I’m pausing from my usual writing to share my recommendations for books by authors I know and love. Click on the high-lighted title for details and ordering information. If you read this soon after I publish it, there is still time to order them for Christmas.

For the youngsters on your list, and in support of this young mother, recently widowed, with three little girls, I highly recommend Dorina Lazo Gilmore’s award winning picture book, Cora Cooks Pancit.

For any woman ready for a good laugh and a well told story, I encourage you to get a copy of newly released Calculated Risk, a contemporary romance by Zoe M McCarthy. Calculated Risk will have you smiling and chuckling through this heart warming story.

Lifeway in Sarasota has signed copies of the following two books:

If you are shopping for a teenage girl, I strongly recommend Like Moonlight at Low Tide: Sometimes the Current Is the Only Thing that Saves You (Young Adult Carol Award winner) by Nicole Quigley. Set on Anna Maria Island, in Like Moonlight at Low Tide Nicole uncovers the challenges and very real threats of high school social life, and offers understanding and hope. The writing is refreshing, dialogue realistic, and the plot is well-developed. It is so on target that it took me, sometimes unwillingly, back to my high school years.

For the busy mother on your list (or yourself, if you are one):
Julie K. Gillies pours out pages of daily refreshment in her lovely devotional, Prayers For a Woman’s Soul.