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​Hope Travels Through is the debut novel by Loni Kemper Moore. It begins in October 1976 and culminates with the events of and immediately following December 13, 1977, when the plane carrying the University of Evansville’s men’s basketball team crashes.
 
Ms. Moore has written a nice book that has a great message about figuring out your place in the world after its been turned upside down, trusting in God even when tragedy and grief strike, and the importance of relationships in our lives, whether they are romantic, platonic, or familial.   
 
Our main characters are TeJae, who is a flight attendant, and Mikel, an Army Reserve chaplain. TeJae and Mikel are both characters I related to, for different reasons, and I enjoyed the development of their relationship.
 
The book is descriptive, with all the cities, hotels, and places coming alive on the page. Secondary characters have motivations and lives of their own, though one of them is nearly an over the top “villain” with a pretty weak justification for it.  
 
The short snippets that take place in each chapter with shifting POVs often made it difficult to track the events happening in the story. The chapters are often days, weeks, or months apart and so the story feels simultaneously slow and quick because of the time jumps.
 
The back-cover copy is a little misleading and it sounds like the book is going to be about the tragedy that takes places on December 13, 1977 and the aftermath, but most of the book is before that.
 
The themes and message in Hope Travels Through means I can recommend it, though I give this book 3/5 for the disjointedness of the small snippets and how the pacing of the story felt excruciatingly slow and lightning fast at the same time.
 
**I received a complimentary copy of this book from the author through CelebrateLit. All opinions are my own.**

​When she’s not writing, she’s an entertainer, technical support analyst; mom of a teenager named Adam; traveler with Robert, her dear “Hugsband,” stepmom to University of Evansville alumna Becca and her husband, Anthony; and spender of way too much time on Facebook. With her experiences of learning to trust God through tragedy, being employed by travel agencies and Delta Air Lines, and attending University of Evansville graduate school, she’s the best person to tell this story.

​What Made Me Write Hope Travels Through?
The weathered orthopedic surgeon shook his head and stared at the x-rays. Without making eye-contact, he said, “I usually work on Olympians and professional athletes. This doesn’t look good. She’s going to have arthritis and limp for the rest of her life.”

I hadn’t had anything stronger than Tylenol since the entire weight of my 128 (at the time) pounds crunched my left ankle, 24 hours earlier.

Robert, aka Dear Hugsband, had told me, so very graciously, when we arrived at Skate City, “Once you’re over 50, you shouldn’t roller skate.” But our son, Adam was 10 and I wondered how many more years he’d want me to hang out with him, so I’d strapped on the skates and joined the crowd of skaters. I avoided landing on the body of the five-year old who cut me off. Didn’t that count for something?

However, none of that mattered at that moment. I needed drugs, and Robert agreed to whatever that surgeon said to get my prescriptions.

One afternoon, my stomach growled on a gurney as I waited in the surgery center with IVs in my hands until a perky nurse announced, “The doctor will need to reschedule because something came up.”

REALLY? After waiting 10 days, he no-shows?

I’ve never loved Robert’s New York attitude more than the next day when by 7 pm that evening I was at Red Robin, post-surgery, eating a celebratory French Onion soup. Thanks to a nerve blocker the new, cute surgeon had provided after rebreaking bones and inserting pins.

Adam was able to complete his homeschool work with little interference from my drug infested brain and I occupied my time by flipping through decades of accumulated diaries. The story of a woman surviving tough times percolated in my brain and I remembered my mother saying, “Everyone has a Great American Novel in her. You just need to take time to write it.”

As my leg healed leaving no arthritis nor limp, I returned to the million things life demands, including a visit to our Becca at the University of Evansville, where I’d done my graduate work. As she showed us the Weeping Basketball, my protagonist informed me the story began in 1976, not 2011. The story climaxed when the university’s men’s basketball team plane crashed, but I was too busy to spend much time on it.

Three days before Christmas that year, my younger sister passed away from Lyme complications, I could barely breathe. I’ve seen it a dozen times someone’s busy life prevents her from taking care of herself until something stops them in their tracks and they cannot move on. That happened to me.

At the time, Dear Hugsband programmed Coca-Cola’s Freestyle machine (you’re welcome), so Adam and I joined him in Atlanta for several months. During that time without the cooking-cleaning-requirements and Adam insisting he preferred independence of his homeschool curriculum with minimal input from me, I processed my grief by putting the story that became Hope Travels Through on my computer.

“In a weak moment, I have written a book.” Margaret Mitchell – Gone With The Wind

Dear Hugsband loved his project with Coca-Cola and enjoyed everything about working in Atlanta except the humidity, the traffic and the commute. Typically, he worked in Georgia every other week, and was home every weekend.

But occasionally, he’d be forced to stay in Atlanta over the weekend and tried to find something to entertain himself. One weekend, after seeing every movie running, he decided to go to the Margaret Mitchell House Museum where one of my favorite books, Gone With The Wind, was written.
He bought me a mug with the above quote on it which he said was to encourage me in my writing, along with several commonalities between myself and the famous author.


She was short—I am 5 feet tall, if I stretch;
Her husband was over 6 feet tall—mine is 6’3 1/2”;
She started writing her novel, after an ankle injury– I started writing after I a similar injury;
She used a typewriter—I use a computer;
Her mother gave her the quotes she used about how to survive in an upside-down world – my mom had a Bible verse for every occasion. I think her favorite was Ephesians 4:32 “And be ye kind, Loni to whomever…”;
It took Margaret ten years to complete her novel – I’m not far behind, at nearly eight years.


Obviously, I don’t have one commonality with Margaret, in that she died at the age of 48 in a traffic accident, but his conclusions are precious.
​
I’m well aware the odds of my little novel being successful, without the industry connections Margaret had, are low, but it’s been a fun journey even if no one buys a copy!

​Book Reviews From an Avid Reader, December 16
Karen Sue Hadley, December 16
Jami’s Words, December 17
Quiet Quilter, December 18
Reading Is My SuperPower, December 18
Inspiration clothesline, December 19
Texas Book-aholic, December 19
Radiant Light, December 20
Carpe Diem, December 21
Avid Reader Book Reviews, December 21
A Reader’s Brain, December 22
A Greater Yes, December 23
Blogging With Carol, December 23
Books, Books, and More Books, December 24
SusanLovesBooks, December 25
Remembrancy, December 26
Mary Hake, December 26
Janices book review, December 27
The Power of Words, December 28
Debbie’s Dusty Deliberations, December 29
Just Jo’Anne, December 29

​To celebrate her tour, Loni is giving away a grand prize of a $50 Amazon Card!!
​
Click below to enter. Be sure to comment on this post before you enter to claim 9 extra entries! 
​https://promosimple.com/ps/c5be

Click here to purchase your copy!

​As these women join forces to search for Joey’s father–a Rockland area pastor, no less– Emily learns compassion for a woman who just wants the best for her son and can’t quite imagine that Jesus wants anything to do with her.

Each day, Davia weakens until Emily isn’t confident she’ll find the boy’s father in time–if at all. Doubts form. Should she look? Is it right to risk destroying a family like this–an entire church? The weight of that responsibility crushes her as Davia wastes away before her eyes.

A mother’s love. A boy’s confidence. A family’s faith. A preacher’s failure. Is redemption even possible anymore?
​
Christmas Embers: a story of love, failure, and redemption.

​Christmas Embers by Chautona Havig is a difficult book to get through and for me, a difficult book to rate. I settled on the higher rating because of the writing and the handling of the tough subject matter despite slight dissatisfaction with the end of the book.
 
This is the first book I’ve read by Ms. Havig. She is an excellent writer, and both main characters are well-rounded, flawed individuals. Christmas Embers is also what I like to call an “internal” book—one that consists of character’s thoughts and interactions, so there are no long descriptions of the setting.
 
Emily and Sean, a married couple, are our main characters. Infidelity and adultery is rarely addressed in Christian fiction, and Ms. Having handles it well. She doesn’t shy away from the impact it has on the adulterer, the spouse, family members, the church, and friends. The themes of sin, love, hate, temptation, and forgiveness permeate the book and make it rich and rewarding.
 
One of the aspects of the story that didn’t work for me was the flashback to the actual adultery—it’s not explicit. However, by that time in the story I knew the information the flashback conveyed and felt it interrupted the flow of the story.
 
I couldn’t put Christmas Embers down. One reason is I was never a hundred percent certain which way the relationship between the adulterer and the cheated-on spouse would go. Ms. Havig writes this broken relationship so well I didn’t know if they would stay together or divorce. And I think I would have been able to accept either decision because of the way Ms. Havig presented the relationship.
 
However, I would have appreciated a few chapters detailing what happened between Emily and Sean after the decision (I won’t spoil) instead of skipping to the epilogue.

I give Christmas Embers 4/5 stars and recommend it for those looking for a read that will make you think about sin and forgiveness. I thought it dealt with a tough topic well and appropriately, and despite the excellent writing and the deftly handled subject matter, the lack of story after the decision about their relationship struck me as odd.

**I received a complimentary copy of this book from the author through CelebrateLit. All opinions are my own.**

Infidelity to the Tune of Adeste Fideles

“I think my husband is having an affair.”

An explanation followed. Look, I tend to be one who assumes the best of others—to a fault even. I read the “evidence” and frankly could see it going either way. It’s hard to tell across thousands of miles. While others on the message board saw red flag after red flag—and frankly, I did, too—I also saw perfectly innocent explanations for things. It’s a curse sometimes—that ability to see both sides of an issue. I cautioned against assumptions no one would want other people to make of themselves. And I prayed she was wrong.

She wasn’t.

It wasn’t the first time I’d come face to face with infidelity. As a child, there was an extended family member. As a newlywed, one of my wedding party—then another. Then another. The excuses, the justifications. Friends and I went to confront a sister in Christ on her affair with her husband’s best friend. We foolishly asked “what happened?” regarding her marriage. Her words: “We drifted apart.”

I wanted to scream the words that battered my brain and heart. “Then row back together!”

But over the years, it just grew worse. One by one, wives and husbands tossed aside vows made to a brother or sister in Christ—vows made before the Lord—in favor of what sometimes were serial affairs. Abuse. Horror.

I’ve prayed women I love through court cases, medical visits, and disclosures from children no mother should ever have to hear. I’ve prayed for men I didn’t even like because of the pain their wives inflicted each time she left them alone with the kids. He knew. He always knew.

Adultery is real. It’s ugly. And there’s absolutely a cure for it. Jesus. 100% surrender to Jesus. But as long as we rely on those little loops on the back of our boots instead of the saving, healing, strengthening power of Jesus, we’re just as vulnerable as the next person.

And that’s why I wrote Christmas Embers. I took every heartbreaking story I’d observed over the years and put in each character for a reason. Every scene, every plot point, every twist—I put them exactly how and where they are for a reason.

They’re there as a warning.

This isn’t your lighthearted Christmas novel. Some have suggested I shouldn’t have set it at Christmastime. But you know what? Over half the disclosures I’ve ever heard of happened between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day. I couldn’t get the idea of Joey’s story out of my head. And to write his story, it had to be at Christmas.

Let me say it again. While Christmas may not seem like the optimal time for a hard-hitting book like this, I had to do it. Adultery is reaching epidemic proportions in the church. There’s a solution. His name is Jesus. 

​Carpe Diem, December 5
A Baker’s Perspective, December 5
Mary Hake, December 5
Moments Dipped in Ink, December 6
D’S QUILTS & BOOKS, December 6
Daysong Reflections, December 6
Fiction Aficionado, December 7
A Simply Enchanted Life, December 7
Genesis 5020, December 7
Blogging With Carol, December 8
The Power of Words, December 8
Bigreadersite, December 8
Reading Is My SuperPower, December 9
A Greater Yes, December 9
Radiant Light, December 9
Just Jo’Anne, December 10
For The Love of Books, December 10
Book Bites, Bee Stings, & Butterfly Kisses, December 10
Aryn the Libraryan, December 11
A Reader’s Brain, December 11
The Fizzy Pop Collection, December 12
Books, Books, and More Books., December 12
Quiet Quilter, December 13
Seasons of Opportunities, December 13
Christian Book Devourer, December 13
Allofakindmom, December 14
Texas Book-aholic, December 14
Pursuing Stacie, December 14
Pause for Tales, December 15
Reader’s cozy corner, December 15
margaret kazmierczak, December 15
Red Headed Book Lady, December 16
Purposeful Learning, December 16
Debbie’s Dusty Deliberations, December 16
Janices book reviews, December 17
Christian Bookaholic, December 17
Karen Sue Hadley, December 18
Remembrancy, December 18
Blossoms and Blessings, December 18

​​To celebrate her tour, Chautona is giving away a grand prize of a 6 month Kindle Unlimited Subscription!!
​
Click below to enter. Be sure to comment on this post before you enter to claim 9 extra entries! https://promosimple.com/ps/c512