Grace Notes

Be Still My Soul By:  Joanne Bischof WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group   This wonderful book is set in the Blue Ridge Mountains  in the early 1900s.  It tells the story of deep set family beliefs, where how you and your family are perceived by others is very important, at least to Lonnie's family.  This is a story of false accusations, hope, the beginnings of love and forgiveness.    Lonnie is a gifted young singer who is one day forced by her father to sing in public.  She meets young Gideon, the most sought after bachelor in the hollow and beyond.  Lonnie and Gideon are caught kissing in the dark by Lonnie's father after Gideon walks her home from the gathering.  Lonnie's father forces a quick marriage between the two young people, a marriage that is not wanted by either one.   What happens when Lonnie and Gideon strike out on their own and meet with difficult challenges that are almost too hard to overcome?  Will she ever forgive and

North of Hope: A Daughter's Arctic Journey By:  Shannon Huffman Polson Published by Zondervan, 2013 Shannon last spoke with her father and stepmother on Father's Day 2005.  She is on the return journey home after visiting her brother and his wife.  Her brother is in the car behind her when she receives a phone call.  It's from Alaska, and is the police are asking for Shannon Huffman.  Dread settles in.  Her father and stepmother are in Alaska kayaking down the Hulahula River located in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.  Disbelief as the officer explains that her father and his wife have been killed.  She pulls over the to the side of the road, her brother behind her.  He crawls in the car with her and they sit stunned.  What had been an adventure for experienced Alaskan adventurers Richard and Katherine Huffman has become their final days on earth.  They have died a gruesome death.  Mauling by grizzly. A year later Shannon and her adopted brother Ned, along wi