Debt-Proof Living:
The Complete Guide to Living Financially Free
(DPL Press, 2005)
By Mary Hunt

Every time I check my mail, I get at least half a dozen credit card offers. Buy now, pay later, right? Do you ever go to Target or shop E-Bay and buy products that are just irresistible, but you don’t really need? It’s hard to stay out of debt in our modern-day culture, but Mary Hunt has some divine solutions for us all.

She writes, “We need the courage to understand that money is… Read More

Inconceivable: Finding Peace in the Midst of Infertility
by Shannon Woodward
(Life Journey 2006)

As a pastor’s wife, Shannon Woodward was used to holding babies. Yet her doctor’s diagnosis of infertility sent her on a journey she never planned to take. Her beautiful book explores eighteen years of frustration, pain, anger, and eventually healing. She shares how God increased her joy beyond measure through adoption.

Using a lyrical style of writing, Woodward speaks to the hearts of women, showing them how to have peace through surrender.… Read More

The Mom I Want to Be:
Rising Above Your Past to Give
Your Kids a Great Future,
by T. Suzanne Eller
(Harvest House 2006)

Author and mom of three, T. Suzanne Eller, takes readers on a journey exploring her painful past as the daughter of a single mom who survived abuse and years of depression. Eller’s passion is to enable today’s women to face and overcome negative memories in order to become the moms they long to be. Her candid story includes end-of-chapter questions, making this a great book for… Read More

A Carol for Christmas
By Robin Lee Hatcher
(Zondervan 2006)

It’s time to curl up by the fire with a cup of cocoa and enjoy some heart-warming romance. You’ll love A Carol for Christmas, written by best-selling author Robin Lee Hatcher (her 50th book!). This beautiful novella can be read in one quiet evening, taking you to Boise, Idaho, set in the late 60s. Hatcher says she got the idea for the story based on her own difficulties in early marriage as a teenage bride.

Going… Read More

Praying for My Life,
by Marion Bond West
(Guideposts Books 2006)

Do you feel like you’re on the verge of losing hope? Marion Bond West has been there, and in her new spiritual memoir, she’ll show you how she survived with a little known prayer in the book of Habakkuk. Now a grandmother and contributing editor for Guideposts magazine, Bond West has had to overcome early widowhood, raising four children as a single mom, and dealing with rebellion, substance abuse, and bipolar disorder in her adult sons. Marion’s honest, transparent writing will restore… Read More

Lord, Please Meet Me in the
Laundry Room:
Heavenly Help for Earthly Moms
(Beacon Hill Press 2004)
By Barbara Curtis

Lord, Please Meet Me in the Laundry Room is Barbara Curtis’ life story–her long, drawn-out answer to the question she probably hears several times a day: “So, how do you DO it?” Barbara is the mother of 12 kids–9 of her own and 3 adopted. What’s more, she and her husband purposefully adopted three children with Down’s syndrome since one of their sons… Read More

After Every Wedding
Comes a Marriage
(Harvest House, 1997)
By Florence & Fred Littauer

I love this book! It’s one of the best books on marriage I’ve ever read–and I’ve collected a whole bookshelf in my 12 years of marriage. I’m definitely not the expert, but Florence Littauer is. She’s spent her life teaching passionately about the four personality types: Popular Sanguine, Powerful Choleric, Perfect Melancholy, and Peaceful Phlegmatic.

Do you know your personality type? Or your husband’s? Learning about the personalities will transform your marriage, and the book… Read More

At Home for the Holidays
By Meredith Efken
(Steeple Hill Café 2006)

If you’ve ever been in an email discussion loop, you’ll fit right in with cyber-girlfriends, Dulcie, Zelia, Jocelyn, Veronica, and Rosalyn. Fans of Efken’s first mom-lit novel, SAHM I Am, will find plenty to laugh about in her new yuletide tale, Home for the Holidays. The quick-paced email exchanges between these stay-home moms make for hilarious reading as they try to balance housework, family crisis, and the impending holiday madness.

Though the book is uproariously funny, Efken… Read More

The Stained-Glass Pickup: Glimpses of God’s Uncommon Wisdom
By Cathy Messecar
(Leafwood Publishers 2006)

Newspaper columnist Cathy Messecar shares a collection of stories that will deepen the faith of every woman. The title comes from the first devotional in the book, about a rancher who prays aloud for his high school age daughter while he drives her to school in his truck. I can certainly relate to praying in extremely humble places.

The book contains an eclectic mix of uncommon wisdom gleaned from the Bible and the author’s… Read More

Mozart’s Sister
By Nancy Moser
(Bethany House 2006)

For all the music or historical fiction lovers on your gift list, Nancy Moser’s exquisite novel will whisk them away to 18th-century Vienna. Did you even know Mozart had a sister? Six years his senior, Nannerl was every bit as talented as her precocious and highly acclaimed brother. Yet because she was a woman, she was overlooked by society, as well as her father.

The book is told from Nannerl’s point of view and reads like a piece of music, with sections… Read More