Beauty on the Backroads

Stories of grace for life's unexpected turns

Archives for May 2012

Another winner and another chance to win

Free book Fridays continue. We’re into Week 3 now, and I’d love to see the word spread about this week’s giveaway.

But first, we have a winner from last week! Congratulations to Brian Betsworth, who won a copy of Francis Chan’s Forgotten God. Brian is a pastor friend and seminary classmate (as well as a fellow Bears fan – go Bears!) who is recently married. Let me know how I can get the book to you!

Now, on to the next book.

This week’s offering is a novel by Kathi Macias. People of the Book was the first of her books I’d read, and now I can’t stop. You can read my previous review of People of the Book here. (If you’re interested in other books she’s written that I’ve reviewed, you can find them here, here and here.) It’s a fabulous, thought-provoking, challenging read.

SO HOW DO YOU WIN A COPY? Leave me a comment about how Jesus has changed your life. That’s one entry. Follow me on Twitter (@lmbartelt) or subscribe to the blog via e-mail. (One extra entry each.) Share this giveaway on Facebook or Twitter. (One extra entry each.) So that’s FIVE chances to win. Come back here and leave a separate comment each time you enter. I’ll pick a winner next Thursday and announce it, along with the final FREE book on Friday. Are we having fun yet?

Mystical and captivating: A review of Lost and Found by Ginny Yttrup

How I found Lost and Found is a bit unclear in my memory. Boy, am I glad I did, though.

Here’s what I know: a friend retweeted a giveaway. I left a comment. I won a book. It came in the mail.

And I am changed as a result.

Lost and Found by Ginny Yttrup is loosely based on the life of Madame Jeanne Guyon, a French mystic whose life was marked by suffering and imprisonment for her beliefs. Yttrup takes Guyon’s life and brings into the present in the life of Jenna Bouvier, a woman of faith with family ties to the California wine industry, who by marriage is wealthy yet who suffers mental anguish at the hands of her controlling mother-in-law.

The book follows Jenna’s path to healing,  bringing along her spiritual director Matthew and another young woman, Andee. Yttrup writes chapters in the first-person from the point of view of each of these characters and from the third-person POV of Jenna’s mother-in-law, Brigitte. I’m especially fond of stories written this way, and I appreciate an author who can bring to life numerous characters and write from their perspective.

Lost and Found is Yttrup’s second novel. I’m eager now to read her first. She makes the reader feel the emotions and struggles of these characters in a way I haven’t before experienced in a novel. This is an incredible book. A must-read.

FAVORITES: The novel flows easily and the characters are believable and likable. Their struggles are real. Their responses to their circumstances are inspiring. I connected with them as I would if they were in the flesh. In short, I cared what happened to them, which meant I had a hard time putting the book down.

FAULTS: As I read, I found myself more and more interested in Madame Guyon’s life. Her autobiography and book on prayer are next on my “to-read” list. Not really a fault of the book, but more a fault of mine for not having read these classic works before.

IN A WORD: Intense. I felt a heaviness, in a way, as I read. Like I was sharing in the characters’ sufferings. It was a good intensity, though. One that propelled me forward in the story until it was finished.