Contemporary Romance Book Review ~ Made to Last

About the Book

Miranda Woodruff has it all. At least, that’s how it looks when she’s starring in her homebuilding television show, From the Ground Up. So when her network begins to talk about making cuts, she’ll do anything to boost ratings and save her show–even if it means pretending to be married to a man who’s definitely not the fiance who ran out on her three years ago.

When a handsome reporter starts shadowing Miranda’s every move, all his digging into her personal life brings him a little too close to the truth–and to her. Can the girl whose entire identity is wrapped up in her on-screen persona finally find the nerve to set the record straight? And if she does, will the life she’s built come crashing down just as she’s found a love to last?

Amber's Review

While historical romance may be the subgenre I gravitate toward within Christian romance, every now and then a contemporary romance will come along and impress me. Made to Last is full of great plot twists, wonderful characterization, and sweet and funny moments. While it may not be set in the past, the "foreign" and "formal" situations (the world of TV stars and big-name reporters) still swept me away to another place, and I enjoyed the excursion very much.

One big conflict propels the story along, but constant added conflicts or new twists on the effects of the big secret keep the story moving along at a nice pace. I loved the contrast between Miranda's mountain home (and other country situations) and the craziness of being behind the camera, featured on a widely read celebrity blog, etc. And Tagg did a marvelous job of crafting the story in terms of the seasons. (Something I had to focus on, of course!) The themes of letting go and dying dreams correspond with the leaves falling from the trees and the cold winter weather setting in. And yet there is hope as the hero and heroine learn how to face those seasons and find the precious truths hidden beneath the piles of leaves.

With an intriguing cast of characters and the right mix of the familiar/realistic and the exciting/imaginative, as well as a delightful dose of humor, Made to Last is a memorable romance story. Tagg's writing resonated with me, and I can't wait for her next book, Here to Stay!

*With thanks to the author and Bethany House for providing me with a copy of the book in exchange for my honest opinion.*

Book Trailer



Extras

• You can purchase the book now on Amazon!

• Learn more about the author and her debut novel at www.melissatagg.com - and in this autumn-themed interview with Melissa, featured on my personal blog back in September (although I should note that the giveaway in conjunction with that interview has ended).

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Winners!!

Good morning, BB fans! Thanks to everyone who participated in our "puzzling" Friday giveaway! Keep all those facebook and Twitter notifications, coming!

This week's winner is: 

Emily Kopf (zerina147@gmail.com) - The Path to Piney Meadows by Gail Sattler.

Congratulations, Emily! Thank you all so much for stopping by The Borrowed Book.

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Sunday Devotional: There's Grace

There are times when I don’t just feel inadequate to the task God has set before me ... I feel disqualified from even pretending to show up for it. The too-frequent results of my pride and selfishness rise up to mock my weak attempts at anything resembling a walk with God, much less any authority I might have to speak for Him. Who wants to listen to a hypocrite?

There’s grace for that, I’m reminded.

I shrug, feeling like there isn’t. Not this time. I don’t deserve grace—and after all, the whole trouble started with my thinking I deserved something from God.

No, the Holy Spirit’s voice presses back, more insistently, we don’t deserve grace. And that’s the whole point.

It’s an incredible paradox, this story we find ourselves part of. A fallen people, loved relentlessly by their Creator, the very One they’ve wronged ... then He Himself comes as their Redeemer, dying to pay the penalty for their sin and rising again to prove His dominion over death itself. All they need to do is accept that payment as their own, and the grace becomes theirs.

But that’s so unfair, we argue. It’s—unjust. Why should we get off the hook so easily? Why would God even DO that?

And what’s our part in it ... I mean, doesn’t a good story ending require that we work for it?

Yes. It’s our role to accept grace. Accept the gift.

My oldest son just returned from this wonderful evening out with a young lady he’s seeing. What if she’d refused his efforts to show her courtesy, had declined the expensive meal they shared on the grounds that she didn’t deserve having that kind of money or effort spent on her? Then my son’s gift would have been wasted. The pleasure he felt in taking her out would have been ruined, and his heart wounded, because he’d made himself vulnerable in offering this evening to her.

By the same token, I make a mockery of grace by my stubbornly refusing to accept it—to accept forgiveness—on the grounds that I don’t deserve it. God offered us the most expensive gift He could think of—His own Son, His own blood, His own love—and it was His good pleasure to do so.

Furthermore, when I say that this time I’ve gone too far, and I just can’t get past my own fallenness, in essence I’m saying my sin is greater than God. Who am I to minimize Him, and to belittle His majesty?

After all, my accepting His grace doesn’t prove that I’m anything amazing. It shows God as the amazing one, for offering the gift to start with.

Have mercy upon me, O God,
According to Your lovingkindness;
According to the multitude of Your tender mercies,
Blot out my transgressions.
² Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
And cleanse me from my sin....

¹⁵ O Lord, open my lips,
And my mouth shall show forth Your praise.
¹⁶ For You do not desire sacrifice, or else I would give it;
You do not delight in burnt offering.
¹⁷ The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit,
A broken and a contrite heart—
These, O God, You will not despise. (Psalm 51, NKJV)

 

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Weekly Drawing

It's Fun Friday at The Borrowed Book!

To enter:

Leave the time it took you to complete the puzzles in the comments section as well as your email address for notifying you if you've won. Winners will be drawn from ALL of the times, so the person with the fastest time may not be the actual winner, but by leaving your time, you double your chances.

Want another entry? Tweet your puzzle time and mention The Borrowed Book, get another entry. RETWEET our Tweet, get two entries!

Post your puzzle time on BB's Facebook wall and...you guessed it...get another entry!

Post it on your OWN Facebook wall and you could get as many as FIVE entries.

It's all a way to spread the word about the great giveaways on BB. So c'mon! Help us spread the word, and have a little fun at the same time. Enter all weekend long! Winners will be announced Sunday night at midnight.

This week's puzzle feature is brought to you by Gail Sattler and her newest release, The Path to Piney Meadows.

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A Visit With Gail Sattler

Today we talk to Gail Sattler, author of more than two dozen books, and ask her some friendly questions. Moreover, she's gracious enough to answer them!

You have quite a few titles to your credit. What do you love about being a writer, and what do you like the least?

I love making up stories and following them through to the end.  It’s as simple as that. When I was a child, different teachers often told my mother I had an active imagination. It’s great still being able to put that active imagination as an adult.  And make money at it.

  

Do you write full time, or do you work it in alongside a full-time job?

I have a full time day-job, plus I’m in 2 bands, so my writing has to fit somewhere in between all those, and still meet my deadlines.  The solution to that is that I don’t do housework. My family of my husband and three sons are very supportive and they do almost all of the domestic duties. It’s unusual, but it works for us. Because of this, my three sons will make very good husbands one day.

You're quite the schemer! Your daughters-in-law will thank you one day. So what do your kids think about your being a writer?

Famous words around my house when the kids were little were “Mommy’s on a deadline”, and this meant they had to behave. It wasn’t until they got older that they realized none of their friends’ mothers did that kind of thing.  I don’t think they thought anything of it at the time. Now they’re quite proud to announce what I do, and they sometimes use my books to impress the girls.

On an unrelated note, do you like to listen to music when you write?

Never. As a musician I find music distracting when I’m trying to focus. I do my best work in complete silence around me.

I share your opinion on that. In this busy household of yours, do you have any pets? If so, do you own them, or they you?

I have 2 dogs and a lizard. I don’t think anyone owns anyone else, but we definitely meld into each other’s patterns, and if someone breaks that pattern, either human or canine, one lets the other know it. Every morning before work the dogs follow their pattern until I give them their morning biscuit or they won’t leave me alone, and every Saturday I share a banana with the lizard.

A pet lizard? That's different! What other fun fact would you like your readers to know about you?

I love to color my hair – burgundy.

Thank you, Gail. It's been a pleasure to have you here on The Borrowed Book. 

Gail Sattler lives in Vancouver BC (Canada, eh!) with her husband, three sons, two dogs, and a lizard who is quite cuddly for a reptile. When she's not writing, Gail plays piano for her church's worship team, electric bass for a local jazz band, and acoustic bass for a community orchestra. When she's not writing or making music, Gail likes to sit back with a hot coffee and read a book written by someone else.

She doesn't twitter but has a Facebook page.
Her website - www.gailsattler.com
Book site - www.mennonitefiction.com

Facebook page for the Bloomfield Series - www.facbook.com/bloomfieldclub
If you like Where's Waldo, try to Go Get Gnorman - www.gogetgnorman.com

Don't forget to stop by tomorrow to enter to win a free copy of Gail's latest release, The Path to Piney Meadows!

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Did You Know? ~ Vaseline and Robert Chesebrough

Robert Chesebrough

Sometimes the loss of one career avenue leads to a new venture. This was the case with young chemist Robert Chesebrough. His work distilling fuel from the oil of sperm whales had been rendered obsolete by petroleum.  In 1859, at age 22, Robert decided to take a trip to oil fields in Titusville, Pennsylvania, to see what kind of future Petroleum might have for him.  

As an aside, maybe some of you, like me, will be surprised to know that Titusville, Pennsylvania was the site of the first oil boom in what would become the United States. (And here I thought Texas was the granddaddy of oil.) Anyway, the rush began in 1859, peaked in 1891, and was later surpassed by western states such as Texas and California. Some oil industry still remains in Pennsylvania.

Anyway, Robert Chesebrough went to Titusville, and while he toured the fields, he noticed a paraffin-like material that formed on the oil pump joints. Workers explained that the gunk came up with the crude and collected on the rigging. If it wasn’t cleaned off periodically, it gummed up the joints and caused them to malfunction. Though I can’t verify this fact, it’s said that workers used it on cuts and burns because it hastened healing.

Robert saw potential in the black gooey gunk, and took some home to explore possible uses.  He developed a process to clarify and purify the goop. The first Vaseline factory opened in 1870, and in 1872 Robert patented the process of making petroleum jelly (U.S. Patent 127,568), the clear ointment we’re used to today. His process involved vacuum distillation followed by filtration of the residue through bone char.

In the 1800s, people used oils like lard and goose grease for healing. Robert was convinced his product was better than these and set out to prove it by using himself as a guinea pig. He cut, stabbed, and burned himself, then treated his wounds with his wonder-salve, but pharmacists were not interested despite his self-inflicted wounds.

So, in a step of marketing genius, he took his Vaseline on the road, giving roadside demonstrations and giving away free samples. People took his product home, liked it, and when they wanted more, the pharmacists had to order it.

Though Vaseline’s success was originally medicinal, later it was proved to have no power to cure at all. Its real advantage was the fact that it kept grime and bacteria out of injuries. However, Robert Chesebrough never stopped believing his product was a miracle (and I’m sure it was a financial miracle for him, as well). During a bout of pleurisy, he covered himself from head to toe with Vaseline, and he recovered. Shortly before his death his confessed he’d been eating a spoonful a day for several years. (Yuck.)

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Setting the Tone of Story by Author Gail Sattler

Something that writers need to figure out in every book is setting. We need to make it unique, yet familiar, and many authors struggle with whether to use real locations or make them up to suit the book

I did a little of both for the setting of my books in my Mennonite series, which for now is two books, first The Narrow Path, and the second, out now (and with a 4 ½ star rating with Romantic Times) The Path to Piney Meadows.

You might guess that the name of my town is Piney Meadows.  This town is created yet is based on a real town in the same area, which is northern Minnesota.  I don’t live there, but I know people who do, one of whom used to live in the actual town, which I have renamed.  Because I couldn’t stick 100% to the real details of the real town, I made it fictional. Yet I am still true to the details of the climate, topography, flora, and fauna. I use a number of real locations that are close by, so anyone who has been there, or will ever be there, will feel the familiarity, and that makes it “feel” real to the reader, or anyone who has been there.

Part of how this is done is that I really have been in the area, even though not to the actual small town that became “Piney Meadows, MN”, and it’s been many years. For those who think they can use the internet to fill in the blanks, that isn’t the most accurate source. Successfully using setting in a story is more than reciting facts of temperature and wind velocity. It’s how it feels to be there, and many things go into that feeling. All it takes is to be wrong with one, and a reader who has been there will know the difference.

One example, in The Narrow Path, Ted and Miranda were in the car driving north on the highway. He was adequately dressed for the climate, but she was not. I had Ted turn up the heat on full, but Miranda was still cold. Ted was too warm, so he stopped the car in the middle of the highway (it was night when there was no traffic), he got out of the car, quickly took off his coat, tossed it in the back seat, got back in the car, and kept driving. To make sure my memory served me correctly on all the details, I emailed this scene to my friend who lived there, and she emailed it to her brother, who still does live in a nearby town. He emailed me back saying the scene made him laugh, because not only was I exactly right with the scene details, he does that exact same thing himself.

I got it right.

For my current book The Path To Piney Meadows, I did a lot of research on chickens in the area – of course they can’t survive outside in cold weather, so I had to find out what to do in that kind of community. I now know a lot about raising backyard chickens in general, and what is needed to build a good and realistic chicken coop in the city. 

With the current trend in raising backyard chickens, many people don’t just keep their chickens outside. Because you can’t potty-train a chicken, you can buy chicken diapers on eBay. Check it out.

Gail Sattler lives in Vancouver BC (Canada, eh!) with her husband, three sons, two dogs, and a lizard who is quite cuddly for a reptile. When she's not writing, Gail plays piano for her church's worship team, electric bass for a local jazz band, and acoustic bass for a community orchestra. When she's not writing or making music, Gail likes to sit back with a hot coffee and read a book written by someone else.

She doesn't twitter but has a Facebook page.
Her website - www.gailsattler.com
Book site - www.mennonitefiction.com

Facebook page for the Bloomfield Series - www.facbook.com/bloomfieldclub

If you like Where's Waldo, try to Go Get Gnorman - www.gogetgnorman.com

Don't forget to stop by Friday and enter to win a free copy of Gail's latest release, The Path to Piney Meadows!

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