Book Review: Longing by: Karen Kingsbury

What a wonderful addition to the Bailey Flanigan series!   Longing is the third book in a four-part series.  I have enjoyed following Bailey as she fulfills her dreams of working on Broadway and sharing her faith with her coworkers!  As she works through her feelings for her first love, Cody, and her current boyfriend, Brandon Paul, we are able to see how she looks to God and trusts that he knows what is best for her in this stage of life.  

I know that many people really wanted her to be with Cody in the end, but I love how her mother has instilled in her that she need not to settle for just anyone, and that the right guy will "pursue her like a dying man in the desert looking for water!"  This book has several twists that you won't expect after reading the first two books in the series.  I loved it!  :)

Bailey's dreams on Broadway come to an end, and she is at peace with that.  Will she follow Brandon to L.A. or stay in Bloomington to be with Cody?  I won't reveal any more so that you will read the book for yourself to see what happens!  I can't wait to get the fourth and final book, Loving, which was released on March 27, 2012!  

Karen Kingsbury has such a gift with words, and I have been truly blessed by each one of her books that I have read!  This complimentary copy was given to me by Zondervan to read and review.  All opinions of this book are my own.  I hope that you enjoy it as much as I did!  :)

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Book Review: Smitten by Colleen Coble

If you are looking for a good, clean romance novel, then Smitten is the book for you!  This book was written by four different authors:  Colleen Coble, Kristein Billerbeck, Diann Hunt, and Denise Hunter.   Dividing the book up into four interwoven short-stories, each author focuses on one of the four main characters in the story and tells their section from that point of view.

In the book, the four main characters are best friends.  Natalie, Julia, Shelby, and Reese are four women who embark on a journey to save their small town of Smitten, Vermont.  When the mill, the main industry in the town, shuts down, these four women bond together to try to turn it into the a tourist attraction and the "romance capital of the world."  They each have their own ideas to make it work from a spa and romantic cabins to sweet shops and music being played in the streets of this quaint little town.

I thought this book was a little bit hard to get into at first.  It was very predictable throughout the whole story plot.  I did like that it was clean and fun Christian fiction, though!  I had read books by Kristin Billerbeck and love her as an author, so I was excited to read another one by her.  Although this wasn't a book that I "just couldn't put down", I would recommend it as a good read.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from BookSneeze and Thomas Nelson to read and review.  All opinions of this book are my own.