Monday, September 26, 2011

A Heart Revealed

GIVEAWAY OPPORTUNITY!!!!
LESSMAN, JULIE
A HEART REVEALED

Her heart is tied to a youthful vow...but can true love set it free?

Ten years ago, Emma Malloy fled Dublin for Boston, running for her life. Her emotional wounds have finally faded, and her life is now full of purpose and free from the pain of her past. But when she falls for her friend Charity's handsome and charming brother, Sean O'Connor, fear and shame threaten to destroy her. Could Sean and Emma ever have a future together? Or is Emma doomed to live out the rest of her life denying the only true love she's ever known?

Filled with intense passion and longing, deception and revelation, A Heart Revealed will hold you in its grip until the very last page.

My Review:

Clear your calendar before you begin this book. Put the dog in a kennel, send the kids to their grandparents and make sure you have a lot of frozen dinners on hand. You don't want anything distracting you from reading! College student? No worries, attending every class is over-rated. Besides it's weeks before final exams. So put those textbooks down and keep them closed until you finish A Heart Revealed.  Have to work for a living? It's flu season, call in sick. You'll definitely be feeling feverish once you start reading anyway and your blood pressure will be rising and falling at an alarming rate. Good enough reasons to call in sick, don't you think?

As it turns out I actually do have the flu and I did stay home from church yesterday and work today so I had a non-stop reading fest...well, in between falling into feverish swoons and dozing stupors :-) Thank you, Julie Lessman for providing the best medicine for what ails me! A Heart Revealed has the best bedside manners around!

If you haven't guessed by now -- I LOVED this book!!! Lessman delivered just what I expected...and so much more. Her writer's voice gets more polished and fluent with every book. She has mastered the balance of description, dialogue and action -- each builds on the others to create vivid images that immersed this reader into another era.

I was thrilled with all the catching up I got to do with one of my favourite literary families because this book isn't just about Emma and Sean -- all the O'Connors make multiple appearances as Lessman expertly twines their stories with our hero and heroine's. In fact, I'd say that A Heart Revealed  is as much Charity and Katie's stories as it is Emma's.

Lessman created continuity between these three distinct threads by anchoring them with a common bond -- women who are grappling with issues from their past that still affect their present and threaten their future. When it comes right down to it, Emma, Charity and Katie are still bound by childhood perceptions that plague their feelings of value and self-worth. And no, it isn't evident in their every day life, but when stressors build and change is imminent, all three are propelled (in varying degrees) by misconceptions from their youth. It's an unconscious knee-jerk reaction in all of them and very realistically written by Lessman. Even as I groaned and moaned and chided these women's actions I understood where they were coming from. Talk about an anxiety-riddled read!

But though A Heart Revealed takes more than one twisty turn down the road of despair, the wonderful inspirational insights light the way towards hope. This is an area Lessman really excels in. Heartfelt conversations about faith between characters that are as natural as they are hard-hitting. And they in no way come off preachy. This book made me think and squirm and was, frankly, a God-send at this time in my life. God bless authors who listen to the Spirit when they write!


Giveaway Opportunity:

If you would like a chance to win a copy of Julie Lessman's A Heart Revealed, leave a comment below or email me at kavluvstoreadATyahooDOTca. Draw will be held and announced on Sunday October 2. Open internationally. Good luck!

12 comments:

  1. LOL!! Love this:

    "College student? No worries, attending every class is over-rated. Besides it's weeks before final exams."

    Ummm...I wish I could tell that to my professors! ;)

    As it was, I was able to read AHR mostly over this past weekend - didn't get quite as much homework done, but I think I did enough. :)

    Great review, as always! No need to enter me in the drawing!

    ~Amber

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  2. Great review! Looking forward to reading this. Please enter me.

    Thanks!

    sunshine6892 at hotmail dot com

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  3. Amber -- your professors probably have skewed priorities!

    You're in the draw, Cathy. Good luck!

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  4. Thank you so much for the chance to win this. I would love to read this. It sounds amazing. Thanks again.

    agent_beckster(at)yahoo(dot)com

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  5. I've been waiting for A Heart Revealed, it sounds like I will be hiding away whenever I get a chance to read it. Great review, Kav!
    worthy2bpraised at gmail dot com

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  6. KAV, you little doll, you!! What a FABULOUS review -- one of the best I've read, my friend, and even I didn't see the "three distinct threads" anchoring Katie, Emma and Charity with a common bond, but you are SO dead-on!! Maybe I need to have you explain my books to me after I write them because you get them even more than I do!!

    I don't know if you are prone to posting your reviews, but if you are, I am running a newsletter contest where anyone who posts a review on Amazon.com, CBD.com, Goodreads, B&N or anywhere else, gets a point for every review posted. It only has to be a line or two saying you liked the book and a 5-star review if you can honestly give it that, then even just one review posted enters you into a drawing for a signed copy of Steven's story, A Trust Restored when it comes out next year. The persons who come in first and second in posting the most reviews will get a character named after them in Steven's story and the top winner will also get a $50 gift card. So if that sounds like something you'd be interested in, just sign up for my newsletter on my website and post a review or more and let me know by forwarding me the links. BUT ... if posting reviews is NOT your thing, PLEASE do not worry about it, okay? This is only for those people so inclined.

    Thanks for making my day, my friend -- you are a blessing!!

    Hugs,
    Julie

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  7. Hey Julie! What? You never planned those parallel threads???? Then you really must write by inspiration! LOL. Thanks for stopping by.

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  8. Love Julie's books, and I CAN'T wait to read this one!

    mchapman (at) windstream (dot) net.

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  9. Good luck Michelle -- you definitely have to get your own copy somehow!!!!!

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  10. I can tell how wonderful the book was for you! The best stories for me are those that makes you forget you have a life and actually start living in the story's world. Thank you for another great giveaway.

    Cambonified (at) yahoo (dot) com

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