Book Review: Plain Pursuit by Beth Wiseman

Carley has given up chasing her dreams. Now her dreams are chasing her.

Carley Marek experiences culture shock when she visits her friend Lillian’s family on their farm deep in Amish country. She’ll get an article out of the visit–and maybe some of Lillian’s newfound peace will somehow rub off on her.

Just when Carley is getting used to the quiet nature of the Plain community, Lillian and Samuel’s son falls ill. But the local doctor who can offer the most help has been shunned by the community and forbidden to intervene.

As David’s condition deteriorates, Dr. Noah determines to do whatever it takes to save the boy’s life. Carley is caught in the middle–drawn to Noah, wanting to be helpful in the crisis–and confused by all their talk about a God she neither knows nor trusts.

Carley must decide what in life is worth pursuing . . . and what to do when she’s pursued by a love she never expected.

When I got this book, I had no idea it was a part of a series. It was given to me through the Book Sneeze program. I am also the first one to say that Christian Fiction is not generally the first genre I will pick up to read, however to me a good book is a good book no matter what the genre.

Plain Pursuit is a heart-warming story that truly brings you in. The characters are ones that you feel attached too, you cannot help but love them and wish the best for them. The detail is well written and you can almost see yourself walking down the road in Amish country.

You can feel the love of this book and you clearly get the good Christian message. If you enjoy the genre or are looking to reconnect, I recommend this book, you may want to start at the beginning of the series but I felt right in place even starting here with the second one.

Booking Through Thursday – Grammar

In honor of National Grammar Day … it IS “March Fourth” after all … do you have any grammar books? Punctuation? Writing guidelines? Style books?

More importantly, have you read them?

How do you feel about grammar in general? Important? Vital? Unnecessary? Fussy?

I do not have any grammar book or writing books or any stylebooks. I do plan to get some writing books however in the future. I think it would be a wise tool.

I am not that fussy about grammar however I do feel that it is important. Language skills in general and writing more importantly are really falling away in today’s society and that is a sad thing. We need to stop being so language lazy. I am guilty of that myself and I am striving to become better at it.

I feel like a silly reader

I love the Sooke Stackhouse books and I was happy reading the second book (honest) but for whatever attention span reason I just couldn’t stick with it right now. SO I picked up The Black Stallion for a little bit while sorting books (one of my favorite series since I was a kid) and guess what? You guessed it I have now plowed through several books in the series again, lol. Guess some childhood favorites never go away.

Musing Monday #42

Today’s MUSING MONDAYS post is about a story format.

How do you feel about books written in a differing format – whether this be journals or letters (epistolary), verse novels, or any other form? Is this something you enjoy? Or do you prefer straight forward chapter prose.

I actually like books in journal or letter format. I feel like I am closer to the person that is the one writing the letters or journal.

I am actually working on a short story now in letter format. I am also working on setting up a website that is going to be essentially a role-playing group but instead of your usual Play by Email online these days it will be done by letters. I am calling it Letters of Fiction and I look forward to fully making the project work.

The Sunday Salon #22

The Sunday Salon.com

Another week has gone by and it is hard to believe that we are going to be going into March now. March already what happened to February? I have not done much reading this week I am sad to say I did not even get through one book. I do have two reviews that I need to post as well. I have just been very wrapped up in the Olympics and writing my pen pal letters. Along with that, I have also been planning a new letter project as well as working on some website designs. I am so blessed at those who have taken a liking to my blog designs. I meant to get started on a St. Pats day for myself but I have not yet done that. I hope that I will find some time before St. Pats day.

On Another note, please check out this website…

Thank you to those who are doing this. Always a kind and wonderful blessing when people help fight the terribleness that is Cancer

Quotable Sunday #27

Mothers Day Gift Ideas

To send a letter is a good way to go somewhere without moving anything but your heart. ~Phyllis Theroux

Never write a letter while you are angry. ~Chinese Proverb

It seems a long time since the morning mail could be called correspondence. ~Jacques Barzun, God’s Country and Mine, 1954

I am tired, Beloved,
of chafing my heart against
the want of you;
of squeezing it into little inkdrops,
And posting it.
~Amy Lowell, “The Letter”

Letter writing is the only device for combining solitude with good company. ~Lord Byron

What a wonderful thing is the mail, capable of conveying across continents a warm human hand-clasp. ~Author Unknown

It takes two to write a letter as much as it takes two to make a quarrel. ~Elizabeth Drew

And none will hear the postman’s knock
Without a quickening of the heart.
For who can bear to feel himself forgotten?
~W.H. Auden

The best time to frame an answer to the letters of a friend, is the moment you receive them. Then the warmth of friendship, and the intelligence received, most forcibly cooperate. ~William Shenstone

What a lot we lost when we stopped writing letters. You can’t reread a phone call. ~Liz Carpenter

Sir, more than kisses, letters mingle souls; for, thus friends absent speak. ~John Donne

Or don’t you like to write letters. I do because it’s such a swell way to keep from working and yet feel you’ve done something. ~Ernest Hemingway

A strange volume of real life in the daily packet of the postman. Eternal love and instant payment! ~Douglas Jerrold, The Postman’s Budget

If you must reread old love letters, better pick a room without mirrors. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic’s Notebook, 1966

The one good thing about not seeing you is that I can write you letters. ~Svetlana Alliluyeva

We lay aside letters never to read them again, and at last we destroy them out of discretion, and so disappears the most beautiful, the most immediate breath of life, irrecoverable for ourselves and for others. ~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Correspondences are like small clothes before the invention of suspenders; it is impossible to keep them up. ~Sydney Smith

I have received no more than one or two letters in my life that were worth the postage. ~Henry David Thoreau, Walden

A letter always seemed to me like immortality because it is the mind alone without corporeal friend. ~Emily Dickinson

I consider it a good rule for letter-writing to leave unmentioned what the recipient already knows, and instead tell him something new. ~Sigmund Freud

Saturday Sanctuary #15


The Saturday Sanctuary will be a Weekly Writing Post. I will ask something or give a topic. Sometimes it will be short, sometimes it might be longer. The idea is just to write! So others can read. I thought it would be a great idea for a Book Blog to do something about writing. We are bloggers after all so we must have some enjoyment of writing too! So hop on in and Join the Saturday Sanctuary, grab our link and our picture and post your replies here. Make sure you visit others blogs out there and leave comments. Mostly have fun.


I am sorry that I did not do my Saturday Sanctuary last week and that this week is so late. Such is the way things go sometimes. But I will ask my lovely readers for the Sanctuary what do you do when you are stressed out? How to you find a way beyond the stress?

If I am honest, I am very stressed. Beyond the usual stresses of my sickness these days, I am also stressed about my reading. And that is a silly thing reading is supposed to be enjoyable. I fell behind schedule again because I have been working more on my pen pal letters and trying to catch up with those. I had to take a step back today and remind myself that even though I am doing many reading challenges this year that reading should be enjoyable and if I do not complete the challenges that is OKAY. They are challenges not life or death.

*If Mr Linky is down please leave a comment. Mr. Linky has been a pain lately*

Friday Firsts #13

The first line can make or break a reader’s interest. Just how well did the author pull you in to the story with their first sentence? To participate in this weekly book meme is extremely easy.

Grab the book you are currently reading and open to the first page.
Write down the first sentence in the first paragraph.
Create a blog post with this information. (Make sure to include the title & author of the book you are using. Even an ISBN helps!)
Did this first sentence help draw you into the story? Why or why not?
Link back to Well-Read Reviews in your blog entry.
Come back to this blog post, hosted on WellReadReviews.com and add your direct link to Mr. Linky! ** Very important!

“Andy Bellefleur was drunk as a skunk.” Living Dead in Dallas by Charlaine Harris

So this is the same as my Teaser Tuesday but I have been a very sluggish reader this week. This month in general really. But I love the first line, it made me giggle and wonder why Andy was drunk.


Booking Through Thursday – Why You Read

I’ve seen this quotation in several places lately. It’s from Sven Birkerts’ ‘The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age’:

“To read, when one does so of one’s own free will, is to make a volitional statement, to cast a vote; it is to posit an elsewhere and set off toward it. And like any traveling, reading is at once a movement and a comment of sorts about the place one has left. To open a book voluntarily is at some level to remark the insufficiency either of one’s life or one’s orientation toward it.”

To what extent does this describe you?

Sounds like someone put a lot of thought into that. I suppose it is somewhat correct with me. Truly I read for the enjoyment of it, I read for the stories, I read to work my brain I read because I like the feel of a book in my hands the smell of the pages.

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