Christmas is for Giving Books

Christmas may not be quite around the corner, but it will be here before you know it!  It's always that way, you know.  So, I'm going to help you out by telling you about some good reads, one to read during the season and two to give as great gifts to others (or yourself, if you're into that.  Grin). 

Christmas is one of my favorite times of year.  I love the memories of years past, the feelings of anticipation, the sights, the sounds, the smells.  And I love the stories.  Every year Robert J. Morgan, a pastor in Nashville, gifts his congregation with a Christmas story.  Now you have a chance to read six of those in The Nativity Collection: Six Stories That Share the Smiles, the Heart, and the Hope of Christmas.  The title describes it perfectly.  These short stories and their sweet illustrations bring to mind all the beauty of Christmas.  It would be a perfect read-aloud with your family around the dinner table or a great book to enjoy on your own during the quiet of an evening. 

A great gift to give would be Francine Rivers' Marta's Legacy set.  Earlier this year, I read and reviewed Her Mother's Hope.  As soon as I saw that the sequel, Her Daughter's Dream was available, I snatched it up.  This book was all that I'd hoped it would be.  It continued to explore those mother-daughter relationships that had so frustrated me in the first book (in a good way) and to detail the consequences of the messiness of loving.  Rivers did a beautiful job of showing how our imperfect love can cause misunderstanding and hurt, but that there is hope.  This book just affirms why she is one of my favorite current authors. 

Finally, if you want a book that's not attached to another, pick up The Shape of Mercy by Susan Meissner.  My brother and sis-in-love gave me this great read for my birthday.  In this book Lauren, an extremely wealthy college student, wishes to strike out on her own.  She takes a job transcribing a diary of a victim of the Salem witch trials.  I appreciated the many layers of this well-told story that explore the ways we judge others and reminds us of a time in America's past while weaving with it a modern tale.

I will be taking off this next week for multiple reasons. 
Until next time,


My honest review for The Nativity Collection was done in exchange for a free copy from Thomas Nelson Publishing through BookSneeze.  The other two were just worthy of sharing with you!

Christmas is for Giving Books