Little Hickman Creek Series, Or Tagged Again!

Last Friday I was tagged by my buddy Shauna over at The Coffee Stop to share about a favorite but rather lesser-known book. (If you haven't visited Shauna's blog before, it's time well spent. She has three of the funniest boys you'll ever find!) From Shauna's post last Friday:

"Patti Abbot launched this great idea. Here's her original explanation:

This is the first of what I optimistically hope will become Friday recommendations of books we love but might have forgotten over the years. I have asked several people to help me by also remembering a favorite book. Their blog sites are listed below. I also asked each of them to tag someone to recommend a book for next Friday. I'm worried great books of the recent past are sliding out of print and out of our consciousness. Not the first-tier classics we all can name, but the books that come next."

So in keeping with Friday book recommendations (yes, I know I'm posting a bit early!), I am taking some liberties with this and recommending not just one book, but a 3-book series by Sharlene MacLaren. It's her Little Hickman Creek Series, and consists of three of my all-time favorite historical romances. I'm including the synopsis from each book.

When I started this blog last year, one of my first posts was about my favorite authors. Sharlene MacLaren, who is on that list, is a new-ish author with whom I have absolutely fallen in love! Every book of hers that I have read has been one that I've read at least twice, if not more. Each book is better than the one before. And not only are her books wonderful, Shar herself is such a fun gal that you will absolutely love her. She's been so generous with me with email notes that I feel like I've known her for years. Check her out at her blog or her website. You will enjoy getting to know her better. Till then, let me encourage you--STRONGLY encourage you!!!--to read her Little Hickman Creek series.

The first book in Shar's Little Hickman Creek Series is "Loving Liza Jane":




A Divine Leading: When Liza Jane Merriwether rode into the town of Little Hickman Creek, her first thought was, "Oh Lord, what have I done?" Kentucky was much different than what she was used to back East, but she knew God had led her here for a reason. Will she discover His plan for her life?

The Handsome Widower: Soon, the petite schoolteacher is beloved by all...including Benjamin Broughton, a handsome widower struggling to raise two young children. Will he overlook the perfect wife that God has practically dropped in his lap for a mail-order bride?

A Destined Love: Liza Jane's teaching contract implicitly states that she is to have "no improper contact with the opposite sex." Will she discover that with God, all things are possible?


Sounds good, doesn't it???? I can assure it, IT WAS!!!

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The second book in the series is "Sarah, My Beloved".

A Divine Mix-up: A beautiful redhead has traveled from Boston to Kentucky by stagecoach to be a mail order bride. But when Sarah Woodward arrives in Little Hickman Creek, she is greeted by her prospective husband, who tells her he has fallen in love with another woman. Disappointed but determined, Sarah refuses to leave until she finds out the reason why God led her here.

A Hardened Heart: A tall, dark and ruggedly handsome man, Rocky Callahan meets the fiery Sarah. He has tragically lost his wife, his only child, and his sister. Faced with raising his sister's two children alone, he suggests a "marriage in name only" to Sarah.

Healing the Past: Will Rocky let go of the pain in his past and trust God's plan for his life? Will Sarah leave him for a past beau, who has followed her to Kentucky to bring her home? Or will Sarah and Rocky find true love from the hand of the ultimate Matchmaker?


I love a good "marriage of convenience" story...and this one is JUST THAT!!! A REALLY GOOD ONE!!!

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The third and final book in the series, just recently released and what I think to be Shar's best work to date, is "Courting Emma":




A Divine Plan: Twenty-eight-year-old Emma Browning has built a barricade around her heart to survive the pain of growing up with her alcoholic father, Ezra. As she runs Emma's Boardinghouse, she plays host to an array of unkempt, earthy characters while trying to maintain a protective emotional distance from people. No one has succeeded in getting to know the beautiful yet steely edged proprietress. That is, not until Little Hickman Creek's handsome new pastor, Jonathan Atkins, takes up residence in the boardinghouse and begins to dismantle her carefully controlled world...

A Struggle to Forgive: Clinging desperately to her stubborn ways and unable to forgive her father, Emma begins receiving letters from a mysterious sender who somehow knows about her and has secret information about Ezra's past. Amidst all this, she is surprised--and unsettled--by the attentions of both Jonathan and Billy, the smooth-talking traveling showman.

A Miraculous Love: When the town of Little Hickman Creek is stunned by an unexpected turn of events, will Emma risk removing her protective shell to accept the love of God--and the love of a man?


As good as the other two are, this one is without a doubt my favorite. Well worth the wait!!!

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I love a good book, but even more I love a good series. A series gives me another book to anticipate. I also love when characters from one book show up in subsequent books. It's like visiting with old friends whom I haven't seen in a while. (Yes, I know I need to get out more!!!) Shar's "Little Hickman Creek" series has all those things, and then some. You can read these book summaries and probably guess how each book will end, but I can promise you that NONE of Shar's books are predictable. Her writing has quality and depth, and she tells a wonderful love story with a happily-ever-after ending that always leaves you sighing and wanting more. Check her out! You will be so glad you did!

And finally, to finish off my Friday book recommendation, I now tag Deb over at The Daily B. I noticed you have "Loving Liza Jane" on your Shelfari list, Deb! So next Friday is yours!!!

TAG! You're It!!!

I took a peek this morning at one of Michelle Sutton's recent posts. If you don't know who Michelle is, she is the Edgy Inspirational Author, and she writes and reviews a lot--A LOT!!!!-of Christian fiction. If you don't believe me when I say "A LOT!!!", take a look at her "What I'm Reading..." list. I don't know how she does it.

Anyhoo, the particular post I read was from last week--February 23rd, to be exact--and it sounded so fun I'm going to start the tag here. Here's how it works (although I'm changing it up just a bit):

1. Grab the book you are currently reading and turn to p. 123
2. Go to the 5th sentence
3. Post the next 3 sentences
4. Tell the name of the book and author
5. Tag 5 others

Michelle's tag said to grab the nearest book, but I want to know what you're currently reading whether it's nearby or not.

Okay, here's mine:

"I'm afraid I must, Miss Coleson." Katie firmly withdrew her hand from Blanche's grasp.


"You must call me Blanche." She took one step backward.


Catching Katie, by Robin Lee Hatcher


Well, I must say that I was hoping for something a little different than that. Maybe I should've gone to p. 124. Taken out of context, this sounds as if something fishy is going on between these two ladies! I've read the book before, so I assure you Robin, who is one of my absolute favorite authors, has not written anything inappropriate!!! This book, in fact, is one of the reasons I love Robin. It's quite dreamy.

Alrighty then! So I am tagging Jenster, Becky, Deb, Shauna, and Angela! Tag, ladies, you are IT!

The Walking Wounded and Other Miscellany

Please forgive the length of this post. I really do try to keep my posts relatively short (CLEARLY I have failed in that endeavor!!!), but I've had a lot on my mind and a lot going on! So here we go!


My home, of late, has been THE place to be for the physically afflicted. First of all, both The HOFFER and Little Bit have really bad allergies anyway, but this allergy season has been horrific for them. I have never seen them suffer like this. One of Little Bit's teachers recommended a pediatric allergy doctor to us, and we had our first visit today. He agreed that Little Bit needed to be tested to see exactly what she's allergic to, but tests can't be run until all Claritin and Benedryl are completely out of her system. It only takes one week to get completely off Benedryl, but 3 WEEKS to get completely off Claritin. Poor girl. She's going to be fairly miserable for a while. That means her parents are going to be fairly miserable as well! He did give us a few other medications to help her get through till her testing.

As if that weren't enough, Little Bit tripped coming down our staircase yesterday and hurt her foot. Oh my goodness, you should have heard those screams! Miraculously, nothing is broken or even torn. Not even really sure what's hurt or what happened to it. We gave her some Motrin and kept her foot elevated all day Sunday, and there wasn't much, if any, swelling. Today she was able to get her shoe on for school, although it was quite painful. By the end of the day, she was walking on it pretty well. Still hurts, but she's doing really well in spite of it all.

Okay, want to hear something spooky? The HOFFER was walking down the stairs about a week ago, took one step too many, slipped and landed wrong on HIS FOOT! Is that bizarre or what? The really scary thing about it was that shortly after I got to him, he very quickly turned white as a sheet, started sweating profusely, then promptly passed out. I was worried he was having a heart attack and couldn't breath. He had slumped over forward, then he fell back against the wall with his chin touching his chest. I had never seen anything like it and was TERRIFIED. He was out for about a minute (although it seemed like an eternity!), then he came to and slowly regained his color, stopped sweating and was okay. He didn't remember passing out and was understandably nervous about going to sleep for the night, so I stayed up to read for a while and kept an eye on him. He slept for about 45 minutes when he woke up again. I told him I thought he was okay for the night since his color was back and his breathing was good and steady. So he slept, albeit a bit fitfully, for the rest of the night (only about 3-4 hours). Needless to say, what little sleep I got was also full of fit. After getting up and getting Little Bit off to school the next morning, I came back and joined The HOFFER in getting a bit more sleep. We slept till noon, but we needed it. Here are the God-parts: as with Little Bit's foot, nothing was broken or torn...it just hurt like the dickens. Lots of Advil, Vitamin C (my mother's cure-all) and rest helped it heal pretty quickly. He was putting weight on it in just a couple of days. AND--The HOFFER already had a doctor appointment scheduled a couple of days later! He was able to talk to his doctor about what happened, and he reassured us that everything looked just fine. The passing out was even a normal occurrence.

With all that has happened to The HOFFER and Little Bit...I'm just waiting to see what's going to happen to me!!!

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As I mentioned in my last post, Little Bit and I went to see the new Veggie Tales movie on Friday after school. I had invited several friends from school and church, and we had a great turnout! Even better, the movie was HILARIOUS! Even if you don't have any little kids to take with you, GO SEE IT! You won't be sorry! The only thing I didn't like was audience-related. Apparently, a man sitting in the row in front of us didn't think the people at Big Idea had done a good enough job, because he kept adding his own sound effects! At least his kids enjoyed it...!

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Have you ever had to put a pet to sleep? We had to do just that on New Year's Eve. We were adopted by a mama cat and her three kittens when we first moved to Austin. That was in 1992. Mama Cat passed away about four years ago. Birdie disappeared right after Thanksgiving and we haven't seen her since. We wouldn't see Mulligan for days, then he would reappear just fine. Well, this last time he reappeared he wasn't so fine, so Little Bit and I took him to the emergency animal clinic right away. Given that he was around 15 years old and any kidney treatments weren't guaranteed to set him right (renal failure is very common in elderly cats), I made the decision to let him go. It was really difficult for Little Bit to understand, and she took it very hard. They gave us a few minutes to say goodbye to our sweet kitty. They also gave us his paw print in clay for us to have as a keepsake. It was a lousy day.

At least we still have one kitty left.

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I believe I have previously discussed the fact that my favorite sports are, in order, baseball and football. Notice there is no mention of basketball? Would you care to guess what sport Little Bit is drawn to? Of COURSE it's not baseball or football...it's BASKETBALL. No offense to you basketball fans out there...basketball just never "clicked" with me. Austin has a minor-league basketball team, and we had been talking about taking her to a game when one of The HOFFER'S business associates gave him four tickets--and very nice ones, at that!--to Saturday's San Antonio Spurs game! Is that cool or what? We picked the worst possible night to go. San Antonio has a HUGE military presence, and Saturday night was Military Appreciation Night at the Spurs' game. Don't get me wrong...our military is ridiculously under-appreciated. I think our military deserves far more thank you's than they get. We civilians have no clue about what these soldiers AND THEIR FAMILIES have to put up with. It humbles me and I get really emotional when I hear about the sacrifices made by these people, the incredible feats of heroism, and the fact that these men and women see it as just doing their job. There were at least a couple of guys from a nearby burn unit at that game...others with missing limbs or other wounds. They honored as many soldiers as they could. There was a Purple Heart ceremony at halftime. Standing ovations throughout the game to say thank you. It just wasn't enough.

I spent nearly the entire game crying my eyes out.

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And last but not least (hey, what's all that cheering about???), I finished two books from my "Big Christmas Box O' Books". One was really good and one was GREAT! But I will save that for my next post. Until then, here's hoping I continue making it down the stairs safely!!! Thanks for making it through to the end with me!!!