Book: Jilted

Lynda Turner has struggled with depression since her husband abandoned her and their young daughter fifteen years ago.

Yet unexpected hope awakens when a local ex-convict shows interest. As long-hidden secrets resurface, Lynda must fight for her emotional stability and for a life where the shadow of shame is replaced by the light of love.

Jilted tells of a woman who has lost the joy of living, a man determined to draw her back toward happiness, and a town that must---once and for all---leave the past where it belongs. It is a gentle reminder that all things can work together for good.

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This book is the third in a series and I highly recommend reading them in order.  There is some more back story added in this one, but you really need to read the first two to understand it best.  See my review of book one and the summary of book two also on this blog.

Wow, Varina Denman is on my very short list of "authors I will always read".  I am so impressed by the quality of her story telling and the way she makes the characters true to life in all their struggles and triumphs.  

I'm really glad that all the pieces of this three part story were covered at the end.  That's not to say that it all had a happy ending, but at least you weren't left hanging!  

Lynda's story is told in the first book through her daughter's Ruthie's eyes, but you don't really get to know Lynda at all until this book.  I found it fascinating how my perspective changed while reading this story, even throughout the book.

We have a lot of giant windmills near us and I also have long been a big fan of Don Quixote so it was fun to see the part they played in this story.  The cover photo is superb choice for this book.

How to even summarize the story without giving any of it away... Lynda has a lot of choices to make.  Choices in how she reacts to life and things that have happened to her many years ago.  Choices in how she reacts to people currently in her life.  It makes you realize that while you can't control others and what they do or say, you do have a choice in what you do and how you react.  And in many ways that can affect them for good or bad and the cycle goes on.  

That is not to say that those choices are easy, far from it, but making good choices is so important.  Isn't that a life lesson we all want our kids to learn?  Maybe we still need it when we're older, just in different ways.

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Purchase your own copy and read other reviews.  And don't forget to enter the giveaway!

Varina Denman is author of the Mended Hearts series and a native Texan. She spent her high school years in a rural town and now writes stories about the struggles women face in similar small town settings. She and her husband live near Fort Worth, where they enjoy spending time with their five mostly grown children.

I received this book from LitFuse Publicity in exchange for my fair and honest review.

It's The End of the (School) Year As We Know It...

And we feel fine!  Or at least most of us do.  Summer is in some ways a bit crazier with no schedules!

Cory got to go on a cool end of year field trip to our local museum where they learned about the Native Americans that first lived in this area.  His creature above is supposed to be an owl I think.  Then they went canoeing!

Two weeks ago his class put on a play.  It was a story about a boy who wanted to bake a cake for the princess' birthday, but along the way he ran into many troubles so that by the time he got to the castle all he had left was a juicy strawberry, but a guard stopped him because the princess was allergic to strawberries.  So he was very sad and told the princess he was sorry that he didn't have anything to give her, but after he told her the story of his adventures she declared it the best gift ever because it entertained her when all the other presents had been the same typical gold and gems. 

Cory was a narrator and the kid on the left was the main character.  Then there were another group of students on the left that were a chorus of sorts.  They had created hand drawn backdrops and when the scene changed they took one down off the white board with more underneath.  It was about 15 minutes long and pretty impressive for 3rd grade!

Last week was Noah's end of the year presentation at his school.  After the tragedy of how the school year started we have been so amazingly blessed by his school.  It's been a perfect fit and we will miss it when he goes off to public school for first grade with his brother next year.

Their project for the last quarter of the year was all about honey bees and why they are in decline.  Noah's poster talks about the different kinds of bees (worker, drone, queen) and he made a bee out of clay.

The class together put on a presentation about what things are affecting the honey bee populations.

This is Noah and his friend's dramatization of the bees dying after they come to a tree that's been sprayed with insecticides.  Note the yellow bees already dead on the floor at their feet.

It was very cute, but also really great to see kids at such a young age involved and asking questions that even scientists aren't able to fully answer yet.

And now I have a newly minted 4th and 1st grader in the house, plus two girls ready to start preschool in the fall.  The baby stage is well and fully behind me!

On Weekends with Friends in Idaho

You know you're a parent when you spend a weekend with friends and out of 100 photos you end up with 2 that have any adults in them!  Sorry friends, but at least our kids are cute!

After I got over my fear of the girls being outside with no fences or boundaries (and they kind of learned where to stay) they had a blast.  So nice to have fun things in the neighbors yard that you are allowed to play on!

Boys building things...

They have a really cool dirt bike track at the park in town, right near the playground and the neighbor also loaned us bikes for the boys.

The lake on the way home.  I could live with a view like this often!

The girls also spent as much time as possible driving this jeep around... heaven help me in 12 years!

As mentioned, what happens when you get two dads together who love science and nerdy things?

Dry ice of course!

 

with soap.

 And then we went to Silverwood on Memorial Day and the weather was perfect!

And we didn't lose anyone for more than a minute and we all had fun... except when we were scared of the rides!

The girls first ever real rides!  They loved the airplane!

Not so much this frog hopper which I made them watch our friends go on first and they still wanted to ride... I didn't take a picture after they started screaming when it was falling and bouncing!

Two 9 year olds, an 8 year old, two 6 year olds, and two 4 year olds.  Wheee!

 Brian went on this Panic Plunge three times and the last time their girls went with him!  The younger one was not so happy with her choice!

In the meantime I took Cory on the Sky Rider and he would have been okay, but they put us on, took us to the top and stopped for another car to load and he freaked out over the height.  Bummer.

Noah also got his freak out moment earlier when Brian took him and Cory on the wooden roller coaster and it was a bit much for him!

Then we rode the 101 year old train, more everyone's speed.

The last time I was at Silverwood this train was the ONLY ride they had here!

Official train robbery in progress!

I remembered it being a bit more "authentic", but perhaps that's my 7ish year old memory, although the kids sure weren't scared this time either.

They said they would "blow up" the train because we all had pictures of them, but their "dynamite" fell into the well and just blew water all over the train instead.

Through the "fairy woods" it really was a nice train ride.

Then promised dessert, what a motley crew!

When you are six and eat caramel apples...

We have made this visit twice and hopefully we can make it more of an annual event.  We miss our friends and the kids get along so well.  Thanks for being such great hosts!