Ponderings From  My Heart

Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Mercy

It is time for a FIRST Wild Card Tour book review! If you wish to join the FIRST blog alliance, just click the button. We are a group of reviewers who tour Christian books. A Wild Card post includes a brief bio of the author and a full chapter from each book toured. The reason it is called a FIRST Wild Card Tour is that you never know if the book will be fiction, non~fiction, for young, or for old...or for somewhere in between! Enjoy your free peek into the book!

You never know when I might play a wild card on you!



Today's Wild Card author is:


and the book:

Thomas Nelson (August 7, 2012)

***Special thanks to Rick Roberson of The B&B Media Group for sending me a review copy.***

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:


Erin Healy is an award-winning fiction editor who has worked with talented novelists such as James Scott Bell, Melody Carlson, Colleen Coble, Brandilyn Collins, Traci DePree, L. B. Graham, Rene Gutteridge, Michelle McKinney Hammond, Robin Lee Hatcher, Denise Hildreth, Denise Hunter, Randy Ingermanson, Jane Kirkpatrick, Bryan Litfin, Frank Peretti, Lisa Samson, Randy Singer, Robert Whitlow, and many others.

She began working with Ted Dekker in 2002 and edited twelve of his heart-pounding stories before their collaboration on Kiss, the first novel to seat her on "the other side of the desk."
Erin is the owner of WordWright Editorial Services, a consulting firm specializing in fiction book development. She is a member of the American Christian Fiction Writers and the Academy of Christian Editors. She lives with her family in Colorado.



Visit the author's website.

SHORT BOOK DESCRIPTION:


Beth has a gift of healing-which is why she wants to become a vet and help her family run their fifth-generation cattle ranch. Her father's dream of helping men in trouble and giving them a second chance is her dream too. But it only takes one foolish decision for Beth to destroy it all.

Beth scrambles to redeem her mistake, pleading with God for help, even as a mystery complicates her life. But the repercussions grow more unbearable-a lawsuit, a death, a divided family, and the looming loss of everything she cares about. Beth's only hope is to find the grandfather she never knew and beg for his help. Confused, grieving, but determined to make amends, she embarks on a horseback journey across the mountains, guided by a wild, unpredictable wolf who may or may not be real.

Set in the stunningly rugged terrain of Southern Colorado, House of Mercy follows Beth through the valley of the shadow of death into the unfathomable miracles of God's goodness and mercy.

Genre: Christian Fiction | Suspense


Product Details:
List Price: $15.99
Paperback: 284 pages
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Language: English
ISBN-10: 140168551X
ISBN-13: 9781401685515


AND NOW...THE FIRST CHAPTER:


Chapter 1
It wasn’t every day that an old saddle could improve a horse’s life.
That was what Beth Borzoi was thinking as she stood in the dusty tack room that smelled like her favorite pair of leather boots. In the back corner where the splintering-wood walls met, she tugged the faded leather saddle off the bottommost rung of the heavy-duty rack, where it had sat, unused and forgotten, for years.
Her little brother, Danny, would have said she was stealing the saddle. He might have called her a kleptomaniac. That was too strong a word, but Danny was fifteen and liked to throw bold words around, cocky-like, show-off rodeo ropes aimed at snagging people. She loved that about him. It was a cute phase. Even so, she had formed a mental argument against the characterization of her- self as a thief, in case she needed to use it, because Danny was too young to understand the true meaning of even stronger words like sacrifice or situational ethics.
After all, she was working in secret, in the hidden folds of a summer night, so that both she and the saddle could leave the Blazing B unnoticed. In the wrong light, it might look like a theft.
The truth was, it was not her saddle to give away. It was Jacob’s saddle, though in the fifteen years Jacob had lived at the ranch, she had never seen him use it. The bigger truth was that this saddle abandoned to tarnish and sawdust could be put to better use. The fenders were plated with silver, pure metal that could be melted down and converted into money to save a horse from suffering. Decorative silver bordered the round skirt and framed the rear housing. The precious metal had been hammered to conform to the gentle rise of the cantle in the back and the swell in the front. The lovely round conchos were studded with turquoise. Hand-tooled impressions of wild mountain f lowers covered the leather everywhere that silver didn’t.
In its day, it must have been a fine show saddle. And if Jacob valued that at all, he wouldn’t have stored it like this.
Under the naked-bulb beams of the tack room, Beth’s body cast a shadow over the pretty piece as she hefted it. She blew the dirt and dander off the horn, swiped off the cracked seat with the flat of her hand, then turned away her head and sneezed. Colorado’s dry climate had not been kind to the leather.
She wasn’t stealing. She was saving an animal’s life.
The latch on the barn door released Beth to the midnight air with a click like a stolen kiss. The saddle weighed about thirty-five pounds, which was easy to manage when snatching it off a rack and tossing it onto a horse’s back. But it would feel much heavier by the time she reached her destination. She’d parked her truck a ways off where the rumbling old clunker wouldn’t raise questions or family members sleeping in the nearby ranch house. She’d left her dog at the foot of Danny’s bed with clear orders to stay. She hoped the animal would mind.
Energized, she crossed the horses’ yard. A few of them nickered greetings at her, including Hastings, who nuzzled her empty pockets for treats. The horses never slept in the barn’s stalls unless they were sick. Even in winter they stayed in the pasture, preferring the outdoor lean-to shelters.
The Blazing B, a 6,500-acre working cattle ranch, lay to the northwest of Colorado’s San Luis Valley. The region was called a valley because this portion of the state was a Rocky Mountain ham- mock that swung between the San Juans to the west and the Sangre de Cristos to the east. But at more than seven thousand feet, it was no low-lying flatland. It was, in fact, the highest alpine valley in the world. And it was the only place in the world that Beth ever wanted to live. Having graduated from the local community college with honors and saved enough additional money for her continuing education, she planned to leave in the fall to begin her first year of veterinary school. She would be gone as long as it took to earn her license, but her long-term plan was to return as a more valuable person. Her skills would save the family thousands of dollars every year, freeing up funds for their most important task—providing a home and a hard day’s work to discarded men who needed the peace the Blazing B had to offer.
On this late May night, a light breeze stirred the alfalfa growing in the pasturelands while the cattle grazed miles away. The herds always spent their summers on public lands in the mountains while their winter feed grew in the valley. They were watched over by a pool rider, a hired man who was a bit like a cow’s version of a shepherd. He stayed with them through the summer and would bring them home in the fall.
With the winter calving and spring branding a distant memory, the streams and irrigation wells amply supplied by good mountain runoff, and the healthy alfalfa fields thickening with a June cutting in mind, the mood at the Blazing B was peaceful.
When Beth was a quarter mile beyond the barn, a bobbing light drew her attention to the west side of the pasture, where ancient cottonwood trees formed a barrier against seasonal winds and snows. She paused, her eyes searching the darkness beyond this path that she could walk blindfolded. The light rippled over cottonwood trunks, casting shadows that were indistinguishable from the real thing.
A man was muttering in a low voice, jabbing his light around as if it were a stick. She couldn’t make out his words. Then the yellow beam stilled low to the ground, and she heard a metallic thrust, the scraping ring of a shovel’s blade being jammed into the dirt.
Beth worried. It had to be Wally, but what was he doing out at this hour, and at this place? The bunkhouse was two miles away, and the men had curfews, not to mention strict rules about their access to horses and vehicles.
She left the path and approached the trees without a misstep. The moonlight was enough to guide her over the uneven terrain.
“Wally?”
The cutting of the shovel ceased. “Who wants to know?” “It’s Beth.”
“Beth who?”
“Beth Borzoi. Abel’s daughter. I’m the one who rides Hastings.” “Well, sure! Right, right. Beth. I’m sorry you have to keep telling me. You’re awfully nice about it.”
The light that Wally had set on the ground rose and pointed itself at her, as if to confirm her claims, then dropped to the saddle resting against her thighs. Wally had been at the ranch for three years, since a stroke left his body unaffected but struck his brain with a short-term memory disorder. It was called anterograde amnesia, a forgetfulness of experiences but not skills. He could work hard but couldn’t hold a job because he was always forgetting where and when he was supposed to show up. Here at the ranch he didn’t have to worry about those details. He had psychologists and strategies to guide him through his days, a community of brothers who reminded him of everything he really needed to know. Well, most things. He had been on more than one occasion the butt of hurtful pranks orchestrated by the men who shared the bunkhouse with him. It was both a curse and a blessing that he was able to forget such incidents so easily.
Beth was the only Beth at the Blazing B, and the only female resident besides her mother, but these facts regularly eluded Wally. He never forgot her father, though, and he knew the names of all the horses, so this was how Beth had learned to keep putting herself back into the context of his life.
“You’re working hard,” she said. “You know it’s after eleven.” “Looking for my lockbox. I saw him take it. I followed him here just an hour ago, but now it’s gone.”
Sometimes it was money that had gone missing. Sometimes it was a glove or a photograph, or a piece of cake from her mother’s dinner table that was already in his belly. All the schedules and organizational systems in the world were not enough to help Wally with this bizarre side effect of his disorder: whenever a piece of his mind went missing, he would search for it by digging. Dr. Roy Davis, Wally’s psychiatrist, had curtailed much of Wally’s compulsive need to overturn the earth by having him perform many of the Blazing B’s endless irrigation tasks. Even so, the ten square miles of ranch were riddled with the chinks of Wally’s efforts to find what he had lost.
“That must be really frustrating,” she said. “I hate it when I lose my stuff.”
“I didn’t lose it. A gray wolf ran off with it. I had it safe in a secret spot, and he dug it up and carried off the box in his teeth. Hauled it all the way up here and reburied it. Now tell me, what’s a wolf gonna do with my legal tender? Buy himself a turkey leg down at the supermarket?”
Wally must have kept a little cash in his box. She could under- stand his frustration. But this claim stirred up disquiet at the back of her mind. Dr. Roy would need to know if Wally was seeing things. First off, gray wolves were hardly ever spotted in Colorado. They’d been run out of the state before World War II by poachers and hos- tile ranchers, and their return in recent years was little more than a rumor. Wally might have seen a coyote. But for another thing, no wild animal dug up a man’s buried treasure and relocated it. Except maybe a raccoon.
A raccoon trying to run off with a heavy lockbox might actually be entertaining.
“Tell you what, Wally. If he’s buried it here we’ll have a better chance of finding it in the morning. When the sun comes up, I’ll help you. But they’ll be missing you at the bunkhouse about now. Let me take you back so no one gets upset when they see you’re gone.” Jacob or Dr. Roy would do bunk checks at midnight.
“Upset? No one can be as upset as I am right now.” He thrust the shovel into the soft dirt at his feet. “I saw the dog do it. I tracked him all the way here, like he thought I wouldn’t see him under this full moon. Fool dog—but who’d believe me? It’s like a freaky fairy tale, isn’t it? Well, I’d have put that box in a local vault if I didn’t have to keep so many stinkin’ Web addresses and passwords and account numbers and security questions at my fingertips.” He withdrew a small notebook from his hip pocket and waved the pages around. It was one of the things he used to keep track of details. “Maybe I’ll have to rethink that.”
Beth’s hands had become sweaty and a little cramped under the saddle’s weight. She used her right knee to balance the saddle and fix her grip. The soft leather suddenly felt like heavy gold bricks out of someone else’s bank vault.
“Well, let’s go,” she said. “I’ve got my truck right on down the lane.”
“What do you have there?” Wally returned the notebook to his pocket, hefted the shovel, and picked his way out of the under- brush, finding his way by flashlight.
“An old saddle. It’s been in the tack room for years.” She expected Wally to forget the saddle just as quickly as he would for- get this night’s adventure and her promise to help him dig in the morning.
He lifted one of the fenders and stroked the silver with his thumb. “Pretty thing. Probably worth something. Not as much as that box is worth to me, though.”
“We’ll find it,” Beth said.
“You bet we will.” Wally fell into step beside her. “Thanks for the ride back, Beth. You’re a good girl. You got your daddy in you.”
With Jacob’s old saddle resting on a blanket in the bed of her rusty white pickup, Beth followed an access road from the horse pasture by her own home down into the heart of the Blazing B.
The property’s second ranch house was located more strategically to the cattle operation, and so it was known to all as the Hub. The Hub was a practical bachelor pad. Outside, the branding pens and calving sheds and squeeze chutes and cattle trucks filled up a dusty clearing around the house. Inside, the carpets and old leather furniture, even when clean, smelled like men who believed that a hard day’s work followed by a dead sleep—in any location—was far more gratifying than a hot shower. The house was steeped in the scent stains of sweat and hay, horses and manure, tanned leather and barbecue smoke. The men who slept here lived like the bachelors they were. If their daily labors weren’t enough to impress a woman, the cowboys couldn’t be bothered with her.
Dr. Roy Davis, known affectionately by all as Dr. Roy, was a lifelong friend of Beth’s father. Years ago, after the death of Roy’s wife, Abel and Roy merged their professional passions of ranching and psychiatry and expanded the Blazing B’s purpose. It became an outreach to functional but wounded men like Wally who needed a home and a job. Dr. Roy brought his teenage son, Jacob, along. Now thirty-one, Jacob had never found reason to leave, except for the years he’d spent away at college earning multiple degrees in agriculture and animal management. Jacob had been the Blazing B’s general operations manager for more than five years.
Jacob and his father shared the Hub with Pastor Eric, who was a divorced minister, and Emory, a therapist who was once a gang leader. These men were the Borzois’ four full-time employees.
The other men who lived at the Blazing B were called “associates.” They occupied the bunkhouse, some for a few weeks and some for years. At present there were six, including Wally.
When Beth stopped her truck in front of the Hub’s porch, Wally slipped off the seat of her cab, closed the rusty door, and went directly around back to the bunkhouse. She pulled away and had reached the end of the drive when a rut jarred the truck and rattled the shovel he’d left in the truck bed.
In spite of her hurry to take Jacob’s saddle to the people who needed it, she put the truck in park, jumped out, and jogged the tool up to the house. The porch light lit the squeaky wood steps, and she took them two at a time. Jacob would see the tool in the morning when he came out to start up his own truck and head out to what- ever project was on the schedule. She’d phone him to make sure.
She was tipping the handle into the corner where the porch rail met the siding when the Hub’s front door opened and Jacob leaned out. “Past your bedtime, isn’t it?” he said, but he was smiling at
her. Over the years they had settled into a comfortable big-brother- little-sister relationship, though Beth had never fully outgrown her adolescent crush on him.
“Found Wally digging up by the barn,” she said.
Surprise pulled his dark brows together. “Now? Where is he?” “Back in bed, I guess. He said he followed a wolf up to our place. You might want Dr. Roy to look into that. Your dad should know if Wally’s . . . seeing things.”
Jacob nodded as he stepped out the door and leaned against the house. He crossed his arms. “Coyote maybe?”
“Try suggesting that to him. And when was the last time we had a coyote down here? It’s been ages—not since Danny gave up his chicken coop.”
“I’ll mention that to Dad. It’s probably nothing. What had you out at the barn at this hour? Horses okay?”
“Fine.” Beth’s eyes swiveled down to her truck, to Jacob’s saddle, both well beyond reach of the porch light. She tried to recall all her justifications for taking the saddle, but in that moment all she could think was that she should get his permission to do it. She’d known this man more than half her life. He was kind. He was wise. He’d say yes. He’d want her to take it.
But she said, “I’m headed out to the Kandinskys’ place. They’ve got a horse who injured his eye, and it’s pretty bad. They let it go too long, you know, hoping it would correct itself, maybe wouldn’t need a big vet bill.”
“The Kandinskys have their own vet on the premises. Who called you out?”
“It’s not one of their horses, actually. It’s Phil’s. Remember him?” “Your friend from high school?”
“He’s been working there a year or so. They let him keep the horse on the property. One of the perks.”
“But he can’t use their vet?”
Beth looked at her feet. “Phil’s family can’t afford their vet. You know how that goes. We couldn’t afford him. His family doesn’t even have pets, you know. They run a grocery store. The horse is his little sister’s project. A 4H thing.”
“Well, tell Phil I said he called the right gal for the job.”
“I don’t know, Jacob. It sounds really bad. These eye things— the horse might need surgery.”
She found it unusually difficult to look at him, though she was sure he was studying her with a suspicious stare by now. But she couldn’t look at the truck either. Her eyes couldn’t find an object to rest on.
“All you can do is all you can do, Beth. That’ll be as true after you’re licensed as it is now.”
“But I want to do miracles,” she said.
He chuckled at that, though she hadn’t been joking. “Don’t we all.” He uncrossed his arms and put his hand on the doorknob, preparing to go back inside. “I heard some big-shot Thoroughbred breeder is boarding some of his studs there,” Jacob said. “Some friend of theirs passing through.”
“I heard that too.”
“Maybe that’ll be Phil’s miracle this time—an unexpected guest, someone with the right know-how or the right resources who will come to his horse’s rescue.”
“Angels unaware,” Beth said. “Something like that. Night, Beth.”
Beth didn’t want him to go just yet. “Night.”
She lingered at the door while it closed, hoping he might intuit what she didn’t have the courage to say.
When he didn’t, she committed to her original plan. She descended the steps in a quiet rush, wanting to whisk the saddle away before he could object to what he didn’t know. She wanted to be the one who did the good works, who made the incredible rescue. She couldn’t help herself. It was her father’s blood running through her heart.
On the driveway, her smooth-soled boots skimmed the dirt, whispering back to her truck.
“It’s not your right to do it,” Jacob said. Beth gasped and whirled at the sound of his voice, unexpected and loud and straight into her ear, as if he’d been standing on her shoulder. “It’s not your gift to give.”
But the ranch house door was shut tight under the cone of the porch light, and the bright window revealed nothing inside but heavy furniture and cluttered tabletops. At the back of the house, a different door closed heavily. Jacob was headed out to the bunk- house to check on Wally already.
Beth let her captured breath leave her lungs. She looked around for an explanation, because she didn’t want to accept that the words might have been uttered by a guilty conscience.
At the base of the porch steps, crouching in such darkness that its black center sank into its surroundings, was the form of an unusually large dog. Erect ears, broad head, slender body. A wolf. She had passed that spot so closely seconds ago that she could have reached out and stroked its neck.
She took one step backward. Of course, her mind was dreaming this up because Wally had suggested a wolf to her. If he hadn’t, she might have said the silhouette had the outline of a snowman. An inverted snowman guarding the house from her lies. In May.
Beth stared at it for several seconds, oddly unable to recall the landscape where she’d spent her entire life. She was distressed not to be able to say from this distance and angle whether that was a shrub planted there, or a fence post, or an old piece of equipment that hadn’t made it back into the supply shed. When the shape of its edges seemed to shift and shudder without actually moving at all, she decided that her eyes were being tricked by the darkness.
Convincing herself of this was almost as easy as justifying her saddle theft.
She turned away from the house and hurried onward, looking back only once.

Saturday, August 11, 2012

Dr. Dobson's Handbook of Family Advice

It is time for a FIRST Wild Card Tour book review! If you wish to join the FIRST blog alliance, just click the button. We are a group of reviewers who tour Christian books. A Wild Card post includes a brief bio of the author and a full chapter from each book toured. The reason it is called a FIRST Wild Card Tour is that you never know if the book will be fiction, non~fiction, for young, or for old...or for somewhere in between! Enjoy your free peek into the book!

You never know when I might play a wild card on you!



Today's Wild Card author is:


and the book:

Harvest House (August 1, 2012)

***Special thanks to Ginger Chen of Harvest House for sending me a review copy.***

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

James C. Dobson, Ph.D., a licensed psychologist and counselor and host of the daily radio program Family Talk with Dr. James Dobson, is author of more than 30 books including the recentNew York Times bestseller Bringing Up Girls. He is founder and chairman emeritus of Focus on the Family. Dr. Dobson is married to Shirley and is the father of two grown children, Danae and Ryan, and the grandfather of Lincoln.


Visit the author's website.


SHORT BOOK DESCRIPTION:

Respected counselor and internationally recognized radio host Dr. James Dobson offers families godly wisdom, encouraging stories, and practical insights. With expertise and compassion, Dr. Dobson provides his sought-after advice on vital topics including: marriage, love, discipline, boundaries for kids of all ages, money, and God’s truths for decision-making.





Paperback: 288 pages
List Price: $14.99
Publisher: Harvest House Publishers; Reprint edition (August 1, 2012)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0736943730
ISBN-13: 978-0736943734



AND NOW...THE FIRST CHAPTER:




Boundaries


The Security of Boundaries


Children feel more secure, and therefore tend to flourish, when they know where the boundaries are. Let me illustrate that principle.


Imagine you’re driving a car over the Royal Gorge Bridge in Colorado, which is suspended hundreds of feet above the canyon floor. As a first-time traveler, you’re pretty tense as you drive across. It is a scary experience. I knew one little fellow who was so awed by the view over the side of the bridge that he said, “Wow, Daddy! If you fell off of here, it’d kill you constantly!”


Now suppose there were no guardrails on the side of the bridge. Where would you steer the car? Right down the middle of the road. Even though you don’t plan to hit those protective railings along the side, you just feel more secure knowing that they’re there.


It’s the same way with children. There is security in defined limits. They need to know precisely what the rules are and who’s available to enforce them. When these clear boundaries exist at home, the child lives in utter safety. He never gets in trouble unless he deliberately asks for it. And as long as he stays within those reasonable, well-marked guardrails, there’s mirth and freedom and acceptance.


Your children need the security of defined limits, too. They may not admit that they want you to be the boss, but they breathe easier when you are.


Mom’s Football Team


In the late 1960s, the phrase “If it feels good, do it” made its way around the counterculture. It meant, in effect, that a person’s flighty impulses should be allowed to overrule every other consideration. “Don’t think—just follow your heart” was the prevailing attitude. That foolish advice has ruined many gullible people. Those who ignore lurking dangers are casting themselves adrift in the path of life’s storms. We must be prepared to disregard ephemeral feelings at times and govern our behavior with common sense.


Not only can emotions be dangerous—they can also be unreliable and foolish. I’m reminded of a story told by my mother about her high school years. They had one of the worst football teams in the history of Oklahoma. They hadn’t won a game in years. Finally a wealthy oil producer asked to speak to the team in the locker room and offered a brand-new Ford to every boy and to each coach if they would simply defeat their bitter rivals in the next game. The team went crazy. For seven days they thought about nothing but football. They couldn’t even sleep at night. Finally the big night arrived, and the team was frantic with anticipation. They assembled on the sidelines, put their hands together, and shouted, “Rah!” Then they ran onto the field—and were smashed thirty-eight to nothing. No amount of excitement could compensate for the players’ lack of discipline, conditioning, practice, study, coaching, drill, experience, and character. Such is the nature of emotion. It has a definite place in human affairs but is not a substitute for intelligence, preparation, and self-control.


Instead of responding to your impulses, therefore, it is often better to hang tough when you feel like quitting, to guard your tongue when you feel like talking, to save your money when you feel like spending, and to remain faithful when you feel like flirting. Unbridled feelings will get you in trouble nine times out of ten.


So, before you chase after something that simply feels good, you might want to think it over. You could be about to make one of your greatest blunders.


Children and Materialism


It’s not easy to say no to children, especially in an affluent and permissive society. Toy companies are spending millions of dollars on advertising aimed at children—not their parents. They know boys and girls are the very best customers. But by giving in to this pressure, parents may actually deprive their children of pleasure. Here’s why.


Pleasure occurs when an intense need is met. A glass of water is worth more than gold to a person who’s dying of thirst, but it’s worthless to the person who doesn’t need it. That principle applies directly to children. If you never allow a boy or girl to desire something, he or she will not fully enjoy the pleasure of receiving it. If you give him a tricycle before he can walk, and a bike before he can ride, and a car before he can drive, and a diamond ring before he knows the value of money, you may actually have deprived him of the satisfaction he could have received from that possession.


How unfortunate is the child who never has the opportunity to long for something, to dream about that prize by day, and to plot for it by night, perhaps even to get desperate enough to work for it.


Excessive materialism is not only harmful to children—but it deprives them of pleasure, too.


Children and Television


There’s been considerable debate in recent years about television rating systems. That kind of information is desperately needed by parents who want to protect their kids from harmful content, and I’m among those who believe that the present system just doesn’t get the job done.


But even if changes are implemented, there’s a new wrinkle to be considered. Social research conducted by Yankelovich Partners, Inc., has analyzed the television-viewing habits of Americans. What they discovered is surprising. Forty-two percent of children between nine and seventeen have their own cable or satellite television hookups in their bedrooms.  1 The image of families gathered around a single TV set in the family room is fading. Instead, many kids are off by themselves where they can choose anything that they want to see.


Ann Clurman, a partner at Yankelovich, said, “Almost everything children are seeing is essentially going into their minds in some sort of uncensored or unfiltered way.”  2 Considering the explicit sex, violence, nudity, and profanity available now, especially on cable and satellite television, this is a disturbing revelation.


Children need to be protected from adult programming, and yet almost four out of every ten kids have parents who don’t really know what they’re watching. I fear that situation will come back to haunt us for years to come.


Monday, August 6, 2012

Hide and Seek

It is time for a FIRST Wild Card Tour book review! If you wish to join the FIRST blog alliance, just click the button. We are a group of reviewers who tour Christian books. A Wild Card post includes a brief bio of the author and a full chapter from each book toured. The reason it is called a FIRST Wild Card Tour is that you never know if the book will be fiction, non~fiction, for young, or for old...or for somewhere in between! Enjoy your free peek into the book!

You never know when I might play a wild card on you!



Today's Wild Card authors are:


and the book:

B&H Books (July 1, 2012)

***Special thanks to Rick Roberson, The B&B Media Group, Inc for sending me a review copy.***

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Jeff Struecker was born in Fort Dodge, Iowa. At age 18, he enlisted the US Army as an infantryman and retired as a Chaplain with over 22 years of active federal service. He currently serves as Associate Pastor of Ministry Development at Calvary Baptist Church in Columbus, GA. Throughout his career Jeff has attended numerous professional military schools and has received many awards and commendations. His combat experience includes participation in Operation Just Cause in Panama, Operation Iris Gold in Kuwait, Operation Gothic Serpent, in Mogadishu, Somalia, and multiple tours in Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan, and Operation Iraqi Freedom. Jeff holds a Master of Divinity Degree from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, a Bachelor of Science Degree and Associate of Science Degree from Troy University in Alabama. Jeff and his wife, Dawn, have five children: Aaron, Jacob, Joseph, Abigail and Lydia.
Visit the author's website.

Alton L. Gansky is the author of 23 novels and 7 nonfiction works, as well as principle writer of 7 novels and 2 nonfiction books. He has been a Christie Award finalist (A Ship Possessed) and an Angel Award winner (Terminal Justice). He holds a BA and MA in biblical studies. He lives in central California with his wife.

Visit the author's website.

SHORT BOOK DESCRIPTION:

Amelia Lennon no longer wears a uniform or carries a weapon. An Army trained Foreign Affairs Officer, she's negotiating a dispute with the Kyrgyzstan government that threatens to leave the U.S. without an airbase in that region. She traded her gun for the power of words, but now she needs both. While following her government contact-Jildiz Oskonbaeva, the lawyer daughter of Kyrgyzstan's president-Amelia witnesses an attempt to abduct her. She manages to prevent the kidnapping, but now the two women are on the run in a city that's erupting into chaos.

Master Sergeant J.J. Bartley is the Special Operations team leader tasked to rescue Amelia and Jildiz. With two new members in his unit-one with a secret that could endanger everyone's life-J.J. must soldier his unit through crazed mobs intent on overthrowing the government. Back home, his pregnant wife is misinformed that her husband and the team have been killed. But before this is over, Bartley will find out that's the least of his problems.



Product Details:

List Price: $14.99
  • Paperback: 400 pages
  • Publisher: B&H Books (July 1, 2012)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1433671425
  • ISBN-13: 978-1433671425
  • AND NOW...THE FIRST CHAPTER:

    43.050278°N 74.469444°E
    Transit Center at Manas (formerly Manas Air Base), outside
    Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan
    June 6

    The mess hall was deserted. Master Sergeant J.J. Bartley sat alone at a long, well-worn table that had seen thousands of airmen, soldiers, and marines pause from their work long enough to pound down some grub before returning to their duties. On the table rested a chipped plastic coffee cup and two file folders. The expansive room seemed twice the size J.J. remembered the last time he passed through the air base. Of course the room was full of hungry service men then, many headed to Afghanistan. That was Manass primary role over the last decade: the jumping-off spot for troops headed to hostile country.
    As an Army ranger he did two tours of duty in Afghanistan before being hand-selected by Sergeant Major Eric Moyer to be part of a unique spec ops team. He made several other missions into the country as part of that squad, including one he was sure would be his last moment on earth. As it turned out, a pair of F-18s came to the rescue of the six-man unit as they fought off overwhelming numbers of Taliban fighters advanc- ing on their position. The jet jockeys saved their lives by drop- ping a pair of ICM bombs on their location. The (Improved Conventional Munition) bombs exploded fifteen feet above their heads leaving the ground littered with dead Taliban and a ringing in J.J.s ears that took a week to go away.
    That seemed a lifetime ago. Since then, as the sniper and explosives expert for his team, he traveled to a dozen different places on the planet, none of which he was allowed to name and carried out missions he was forbidden to speak about.
    Stare all you want, Boss, but that coffee ain’t going to do any tricks.
    J.J. didn’t have to look up to know Jose Doc Medina was approaching. He raised his gaze anyway and returned the med- ic’s smile. Jose was a solid man with a keen mind, quick humor, and a admirable steadiness. If the sky were to rip in half and a million aliens ships from another dimension appeared ready to take over the world, J.J. was sure Jose would look up and say, Well, look at that. A man doesn’t see that every day. J.J. liked the man for another reason. In addition to his being a superior soldier he also saved J.J.s life after a gun battle. He owed the man several pizza’s for that.
    Hey Doc, where you been?”
    They have a great rec. hall here. I was shooting pool with the Air Force guys. He pulled out a chair and sat.
    All in the name of inter-service fun, no doubt. J.J. lifted his cup. The coffee was cold.
    Of course. You know I believe we should respect all branches of the military, even the inferior, less skilled ones.
    How much?”

    Huh?”
    You heard me.
    Jose shrugged. Maybe a couple of twenties.
    Total?”
    “Each. Jose pretended to look guilty. “How many airmen did you fleece?”
    Oh, who keeps track of such things? I was just killing time.
    J.J. narrowed his eyes. Okay, just four. My conscious was beginning to bother me.
    Lucky for them. He put the cup down. Seen Pete and
    Crispin?”
    Not since Crispin gave his little demonstration. He did a good job. I was impressed and I’ve seen his tech kung-fu in the field. All those itty-bitty surveillance drones were a hit. Left the local tech boys drooling.
    Yeah, I was there, but I haven’t seen them since.
    Do you need them. Ill go round em up.
    Nah. Just as long as theyre front-and-center when the new guys arrive.
    Ah, thats it.
    J.J. cocked his head. Whats it?”
    You look down, Boss, like you’ve lost your favorite girl friend.
    My favorite girlfriend. You know Im married. Tess won’t let me have girlfriends.
    Jose slumped in his chair. Wives are funny that way. My wife won’t let me date either. He paused to let the quip die before establishing a more somber tone. “I miss them too.
    “I didn’t say anything about missing anyone.” “I was listening to your face.
    Sometimes you confuse me, Doc.

    Jose chuckled. You know what they say about Hispanics: were inscrutable.
    “I thought that referred to Asians in old movies.
    Eh, Asians, Hispanics, whatever. Another pause. Youre thinking about Boss and Shaq.
    Theyre home safe and sound. Im not worried about them. Images of the team’s former leader and second-in-com- mand strobed in his mind. Last he saw them, they looked well and happy. He could hardly tell both were severely wounded and the latter lost an eye. Both retired shortly after the mission in eastern Siberia and took jobs with a civilian security firm.
    “I didn’t say you were worried about them. I think youre worried because theyre not here. You went from team mem- ber to Boss in short order. Theres gotta be some psychological whiplash in that.
    Psychological whiplash? They teach you that at Fort Sam Houston?”
    Nope. Medic training taught me many things but not much psychology. Life, on the other hand, has taught me a ton.
    Okay, Doc. Whats eating me?”
    Jose sat up and leaned forward on the table. Nothing bad, Boss. Youre just being human.
    “I don’t think Ill ever get used to being called Boss. Every time someone calls me that I think of Moyer.
    You’ll get the hang of it. Jose paused. “Can we talk like a couple of old buddies?”
    Thats what we are, Jose.
    Well, at least in here. Anyone else walks in this room and
    Ill go back to being formal.
    The corner of J.J.s mouth inched up. You have a formal side?”
    “Im nothing if not a model of Army decorum. He inched closer to the table as if he were about to whisper a secret. His volume remained the same. “Okay, heres how I see it. We are creatures of training. We enlist and start at the lowest rank. Time in service and experience lead to promotions. We have a good idea how thats going to progress. You’ve just been pushed up the ladder faster than expected. The view is different up there.
    True.
    So now you’ve be selected to take over for a man we admire and respect. Hes a one in a million. Hes got it all: brains, courage, loyalty, and a soldiers sixth sense. He left under tough circumstances. Nearly lost his daughter to kidnappers trying to sway him in his mission. Took a beating. Nearly died. To hear him tell it, he did die and came back. His cover was blown so his usefulness as field operative was gone and thats all he ever wanted to do.
    He is a great man. Taught me more about soldiering than basic, AIT, and Ranger training combined. A wave of sadness ran over J.J. “I can’t be Eric Moyer, Doc. In my mind, he will always be Boss.
    But hes not J.J. He was team leader. Now youre the man. No one is asking you to be Eric Moyer. The Army—the team—wants you to be you.
    Is that enough?”
    Jose straightened and stared into J.J.s eyes. It is in my book.
    Its not that Im afraid—”
    Youd better be afraid. I don’t trust a man who says hes not afraid. Such men are either liars or lunatics.
    J.J. raised an eyebrow. Really? And which am I?”
    Youre neither. I’ve seen you afraid and you’ve never been braver. You can do this, J.J. I got your six. You know that. Pete danced a jig when he heard of your promotion. At least I think it was a jig. The man has no rhythm.

    J.J. laughed. You got that right. First time I saw him bust a move I thought he was being electrocuted.
    Jose chuckled then the grin evaporated. Seriously J.J., Im proud to follow you into battle. Don’t doubt yourself and don’t doubt us. Besides, if you screw up, Moyer will kick your butt then turn on me for not straightening you out.
    Theres a terrifying thought. J.J. gazed into the black fluid in his cup. More than self doubt was eating at him but he endured all the pep talk he could. Jose seemed to sense it.
    You happy with the new guys?” The medic motioned to the personnel jackets.
    Yeah, as much as I can be. Its hard to judge a man’s char- acter from notes on evaluation forms. Both are experienced and decorated. Seen lots of action, mostly in the last half of Iraq and in the wind down of Afghanistan. Both Rangers. One comes in at the same rank as me: Master Sergeant. Hes got six months on me as well.
    Doesn’t matter, J.J., youre team leader. He’ll know that.
    He’ll also know that I was frocked. I have the extra stripe
    but not the official promotion and pay.
    Its just a matter of time, J.J. You know once theres some head room, you’ll get the full promotion and maybe more. Its all a numbers game. There are scores of soldiers work- ing at a higher rank than the Army is allowed to give them. Functionally, youre the man, and Ill fight with any man who disagrees.
    Youre a pal, but you may want to hold on to the boast for awhile.
    Why?”
    You’ll see.
    The door to the mess hall opened and a skinny airman stepped into the dim space, saw them, then walked to the table. Master Sergeant Bartley. I’ve been asked to tell you the transport plane you’ve been waiting for has touched down. Its pulling to the tarmac now.
    J.J. glanced at the rank insignia on the man’s upper sleeve: one strip and an Air Force star in a circle. Thank you, Airman. I would like to meet the plane. Can you get me there?”
    “I was told to have a vehicle waiting.
    J.J. stood, lifted the cold coffee to his lips and drank. He grimaced.Where did the Air Force learn to make coffee?”
    The young airman remained straight-faced: From the navy.
    Figures. He set the cup down. Gather the team, Doc.