I want to take a minute and change the direction for just a smidge. I want to talk about an author who has filled my week.
Deeanne Gist.
If you haven’t read her, march your behind to the nearest library and check out a book of hers, or click here.
Going through a break-up and reclaiming myself as a strong, independent woman, I’ve turned back to my love of reading. I’d read Mrs. Gist before, but this time her characters and writing have taken on a whole new level.
I’ve read four books of hers this week.
Beguiled
A Bride in the Bargain
It Happened at the Fair
Deep in the Heart of Trouble
If you’ve ever read this blog you know I have a thing for history…(duh, I taught it and have a degree in it). Three of the books I read are historical fiction with some serious romance.
But here’s the beauty of it…they’re all clean. They are Christian works. And these women are people to admired. They are beautiful on the inside.
Beguiled is the one modern book of the four I’ve read so far. It has more mystery in it than the others and it reads a little differently. Rylee is a dog walker in Charleston whose tragic past is riddled with mystery. Logan is a reporter who’s been following a string of break ins in the elite part of town when he meets Rylee.
One of the things that I loved about this story was the relationship between Logan and his dad. It was a drama free relationship that really just showed the simplicity of a dad supporting his son and his son being open with his dad. It was refreshing. There didn’t need to be drama between parent and child.
A Bride in the Bargain is hands down my favorite one of these books. Anna is a Civil War orphan who flees to Seattle to become a “cook” for a crew of lumberjacks. Joe was desperate to save his land and bought himself a wife in Anna. Anna and Joe were both given misinformation but agree to continue a professional relationship until they realize that they love each other but secrets threaten to tear the two apart.
This book reads like a trashy romance novel would but it’s just so pure. The feelings and emotions are raw; they’re real. There’s some twists and turns that keep you engaged and I couldn’t help cheering on the couple.
It Happened at the Fair
Cullen is a North Carolina farm boy who’s allergic to the thing that keeps his family going. After witnessing a tragedy in his youth, he comes up with the idea of an automatic sprinkler system that his dad pushes him to show at the Chicago World Fair in 1893. He leaves behind his southern roots and a fiance to try his luck. Della is a teacher of deaf children, teaching them how to read lips. When Cullen asks her for private lessons to learn how to read lips, she agrees, not realizing she would fall for him in those hours touring the Fair together.
This one took me a little time to get into only because I was coming out of a funk from the previous book, but once you get into it, you’re captured by the fashions and descriptions of the Fair. Gist includes pictures and sketches to describe what things looked like, and it made it very real as a reader.
Deep in the Heart of Trouble is about Tony and Essie. Both children from wealthy oil owners, they are as different as can be. Tony is recently disinherited from his father’s will and strikes into another town in Texas after changing his name to learn how to do the oil industry in the field instead of the office. Essie is part owner of the company and very forward thinking as she also owns a bicycle club for the town that specializes in women members. When Tony starts working for Essie and her father, he must rethink how he views the role of women in society and in his life while she hides behind her spinsterhood.
This book is just fun. Essie is a free spirit but also incredibly guarded and I definitely identified with her. She’s a little eccentric, but aren’t we all?
I really cannot speak enough about this author and how I feel about her writing. So please, go check her out. You won’t regret it. At all.
Purposeful Living 