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 A Tender Reed
by Teresa Slack
click book cover to purchase
“If I wasn’t such a good Christian, you’d be living in an orphanage somewhere, young lady.”
Abandoned by their parents, Michelle Hurley and her little sister Nicole, are reminded everyday their livelihood depends on a grandmother who never wanted them in the first place. Nearly 20 years later, Michelle has accepted the fact that she isn’t worthy of the love she so desperately craved as a child. She lives alone on the family farm, has dedicated herself to her job and her dog, and is perfectly content in the niche she’s carved out for herself.
All that changes the morning her sister abandons her two young children under Michelle’s lilac bushes. But Michelle doesn’t want to become someone’s Mommy. She doesn’t have time to deal with daycare and tummy aches. All she wants is her life back. The last thing she wants is to fall in love with someone who will only end up hurting her again.
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What people are saying about A Tender Reed.
Michelle is a 33-year old never married nurse. She leads an uneventful, predictable life, but her calm exterior hides unresolved resentment and emotional insecurity. When Nicole, her irresponsible younger sister, abandons her two young children in Michelle's front yard, she's forced to recall her own mother's abandonment of her.
How Michelle faces her childhood demons while building a family with Nicole's kids offers a thought-provoking examination of family relationships. The author deftly handles Michelle's spiritual cynicism as she struggles to find acceptance and love.
Infused with humor and practical insights, A Tender Reed and its characters will capture the hearts of readers who love children, understand their challenges, and appreciate the many definitions of family. -----Aspiring Retail Magazine
...Slack's feel for her Ozarks setting and her knack for drawing minor characters turns this romance into a fine realistic novel. -----Booklist
“I was hooked from the first page! Ms. Slack writes in a down-to-earth style, sprinkling bits of humor into this compelling story of unexpected love, redemption, and reconciliation with the past.”
Lawana Blackwell, author of The Gresham Chronicles and A Table by the Window
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 The Ultimate Guide to Darcy Carter click on book cover to purchase Darcy Carter is the Ultimate Guide girl. She dropped out of school at nineteen to write the Ultimate Guide to Writing a College Thesis and hasn’t come up for air since. She’s written twenty books in just over ten years. Considered an expert on everything from parenting multiples to the NFL draft to online trading, she doubts she could guide herself out of a brown paper bag.
While her professional life is going better than she had ever dreamed it would, Darcy’s personal life could use some work. Her relationship with God has fallen by the wayside at the same rate that her writing career has flourished. She’s lost touch with her church friends and the ones with whom she went to school. Her nieces and nephew are growing up before her eyes, but she can’t find the time to fulfill a simple promise she made years ago. Forget about finding time for a man in her life.
When her editor suggests she write The Ultimate Guide to Finding Mr. Right, Darcy balks. She wants no part in giving women the false hope of finding a man she doesn’t believe exists. To avoid Mr. Right, and hopefully discover where the discontentment with her life is coming from, she heads to North Carolina to research one last ultimate guidebook.
Unfortunately North Carolina only amplifies the questions and doubts swirling around in her head. When did she start writing for money and not for the sheer love of the craft? Is she meant to do something else with her life? If she’s no longer America’s Ultimate Guide Girl, who is she? Can she trust her heart to recognize Mr. Right when he’s standing in front her? Or was she right in her belief that he no longer exists? Whom can the Ultimate Guide Girl trust to guide her? Her heavenly father who gives wisdom to those who seek it, or herself, the woman with all the answers?
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What people are saying about Darcy:
Booklist
Eccentric Darcy Carter, halfway through her college course work, decided to write a guide to writing a college thesis--rather than a thesis. She sold the book, and some 20 more guides have followed. Unfortunately, a personal life has not. Undaunted, Darcy proposes a guide to vintage southern diners and begins her small-town tour. But Darcy's editor is unenthused, proposing instead The Ultimate Guide to Finding Mr. Right--a subject about which supersuccessful Darcy has no clue. You can see where this is going, and it goes there. Still, Slack is pretty funny, and the girl-guide idea, while not original, has enough oomph in it to keep readers turning the pages.
John Mort
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
The author of twenty books in ten years, Darcy is assigned to write a “how to” book on finding Mr. Right…In trying to write a book about finding true love, Darcy finds that rather than rely on her own heart alone, she must turn to God to find the wisdom to recognize Mr. Right. Very highly recommended, entertaining, hurtful and thought provoking reading. The Ultimate Guide to Darcy Carter is a well crafted, realistic novel that will resonate in the mind and imagination of the reader from beginning to end.
—Midwest Book Review
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