Mine Is the Night by Liz Curtis Higgs - Book Review

Mine Is the Night by Liz Curtis Higgs

Published by Waterbrook Press (March 2011)

Listened to on downloaded audio version through www.audible.com

Reviewed by Carrie Fancett Pagels

I did not listen to the first book in this series but I didn’t have any difficulty following the story thread in this stand-alone book.  The narrator was first rate and seemed to TRULY  know the story and the author’s intent because it was none other than LIZ CURTIS HIGGS HERSELF!!!  I sent her a Facebook message afterwards  because I could not believe it really was her.  But as a long time radio personality that was probably easy for her.  And her passion for the story comes through in the narration.  To me this is the best way to get her stories, if possible because it is SO RARE to have an author do that – to narrate.

 

And this Naomi-Ruth inspired story (Lady Elisabeth Kerr and Dowager Lady Marjory Kerr) does a fantastic job of examining the relationship between mother (in this case mother-in-law) and daughter.  It is obvious that Liz understands the give and take between adult child and parent.  I was awestruck and I practiced as a psychologist for twenty-five years, so that comment does not come lightly. 

The love story was wonderful and because it was based on Boaz, I was glad to know I was not going to have some literary device where the great hero is yanked from the pages and the heroine is left with someone else.  So while there was a lot of tension I could also relax into the read/listen a little. 

The romance between mother-in-law (Marjory) and another character (won't spoil it for the reader!) was amazingly well done.  I loved how we had a mature couple with genuine affection and respect and they develop these passionate feelings for each other and (well, read the book to find out what happens!)  I get tired of the twenty-somethings having all the fun!  Great example of how God can give us another chance even if the first part of our life was not so stellar.

Liz’s description of Scotland and the people were so vivid, it was as though I was there. It is set in the mid-18th century after the Jacobite rebellion.  Liz has 950 books on Scotland!!!  Astounding!  All that research pays off for the reader.

 

I highly recommend Mine Is the Night and plan to listen to my version again and again.  It belongs on the shelf (or Kindle, or audio download) of every Christian historical fiction reader. 

Giveaway:  Leave a comment for a chance to win a copy of one of Liz’s books (your choice). 

Review of Liz Curtis Higgs' Latest Series by Laura Frantz

Laura Frantz and Liz Curtis Higgs at the ACFW Conference

Review 
by
Laura Frantz
















Many authors can tell a good story. Few tell it beautifully. Liz Curtis Higgs does both. With her poignant prose, she is able to plumb the depths of the human heart in unforgettable ways. Every time I hold one of her books in hand, I feel like I’m the guest of honor at a wonderful literary feast. I encourage you to fall back in time to 18^th-century Scotland amongst steaming cups of tea, silken dresses, misty weather, and the wynds and closes of 1745 Edinburgh. You won’t want to leave!

Liz’s novels are truly unique in that she takes well known Bible stories and sets them in Scotland of old. Each is so rich and deep the reader is tempted to think they’re penned by a Scottish lassJ. Thanks to her extensive research, numerous trips to Scotland, and a library brimming with Scottish books, you can expect an authentic reading experience. Prepare to be lost in those pages and feel absolutely bereft when you’re through! Her latest Scottish series begins with the retelling of the book of Ruth.

In Here Burns My Candle. (Waterbrook Press, 2010 - available on audio as well as paperback and ebook formats), you have all the characters you can expect – Ruth, Naomi, Boaz, and more – only with new names such as Lady Marjory Kerr, Elisabeth, Donald, and Lord Jack. The story opens on a black Scottish night in 1745 as Bonnie Prince Charlie and his rebel army ride into Edinburgh. The author does a beautiful job setting the stage for the conflict to come when Lady Marjory and her beloved daughters-in-law lose all they hold dear. Fascinating secondary characters surface and weave the plot in unexpected ways, leaving you guessing (and nearly gasping!) till the last page. And just when you think you can’t stand any more heartache and loss, hope springs eternal in the sequel…

            In Mine is the Night, readers are transported to the Highlands where Lady Kerr and her loving daughter-in-law, Elisabeth, come to live in near poverty close to the estate of Jack Buchanan. Be still my heart! Lord Jack is fresh from the Royal Navy and is a hero that even Boaz would be proud of! He comes into the ladies’ lives in such a tender, steadfast way. Not only do we have his and Elisabeth’s love story but the love stories of two other couples as well. Add a charming child, an aristocratic cat, and a to-die-for estate and you have more than a happy ending!

            I’m always moved by how richly Liz tells a story and how satisfying is the ending. Both books are absolutely joyous reads, with living, breathing characters and spiritual truths that stay with you long after the last page.

            I rarely write reviews and feel this doesn’t even skim the surface of all these books convey – beauty, truth, hope, struggle, God’s everlasting love and redemption, and much more. Kudos to you readers who post reviews regularly. I’ve decided writing a book review is harder than writing a bookJ!

I hope you make time for Liz’s beautiful novels. If you’ve read any of her historicals, I’d love to know which ones, and if you have a favorite. I must confess Here Burns My Candle and Mine is the Night are my top two. I can hardly wait to see what she writes next.

A heartfelt thank you to Carrie for asking me to write this review.

Bless you, Liz Curtis Higgs, for blessing us!


Readers: Leave a comment for a chance to win a copy of one of Liz's books, your choice of format.

Interview with Liz Curtis Higgs

Liz Curtis Higgs is the New York Times best-selling author of Mine Is the Night, along with five other Scottish historical novels: Thorn in My Heart, Fair Is the Rose, Whence Came a Prince, Grace in Thine Eyes, and Here Burns My Candle.

I met Liz Curtis Higgs through ACFW and HisWriters (those who have either published or planned works with European characters. ) And I was so pleased to have met her in person at the ACFW Conference in St. Louis recently.  And I even have proof!!!  Thanks to Laura Frantz!  

Liz Curtis Higgs, welcome to Overcoming Through Time. 

Would you share either the most difficult thing in your life you have had to overcome, with God’s help, or the most tragic situation or circumstance one of your character’s has had to get past?

In my fourth historical novel, Grace in Thine Eyes, set in Scotland 1808, Davina McKie is based on Dinah from Genesis 34. When I did the biblical research before plotting my novel—a detailed process involving fourteen translations of Scripture and forty commentaries—I realized that Dinah has no spoken words recorded in Genesis, nor do we see or hear the story from her viewpoint. So, by God’s leading, I took a leap of faith and made my heroine mute: Davina’s literal silence through laryngeal trauma echoes the figurative silence of her biblical counterpart.

This meant finding other ways for her to communicate. Over the years Davina created her own language, using her hands and facial expressions. She also wrote in the margins of a sketchbook that was seldom out of reach, and played her grandfather’s fiddle, revealing the depth of her emotions through music.

Alas, her disability hinders her from crying out for help when disaster strikes, as we read in Genesis 34:2: “And when Shechem the son of Hamor the Hivite, prince of the country, saw her, he took her, and lay with her, and defiled her.” The stark succession of Hebrew verbs paints a clear picture of the tragic scene. Unfortunately, I had a similar experience when I was sixteen and so had a deep well of emotions to draw from. Painful as it was to write those scenes, it was also very healing to trace Davina’s difficult journey from heartache to forgiveness to peace. I also created a Bible Study Guide for Grace in Thine Eyes to help readers grasp the power of the biblical story: http://www.lizcurtishiggs.com/Fiction/graceguides/bguide.htm

What is your favorite bible verse and why?

It’s very hard to pick just one! Though I love Romans 5:8, Psalm 16:11, and 1 Timothy 1:15-16, the first verse I memorized when I embraced the grace of God is still very dear to my heart: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” (2 Corinthians 5:17). It beautifully describes the transformation that occurs when God, who created us in his image, recreates us, as 2 Corinthians 3:18 describes: “And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.” An amazing, encouraging truth!

Disability friendliness:

These books are available in audiobook format: Here Burns My Candle, Mine Is the Night, Thorn in my Heart, 

Ebook format: Thorn in My Heart, Fair Is the Rose, Whence Came a Prince, Grace in Thine Eyes, Here Burns My Candle, Mine Is the Night

Large print: Thorn in My Heart, Here Burns My Candle, Mine Is the Night

(Thank you – we offer this information to our readers with difficulty reading books in regular print format.)

What has been the most important thing you hope your readers will get from your books and why?

Your question includes my one-word answer: hope! Whatever they’re going through, I want my readers to know God created them, God believes in them, God has plans for them, and God loves them. Above all I pray his message of loving-kindness, mercy, and forgiveness will shine through my stories. Grace is his gift to us, meant to be shared.

As you researched your books, did you learn anything that particularly touched your heart?

My first historical, Thorn in My Heart, and the series that followed came into being because of this brief passage of Scripture and all that it encompassed: “When the Lord saw that Leah was not loved...” (Genesis 29:31). The first time I read those words, tears welled in my eyes. What must it have been like, I wondered, for Leah to love her husband, Jacob, knowing he loved her sister, Rachel, instead? That simple question took three novels to answer!

In this latest work, do you have any topics useful for bibliotherapy, or therapeutic influence through reading about a disorder or situation?

Here Burns My Candle and Mine Is the Night are a two-book saga inspired by the biblical story of Ruth. The name of Ruth’s first husband, Mahlon, means “weakness” and “infertility.” Though I could have made his Scottish counterpart, Lord Donald Kerr, physically weak, I thought it would serve the story better to make him morally weak. His chronic unfaithfulness to his wife stands in complete contrast to Elisabeth Kerr’s constant faithfulness to him and to her mother-in-law, Marjory Kerr.

Once again, my heroine’s journey toward forgiveness invites readers to examine their own relationships. I heard from many readers who’ve struggled with adulterous husbands and had to seek God’s strength again and again. As I ask in the Readers Guide at the end of Here Burns My Candle, “If you were in Elisabeth’s place, faced with a loved one’s request to ‘Forgive me…for all of it,’ how might you respond?” Christian fiction does more than let us climb inside the lives of imaginary people; it also helps us examine our own hearts, shining a light in the darker corners, so God’s healing grace can sweep away the debris and make us whole.

Thank you Liz Curtis Higgs for agreeing to answer these questions.  Have a blessed day and keep on writing!

Oh, it’s my JOY to do so! Should you care to include this, I love to keep in touch with readers. Here’s how:

Website: www.LizCurtisHiggs.com 

Facebook Page: http://www.facebook.com/lizcurtishiggs

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/lizcurtishiggs

Free e-newsletter, Encouragement to Go! http://www.lizcurtishiggs.com/tlh/nlform.htm

Giveaway:  Leave a comment for a chance to win a copy of one of Liz’s books (your choice). 

Friend on Friday

The Colonel's Lady


by Laura Frantz


Published by Revell 2011

A review by Debra E. Marvin

Thank you, Carrie, for the opportunity to share my thoughts with your readers.

The Colonel’s Lady, Laura Frantz’s third novel, brings us back to the colonial frontier where we lingered with The Frontiersman’s Daughter and Courting Morrow Little.

Should I give you some hints to the story as any decent reviewer would? I’d rather tell you that by the end of the first chapter, my eyes had filled with tears. Was it the compelling new storyline unfolding before me? Laura’s descriptive prose, or just the pure joy of having a new Laura Frantz book in hand? Probably all three.

I cried then. I cried later. Finished the book with a damp pillowcase.

I can’t guarantee your readers will love Roxanne Rowan and Colonel Cass McLinn as I did.

But I think they will.

This is Laura’s first use of the hero’s Point of View in her Revell books and I was thrilled to learn she’d used the life of George Rogers Clark as part of the inspiration for Colonel McLinn. I’ve been a fan of author James Alexander Thom’s fictional stories of the frontier, most notably his multiple books on the Clark family of Virginia. If Laura’s books leave you wanting more of this era, I’d suggest you check into his work.

Laura’s settings are so real that days later, I’m missing life at Fort Endeavor, the Stone House and all their inhabitants. Seriously.

Can you believe I looked online to find their location? I’m ready for a road trip to say I stood where they stood.

Oh, that’s right. They’re fictional characters.

Roxie and Cass have a horrid truth lying between them, but two people could not be better for each other as we watch them grow in each other’s company. This of course is the ultimate goal of a romance thread in any book. And, I don’t know if any female reader can help but fall in love with Cass McLinn. He’s up there with Rhett Butler, Jamie Fraser, Fitzwilliam D’Arcy and Mr. Thornton for me.

Roxie’s faith holds firm in the face of losing every bit of security in her life, including constant threat of imminent attack at the fort. Cass has a faith he grew up with, but chose to ignore as too unreliable and instead relies on himself. Only when he’s completely disgusted by his failures can he release control and again desire to have Roxie’s kind of peace.

I love a book that makes me talk to the author while I’m reading. I had plenty of those moments. “Oh, Laura, this is brilliant” “Oh, Laura, you’ve got to be kidding me. This is too amazing.”  Example: Enter a mute child, named Abby, into the lives of two broken adults.

My anticipation for Laura’s next book is already building (hint: she took a trip to Philadelphia this summer). I have to admit, as a reader, I’m thrilled. As a writer, well . . . If the next book is better than the last three, my own writing will be irrevocably damaged. Ahh, but it’s a chance I’m willing to take. 




Thanks Debra for visiting with us!  
Debra E. Marvin tries not to run too far from real life but the imagination born out of being an only child has a powerful draw. Besides, the voices in her head tend to agree with all the sensible things she says. Debra likes to write, weed and wander and is blessed to have the best family and friends in the world. She has decided she needs to live closer  to her grandchildren. She’s thankful each day that God is in control, that He chooses to bless us despite ourselves and that He has a sense of humor.    Her work has finaled in the TARA, Great Expectations, Heart of the Rockies, Maggie, Rattler and most recently, the Daphne DuMaurier. Not too bad considering she’s trying a mashup of gospel and . . .  gothic. Any day now, she'll be submitting her novel. Catch her pretending to be social at: 

www.inkwellinspirations.blogspot.com/
www.facebook.com/debra.e.marvin
www.debraemarvin.com    and...twittering @DebraEMarvin

Giveaway:  Leave a comment for a chance to win a copy of this amazing new book by Laura Frantz!

Diana's Corner - Book Review of Fairer than Morning by Rosslyn Elliot

Fairer Than Morning 
by Rosslyn Elliot
May 2011 from Thomas Nelson Publishers

4 1/2 stars~

From The Darkness Into His Marvelous Light!

In Fairer Than Morning, debut author Rosslyn Elliot takes us away to Ohio in the early 1800s, an era of indentured servants and runaway slaves; a time of gross darkness and light, prosperity and poverty. Our heroine, Ann Miller, lives with her father, a master saddler, and a good Christian man who helps lead runaway slaves to the underground railroad. As he travels on a business trip to Pittsburgh, Ann, nursing a broken heart from her sweetheart, Eli, decides to go with her father.There she meets Will Hanby, a saddler's apprentice.

Will has indentured himself to Master Good to learn the fine art of saddle making, not realizing that he is a cruel man, who will stop at nothing to get what he wants. Will is tormented, beaten, and broken in spirit when he meets the lovely Ann, and her kind father, and when they return to Ohio he vows to run away and find them at any cost. In his despair, loneliness, and need for love, Will reaches out to an impoverished young lady, Emmie, and compromises her. Feeling tremendous regret and shame, Will is determined to learn the saddle trade and come back for Emmie, and make things right by marrying her and taking her to live at the Miller's home.

Once there, under the tutelage of Mr. Miller, Will learns more than just saddle making. He learns of God's love that reaches down into his dark, love-starved soul, and of forgiveness, and immediately begins to seek God's will for his once broken life. What are God's plans, and what happens when Will decides to return to his ex-master with Mr. Miller to make things right? When Emmie accepts his marriage proposal, what's to become of Will's attraction for the lovely, kindhearted Ann? And when Ann's ex-sweetheart proposes, what is to become of her overwhelming feelings for Will?

Rosslyn Elliot's debut novel is powerful, realistic, and heartwrenching at times. Her research of this fiction novel based on factual people and events is impressive, and is truly a page-turner! Although there is romance in this book it isn't oozing with it, and it is actually more of a historical tale, than a lighthearted romance novel. With a strong spiritual thread throughout, I highly recommend this book and look forward to reading the next in the series!

This book was sent to me by the author and I was not required to give a favorable opinion. Available for purchase through CBD and through Amazon as well as other retailers.


Giveaway:  Leave a comment and your email address for a chance to win a copy of Fairer than Morning!

Diana is Guest Posting on Colonial Quills Today

Diana has a review up today of Susan Craft's "The Chamomile" on Colonial Quills today.  Stop by!

Weekend Thoughts by Carrie Fancett Pagels

My daughter graduating from the University of Virginia

“Live the Life You’ve Imagined”

I received a nice gift from a friend – a shadow box with that slogan on it.  The thing is -  I have lived MY dreams.  I got my Ph.D. in School Psychology, was the third youngest person to have completed my program, was a clinical faculty member with a medical school, had co-authored a chapter in a book, and had a great job at a hospital working with a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, supervised by an psychologist who was my mentor.  But as Solomon said, all was meaningless.  I was single parenting my nephew when my second engagement broke off and I determined I would likely remain single. God had other plans. He brought me His idea. Two years later my husband and I welcomed our baby girl into the world. 

Later I went into private practice in Charleston, another dream of mine.  When they shut down the Charleston shipyard we moved to the Buffalo area. Brrrrrr!!! Then we relocated to Valdosta, Georgia, where I worked two jobs and I had a house-husband for a while.  I learned a lot during those valley years but they were not my dream.  But in the valley a lot of dross is burned off.

We were blessed with our second child, a son, almost thirteen years after that baby girl.  The life I imagined, one with me working as a psychologist and single is no longer.  Instead I am writing historical Christian fiction, raising our son, getting to spend time with our engineer daughter, and enjoying my wonderful husband! (He took the picture, below.)

Son, Father-in-law, Daughter, Mother-in-law, and Me

So I may repaint that little box. “Live the life He has planned for you!”