Reading Recommendations: Her Daughter's Dream, Francine Rivers, the dramatic conclusion to Her Mother's Hope

Growing up isn't easy for little Carolyn Arundel. With her mother, Hildemara, quarantined to her room with tuberculosis, Carolyn forms a special bond with her Oma Marta, who moves in to care for the household. But as tensions between Hildie and Marta escalate, Carolyn believes she is to blame. When Hildie returns to work and Marta leaves, Carolyn and her brother grow up as latchkey kids in a world gripped by the fear of the Cold War.

College offers Carolyn the chance to find herself, but a family tragedy shatters her new found independence. Rather than return home, she cuts all ties and disappears into the heady counterculture of San Francisco.

When she reemerges two years later, more lost than ever, she reluctantly turns to her family to help rebuild a life for her and her own daughter, May Flower Dawn.

Just like Carolyn, May Flower Dawn develops a closer bond with her grandmother, Hildie, than her mother, causing yet another rift between generations. But as Dawn struggles to avoid the mistakes of those who went before her, she vows that somehow she will be a bridge between the women in her family rather than the wall that separates them forever.

Spanning the 1950s to present day, Her Daughter's Dream is the emotional final chapter of an unforgettable family saga about the sacrifices every mother makes for her daughter and the very nature of unconditional love.

Having been effectively "sentenced to wed," Gilbert decided to tackle her fears of matrimony by becoming a student of the institution. Over the next ten months, as she and Felipe wandered haphazardly across Southwest Asia, waiting for the U.S. government to permit them to return to America and get married, the only thing she talked about, read about, or thought about was this perplexing subject.

Committed

One more little book I wan to mention: More Spooky Texas Tales, Tim Tingle and Doc Moore, Illustrated by Jeanne A. Benas. What fun to read this one with the children or grandchildren.

See you at Rylander!

tells the story of one woman's efforts through contemplation, historical study, and extensive conversation with every soul she encountered along the way, to make peace with marriage before she entered its estate once more. Myths are debunked; fears are unthreaded; historical perspective is sought; and in the end, the book becomes a celebration of love, with all the complexity and consequence that real love, in the real world, will always entail.

Spanning the 1950s to present day, Her Daughter's Dream is the emotional final chapter of an unforgettable family saga about the sacrifices every mother makes for her daughter and the very nature of unconditional love.

Committed

, A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage, Elizabeth Gilbert

At the end of her best selling memoir Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert fell in love with Felipe, a Brazilian born man of Australian citizenship who had been living in Indonesia when they met. Resettling in America, the couple swore eternal fidelity to each other, but they also swore to never, ever, under any circumstances, get married. (Both were survivors of previous bad divorces. Enough said.) But providence intervened one day in the form of the U.S. government, which, after detaining Felipe at an American border crossing, gave the couple a choice, they could either get married, or Felipe would never be allowed to enter the country again.

Having been effectively "sentenced to wed," Gilbert decided to tackle her fears of matrimony by becoming a student of the institution. Over the next ten months, as she and Felipe wandered haphazardly across Southwest Asia, waiting for the U.S. government to permit them to return to America and get married, the only thing she talked about, read about, or thought about was this perplexing subject.

Committed

tells the story of one woman's efforts through contemplation, historical study, and extensive conversation with every soul she encountered along the way, to make peace with marriage before she entered its estate once more. Myths are debunked; fears are unthreaded; historical perspective is sought; and in the end, the book becomes a celebration of love, with all the complexity and consequence that real love, in the real world, will always entail.

One more little book I wan to mention: More Spooky Texas Tales, Tim Tingle and Doc Moore, Illustrated by Jeanne A. Benas. What fun to read this one with the children or grandchildren.

See you at Rylander!