Reunion. Grand Rapids: Revell, 9/1/2012

“Some who seem least important now will be the greatest then and some who are the greatest now will be least important then.” Luke 13:20

 

Everything lost can be found.

Aaron Miller is a veteran of the Viet Nam War. Like many, he returned broken in body and soul. He got off the pain drugs and drink and made Jesus his Savior and Lord, but by then, he lost jobs, self-respect, and his family.

Now he lives in the shed along with his tools and workbench. He is a handyman at a trailer park. The only things holding value are a box he had not opened in years and framed Polaroid picture of his children he had received the Christmas before he came home from Nam.

Quietly he cares for the trailers and hearts of other broken people. There was Heather in Lot 31, a seventeen-year-old runaway pregnant by her abusive boyfriend. Moe’s elderly widow, who does not want to leave the last place they lived together. Billy the wheelchair bound Viet Nam vet who hid his pistol before he answered Aaron’s knocking at his door.

What he does not know is three vets have hired David Russo to find him. Russo is a newspaper reporter who is writing a book about heroes of the Viet Nam. He leaves Texas knowing only Aaron’s name.

Once again Dan Walsh weaves stories within stories, rich with characters his readers will not soon forget. There is romance, intrigue, tension, mystery, and God, who believes everyone deserves a second chance.

Another heartwarming book by a stellar writer, this book will linger in your mind and continue to warm your heart long after you give it to a friend.

Dan Walsh honors all unsung heroes and all veterans, especially those of the Viet Nam War, who keep on giving because it is the right thing to do.

Roman Legions, Followers of the Christos, The Destruction of the Temple

Hanegraaff, Hank and Sigmund Brouwer. The Last Temple (The Last Disciple Book 3). Carol Stream, Illinois: Tyndale House, 7/20/2012. (PG13-V)

Gallus Sergius Vitas was a renowned general of the Roman army; a former member of the inner circle of Nero, the Roman Emperor. Vitas finds himself in Caesarea posing as his brother Damian’s slave and daily mourning the death of his wife Sophia. Damian convinces Vitas there is no harm in carrying the scheme a step further. Vitas  is sold into the household of the fiscal procurator of Judea where he can spy on the domestic situation in Helva’s home. He should have known better. Damian leaves for Jerusalem to find his friend and former gladiator, Maglorius.

Vitas, assigned to protect Helva’s wife Dolabella with three other slaves, is vigilant as they pass through the market place to see the governor. A trumpet sounds three times. Dolabella stops. Vitas, now Novella, finds himself drawn into a dispute over dishes, becomes distracted. Suddenly, burning camels appear lumbering through the marketplace followed by assassins focused on Helva.

Vitas is once again rescued, this time from crucifixion as he is dying. He has in his hands a piece of a letter written by the last living disciple of the Christos. Many of the prophesies John has cryptically written in Hebrew, have already come to pass. Jerusalem will fall to Rome?  Jerusalem totally destroyed by fire? Not one stone of the Temple left upon another?

Hank  Hanegraaff

Hank  Hanegraaff, The Bible Answer Man, and now president of the  Christian Research Institute the conservative Protestant counter-cult and apologetic ministry,* and Sigmund Brouwer, bestselling author of more than forty novels, join together to use the Disciple John’s Book of Revelation to describe the last days of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem.

Sigmund Brouwer

Although The Last Temple is the third in The Last Disciple Trilogy, it can be read as a stand-alone novel. Hanegraaff and Brouwer have tied the events of the first two novels like mystery writers salt their books with clues. There are no long reviews of previous plots. They only provide enough of a hint of the characters’ positions and  past events through short flashbacks or dialogue that this story makes sense.

The deft use of sights, sounds, and smells places the readers in Caesarea and Jerusalem between the years A.D. 67 to the fall of the Temple in August of A.D. 70. They take the time to share the motivations, inner flaws, and revealing traits of the characters, credibly revealed through descriptions and dialogues. The authors are careful not to overload the book with the obstacles and complications of the earlier novels except as they apply to the tensions, conflicts and development of the plot of this novel.

While Vitas seems to lead a charmed life, his story creates a platform for the historical events to play themselves out. Current novels and non-fiction similarly focus on the end of the world, the Mayan apocalypse of December 12, 2012.  The end time prophecies of the Bible seem to support this approaching date. 

Instead, the authors have chosen to provide the prophecies of the end times to explain the years leading up to the Roman Army’s crushing defeat of the Jews and the Roman General’s move into the political theater of Rome. The book is well-researched and deftly written.

*Hank Hanegraaff - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hank_Hanegraaff (accessed September 5, 2012).

An Interview with C. Kevin Thompson

C. Kevin Thompson
The Serpent's Grasp
2012 Oak Tara Publishers

Q: What truth matters the most?
A: John 18:37. Jesus said He was the Way, the Truth and the Life (John 14:6), but He also said in John 18 everyone who know the truth listens to Him. That is the most important truth of all to me, for with out Jesus what other truth really matters?

Q: Did you write The Serpent's Grasp and then choose Romans 1:25 as the basis for the novel, or was it the other way around? How is this scripture important to the understanding of the double-entendre of
the book's title?
A: Romans came first. It was always in the forefront as I wrote the novel. Paul speaks of people who worship created things rather than the Creator. Evolution has promoted that very well, to the point that man is the ultimate created thing to be worshiped. The ancient serpent, the devil (Rev. 12:9) has been at the helm of this plot.  Evolutionists look and look for the missing link so when they find it, they can say we are now complete. We can now evolve, too. But, in reality, the only place for mankind to evolve is spiritually. Hence, in the novel, Dr. Harry Landover's conclusion that the missing link is actually God. If evolutionists would realize the spiritual component they so deeply desire to find is found in God, they could stop searching and start living.

Q: In your introduction you include quotes on evolution and paleontology from great thinkers of the 19th and 10th Centuries. Why did you choose these particular quotes?
A: These quotes showed how mankind has come to view creation. Bertrand Russell saw how the glorification of mankind had taken on a whole new dimension with evolution. But he saw it would take some time for the belief to be ingrained into the psyche of our cultures. He was right. It took about 150 years. Steven J. Gould was talking about Christianity and all other belief systems so dogmatic in their world view they are not open to new thought. He saw these systems as restraining and harmful to what evolutionists were trying to do. Max Planck was just being honest. If you keep serving up the sugar water eventually people will just drink it without thinking about it. Evolution is a theory, but you never hear it mentioned as a theory anymore. Everyone talks in evolutionary terms accepted as scientific fact although it has never been proven. Our entire biological, chemical and physical views of how the world and the universe works is predicated on that belief.

Q: Which of your characters do you see as being in the "serpent's grasp"?
A: The antagonist, Anthony Fontaine, for sure. He's the fanatic. Think of him as the abortion clinic bomber of Evolution. Eric Gilliam is the poster child for evolution. He truly believes in survival of the fittest and natural selection, assimilate or annihilate. As for other characters like Antonella, Schmidt, Kensington, they are along for the ride for profit's sake. They believe in evolution, but only because it suits their purposes.

Q: What is the one thing you would like to leave your readers pondering?
A: How much of the evolutionary framework and verbiage have you adopted and aren't even aware of? How has it affected your faith?

Q: What can you tell us about your next project?
A: 30 Days Hath Revenge, an international thriller, is based in Jeremiah 7and 8 with Jeremiah 8:15 as the focal verse. The entire six-book series covers the span of thirty days. I hope this novel will cause readers to question the alliances, allegiances, and allies. It may even cause them to not want to open their mail, step out of their houses or send their children to school. It is due out this Fall (2012).