"Just Claire" Releases January 5, 2016

Publication by Clean Reads

"Just Claire" releases January 5, 2016. Below is the book's blurb. Coming soon, I'll include the link to download the book.

Just Claire Blurb

ClaireLee’s life changes when she must take charge of her siblings after her mother becomes depressed from a difficult childbirth. Frightened by the way Mama sleeps too much and her crying spells during waking hours, she just knows she’ll catch her illness like a cold or flu that hangs on through winter. ClaireLee finds comfort in the lies she tells herself and others in order to hide the truth about her erratic mother. Deciding she needs to re-invent herself, she sets out to impress a group of popular girls.

With her deception, ClaireLee weaves her way into the Lavender Girls Club, the most sophisticated girls in school. Though, her best friend Belinda will not be caught with the likes of such shallow puddles, ClaireLee ignores Belinda’s warnings the Lavenders cannot be trusted. ClaireLee drifts further from honesty, her friend, and a broken mother’s love, until one very public night at the yearly school awards ceremony. The spotlight is on her, and she finds her courage and faces the truth and then ClaireLee saves her mother’s life.

My First Book to Release by Clean Reads Publishing in Spring 2016

As a child, I lived in one of these cabins and it is the setting for ClaireLee's home

Hi everyone,

I can't believe it. Finally, I'm getting my first book published. Not only is it my first book, but the first book I began back in 1994.

"Just Claire", is an upper middle grade novel about a thirteen-year-old girl:

ClaireLee’s life changes when she must take charge of her siblings and depressed mother, and she finds relief in the lies she tells herself and others. Frightened by the changes in Mama, ClaireLee just knows she’ll catch Mama’s illness like a cold or flu that hangs on through winter. Deciding she needs to re-invent herself, she sets out to impress a group of popular girls.

At the slip of an untruth, she deceives her way into the Lavender Girls Club. Her best friend Belinda will not be caught with such shallow puddles, though. ClaireLee drifts further from honesty, her friend, and a broken mother’s love, until one very public night. The spotlight is on her, she finds her courage, faces the truth, and then she saves a life.

The release date is for spring 2016 by Clean Reads Publishing as an e-book. 

Thank you to all who've encouraged me on this long, long road to publication and especially about the story of "Just Claire".

I'll give updates more regularly and keep everyone posted.

Have a blessed day, friends.

An Analogy of what God Did for Me

Jean's hen yard

Read my article about what I did for my sick chicken, and how it brought back memories for what God did for me after my son Joshua died by suicide.


http://puttingonthenew.com/2015/05/14/an-analogy-of-what-god-did-for-me/

Does God Hear Our Requests?

photo by Jean Ann Williams

Dear Readers,

Please stop by PuttingOnTheNew blog and read my article about how God heard my prayer and gave me a physical adjustment, which took away twenty years of pain.

Until next time . . . ask and if it's His will . . .

A Light in the Wilderness by Jane Kirkpatrick~A Book Review

A Light in the Wilderness, Jane Kirkpatrick

Book Review by Jean Ann Williams

Book Blurb: Letitia holds nothing more dear than the papers that prove she is no longer a slave. They may not cause most white folks to treat her like a human being, but at least they show she is free. She trusts in those words she cannot read—as she is beginning to trust in Davey Carson, an Irish immigrant cattleman who wants her to come west with him.

Nancy Hawkins is loathe to leave her settle life for the treacherous journey by wagon train, but she is so deeply in love with her husband and she knows she will follow him anywhere—even when the trek exacts a terrible cost.

Betsy is a Kalapuya Indian, the last remnant of a once proud tribe in the Willamette Valley in Oregon territory. She spends her time trying to impart the wisdom and ways of her people to her grandson. But she will soon have another person to care for.
As season turns to season, suspicion turns to friendship, and fear turns to courage, three spirited women will discover what it means to be truly free in a land that makes promises it cannot fulfill. This multilayered story from bestselling author Jan Kirkpatrick will grip your heart and mind as you travel on the dusty and dangerous Oregon Trail into the boundless American West. Based on a true story.

Letitia, a mature black woman, has her freedom papers, and she’s ready to make her way into a new world. To a territory called Oregon, where the place was flowing with milk and honey and plenty of land for the taking. Fiesty and unattached, Letitia was determined to get herself some of that property and she’d get there any way she could.

A Light in the Wilderness Quote: But [Letitia’d] heard that the Oregon people wanted to join the states as free. She’d be free there too, and without slavery and its uncertainty hovering like a cloud of fevered mosquitoes.

The Woman, known as Betsy, a name given to her by the missionaries, was from the Kalapuya tribe in the Oregon Territory. She and her grandson were all that was left of their family, and they had to forage for the vegetation that grew where they lived.

A Light in the Wilderness Quote: [Betsy] cherished this child even more for his being all that was left. But she would not spoil him as her mother had spoiled her brother. No, this Little Shoot would learn to do women things as well as men things so when she was gone he could survive.

Letitia and the Irishman, Davey, decide they should marry and go to Oregon as husband and wife. And once in Oregon, they would work hard to build their house, raise cattle, and a family.

A Light in the Wilderness Quote: The gift of a marriage to someone [Letitia] had chosen and who was kind enough to bring her flowers and break the wedding glass was more than she could have hoped for. There was a Bible verse about blessings being shaken down and pressed together. Today, she’d experienced it.

Nancy Hawkins, expecting her sixth child, is married to Doctor Zachariah Hawkins. They would be headed to Oregon, but this pregnancy will delay their trip one year. But things changed, and Nancy later on befriends Letitia on the Oregon Trail when no other woman would.

A Light in the Wilderness Quote: [Nancy] clucked her tongue. Another reason to leave this place. Oregon would be a refreshing change as a free state. Power without love is never just and slavery was all about raw power.

Several years after Letitia and Davey arrive in Oregon, Davey dies and one man with the power decides she is not a free black woman after all. He sets out to take everything she and Davey have worked for.

A Light in the Wilderness Quote: Then, halfway through the bidding on the Bible she’d spoken her vows upon, she prayed to find another way to see this day, some way to hold her memories rather than having them hold her in this sorrowful place. That Bible going to the Wheeler family would bring them blessings and a comfort. They outbid her because the Lord wanted them to have that blessing.

Jane Kirkpatrick did a marvelous job of taking a true account of an African American woman named Letitia Carson and filling within the facts of what could have happened to round out a great story. I highly recommend A Light in the Wilderness for a fascinating read and to learn more the amazing Letitia Carson.

Until next time . . . read an uplifting book.

Book Review: Ties that Bind, C.J. Darlington




Book Blurb: Newly released from prison, Brynn Taylor is determined to find her father; a man she’s never met. Her only clue to his whereabouts is the address she finds in a rare volume of Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility which he inscribed to her years ago. Armed with a bus ticket, a backpack, and her grandfather’s gun, her search leads her to Elk Valley, Colorado where her plans and her life begin to unravel.

Brynn, a young homeless woman, hits bottom when she losses her mother and her friends. She searches for a father she’s never met to fulfill a request from her dying mother.

Ties that Bind Quote: Brynn turned away, her second-hand sneakers silently carrying her across the parking lot away from the huddle. Their happiness swirled around her, a slicing reminder there were no welcoming arms for her.

C.J. Darlington does a marvelous job of taking the reader through one woman’s search for family. I became riveted from page one and was right there when Brynn stepped into the outside and onto freedom.

Ties that Bind Quote: Ruth set down her coffee cup and slipped off her sweater. Before Brynn could stop her, she draped it over her back. “I’m plenty warm, chica.” It was a kind gesture from a sweet, old woman who was cutting her a break she didn’t deserve. Brynn felt her throat tighten.

I was there soaking up the ranch setting, where an old woman met Brynn at the door. The kind woman would bring Brynn closer to finding out about her father—and even so much more than she could have imagined.

Ties that Bind Quote: Brynn picked up a copy of Anne of Green Gables. The cover was green with a picture of Anne on the front. She ran her fingers over the illustration. The artist had rendered a much older girl than the eleven-year-old she knew readers would meet in the book’s opening pages.

C.J. Darlington’s writing kept me turning pages through a middle that did not sag, but a middle that gave me a plank to cross with an eagerness to keep reading. I loved that the author taught us in a storytelling style about classic books, and their value on various levels. Especially that Brynn finds her niche working in such a bookstore and that I, the reader, got to learn something I never knew before.

Ties that Bind Quote: Only then did she see the flames. Far off in the distance they flickered, and human forms came into view, too. “What is this?” Brynn asked. He laughed. “You need to relax.”

Ties that Bind is about loss, longing for home, second chances—and even third chances. Brynn toys with temptation. Again. She moves in the wrong direction, and her decisions had my heart pumping faster. Come on, Brynn, don’t do it, I thought.

Ties that Bind Quote: Brynn raised her face to the blue sky. A soft wind blew her hair into her face, and strands stuck to her forehead. She hoped God would forgive her.

When Brynn is at her very lowest, feeling she has let everyone down, the last temptation is far worse. My heart grieved over Brynn’s intentions. I knew all too well what may be going through her mind, and I held my breath as I continued reading. And the author pulled it off. This one scene was a real test—I’ve lived it.

Another great book I’m glad I read in 2014, I’m delighted to have discovered C.J. Darlington’s Ties that Bind. I believe, you won’t be disappointed, dear reader, if you place yourself within Brynn’s story. If you like good writing and storytelling, ranches in modern times, and young single women who struggle with wrong choices, this book is for you.

Until next time . . . read books where God inspires and encourages

Spin by Darcie J Gudger

Please take a moment to read my book review of Spin about school bullying. It's a no nonsense and honest look into what some students go through in our public schools. This book a young adult, but adults would benefit from reading it.

Until next time . . . keep your head out of the sand.