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Carmen's Journey of Courage by Susan K. Beatty ~ Book Review + Giveaway

October 12, 2021

About the Book

Book: Carmen’s Journey of Courage
Author: Susan K Beatty
Genre: Christian Women’s Fiction
Release Date: September 14, 2021

Truly the odd woman out, Army weapons expert Carmen belongs to a family where PhDs are almost a second surname.

Oh, and she’s also persona non grata since that one little incident back in her teens. The one that her Tia Graviella still hasn’t forgiven her for. The one her parents and siblings will never let her forget.

A trip to Mexico City, complete with a bit of groveling at Tia Graviella’s feet, might just be what it takes to gain forgiveness and a fresh start with her family. Not only that, her tia is ailing, and someone needs to check up on her. Carmen can solve two problems with one would-do-anything-to-avoid-it trip.

Something is off, however, and as Carmen investigates, she begins to wonder if there’s more to her aunt’s troubles than ill health.

When Carmen sets her course on making things right, will it repair more than the wreckage from a youthful miscalculation?

Click here to get your copy!

My Thoughts

It took me a bit of time to get into this one but once I did I was very into the story. This was a really good book and Carmen's character is one that you will be able to relate to. Her true life story was intriguing and captivating. Carmen's struggles with being her own person and we feel that sense of anguish of never measuring up to her siblings. She learns through Mateo that when bitterness takes root its harder to forgive.

Overall the story was well written and the characters were superb. If you enjoy life lessons intertwined within then this is the book for you!

My Rating: 4 Star/Really Liked it

I received a copy of this book through Celebrate Lit. I was not required to post a review. All views expressed are only my honest opinion.

About the Author

“Courage: The intersection of faith and Grit”

Susan K. Beatty is passionate about finding courage through faith and grit, particularly through the trials of breast cancer. Her daughter is a metastatic breast cancer “thriver” and has been an inspiration for her writing. Susan retired from a full-time job in 2017 and is now pursuing a novel-writing career. Her first novel, “Faces of Courage,” is in revision. Susan is the author of “An Introduction to Home Education” (AKA “California Homeschool Manual”), was the assistant director of the SoCal Christian Writers’ Conference and is the president of her local ACFW-OC Chapter. She is a professional writer/journalist. Susan is proof you can begin a fiction writing career after age seventy.

More from Susan

Have you ever known in your heart you needed to ask someone to forgive you, but the thought scared you so much you were convinced they would reject you? So scared you couldn’t bring yourself to ask?

Sometimes we are more fearful of man than God, conveniently ignoring the responsibility to be right with others and to live in peace. It’s hard to live in peace when that thing, that whatever it was we need to apologize for, is lying like a lump of toxic waste in our hearts.

In Carmen’s Journey of Courage, Carmen ignored her need to ask for forgiveness for years. Well, she didn’t really ignore it, she just kept burying it every time she thought of it. Which was often.

It took an outside force to get her positioned in such a way that she had to face the situation.

Carmen is the odd woman out in her family. Every one of her siblings possesses enough educational degrees to wallpaper a room. But not Carmen. Her two older sisters’ treatment of her pushed Carmen in the opposite direction and toward a desire to find her own way on her own terms. Instead of college, Carmen enlisted and excelled in the army.

As God sometimes does, He uses the exact person Carmen would prefer to avoid—her oldest sister—to get her to Mexico City and their great aunt. Circumstances are not what she expects. She needs to face more than her tía and solve a mystery with the aid of her army training.

It’s a journey of courage.

We all face tough decisions. I wrote Carmen’s Journey of Courage to inspire bravery when life is hard.

Find your courage at the intersection of faith and grit.

Blog Stops

Texas Book-aholic, October 1

Happily Managing a Household of Boys, October 2

lakesidelivingsite, October 2

Debbie’s Dusty Deliberations, October 3

Inklings and notions, October 4

For Him and My Family, October 5

deb’s Book Review, October 6

Locks, Hooks and Books, October 7

Betti Mace, October 8

Splashes of Joy, October 8

Ashley’s Clean Book Reviews, October 9

Because I said so — and other adventures in Parenting, October 10

A Modern Day Fairy Tale, October 11

Musings of a Sassy Bookish Mama, October 12

An Author’s Take, October 12

The Meanderings of a Bookworm, October 13

Truth and Grace Homeschool Academy, October 14

Giveaway

To celebrate her tour, Susan is giving away the grand prize package of a $25 Amazon gift card and copy of the book!!

Be sure to comment on the blog stops for nine extra entries into the giveaway! Click the link below to enter.

https://promosimple.com/ps/11dcb/carmen-s-journey-of-courage-celebration-tour-giveaway

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Carmen's Journey of Courage by Susan K. Beatty ~ Book Review + Giveaway

Faces of Courage by Susan K. Beatty ~ Book Review + Giveaway

July 1, 2021

About the Book

Book: Faces of Courage
Author: Susan K. Beatty
Genre: Christian Woman’s Fiction
Release Date: May 11, 2021

Fear strangles even the faithful sometimes.

Despite every attempt to be brave, fear has defined Olivia Stanford’s life: with each new foster home, when her adopted parents died leaving her all alone again, trusting and marrying her husband, Frank, and coping with his football injuries and career loss.

Without faith, fear only grows in the face of adversity.

When Frank becomes abusive, Olivia enters a terror-filled life in her upscale Southern California home. Common sense demands she dig deep for the courage to confront him–to demand change. Fear and confusion push back.

And just as courage finally blooms within her comes the terrifying diagnosis: breast cancer.

Some say courage is found at the intersection of faith and grit. How will Olivia manage to summon either in the midst of this new battle?

Click here to get your copy! Also available through Kindle Unlimited.

My Thoughts

This is a new to me author and wowza, she did an excellent job writing on some very difficult topics such as domestic abuse and cancer. She definitely does it with grace but you can feel the emotions throughout the story. This is definitely not your typical lighthearted read, in fact I had to stop reading it at a point and then pick it back up when I was in the right state of mind. You definitely need some tissues nearby when reading this one.

Right from the start you meet Olivia and can't help but to be drawn to her. She is a passionate woman of God who is dealing with an abusive husband. To top it all off she is diagnosed with breast cancer and I don't know that any reader can dismiss the emotional struggles happening at this point in the story. The author really does a sensational job at putting you in Olivia's place. If you are a Bible reader, you will immediately think of the story of Job, at least I did and the author does mention this book throughout the story. Despite all the hardships it was great to see the growth in God that Olivia goes through.

This story is definitely not sugar coated and I do appreciate being taken out of my reading comfort zone for this one. The author truly has written a beautiful relevant story of God's faith and His presence in any circumstance but especially in the hardest of times. Overall this was a great book and I definitely recommend it!

My Rating: 4 Stars ~ Really enjoyed it!

I received a copy of this book through Celebrate Lit. I was not required to post a positive review. All views expressed are only my honest opinion.

About the Author

”Courage: The intersection of faith and Grit”

More from Susan

The words “You have breast cancer” can drop you to your knees. What’s worse is when those words are spoken to your thirty-one-year-old daughter. And worse yet when they are spoken to her more than once. My daughter Melanie has had three bouts with breast cancer, the second time classified her with stage IV metastatic breast cancer of which there is no cure. Over an eleven-year period, Melanie has undergone twelve surgeries, one removing two-thirds of her sternum to be replaced by a donor bone with titanium clamps.

Melanie’s courage during these battles inspired me to write about courage at the intersection of faith and grit. True-to-life stories follow characters through cancer and other issues confronting women today.

In Faces of Courage, I wanted to tell a story like Melanie’s but not exactly Melanie’s, a story nevertheless filled with growing courage. Melanie’s journey doesn’t include an abusive husband (Praise God!), but our terrorized heroine Olivia suffers from her husband’s mistreatment, confused by her misunderstanding of how God views her, and challenged by her lack of strong faith. Just as her courage matures and strengthen through these problems, she’s thrown by those knee-buckling words, “You have breast cancer.”

It is necessarily a gritty look at domestic abuse and the realities of dealing with cancer and its various treatments. I wanted to show Olivia’s growth as a wife, how she experienced the cancer, and how, with the help of faith and grit, her courage flourished.

In many ways, this novel is a tribute to women who fight these battles with bravery, even if that valor takes time to develop. I pray the reader, by witnessing another’s journey, is strengthened in her own battles.