Beauty from Ashes Review and Giveaway

Posted by abakersp in Contemporary / 10 Comments

About the Book

Name of book: Beauty from Ashes

Author: Alana Terry

Genre: Christian Women’s Lit

Release Date: July, 2017

Beauty from Ashes ebook A baby was never part of Tiff’s plans. Especially not a sick baby in a NICU, struggling for life on a ventilator.

As days in the hospital turn to weeks, Tiff grows more and more convinced that God is punishing her for turning her back on him so many years ago. Or is it possible he’s working in the midst of her daughter’s bleak prognosis to draw Tiff back to himself once more?

The Orchard Grove Christian Women’s Fiction books are standalone literary novels about real-life believers facing real-life struggles. You won’t meet perfect saints whose lives are faultless models of the Christian faith. Instead, you’ll meet a perfect God whose plans of redemption are far more glorious than what the mortal mind could ever imagine.

Click here to purchase your copy.

My Perspective

Wow. This story was really moving and powerful. The entire time I kept picturing myself in Tiffany’s shoes and found myself moved to tears. Words cannot express how much it touched my heart. The author found a way to make it sound almost like a memoir, kept the emotions real and raw, and allowed the character to enter my heart almost immediately. In fact, I had to keep reminding myself that this was just a story!

I do have to point out that while I did not like Patricia, at all, she did bring an interesting dynamic to the storyline. How many of use have in-laws that we love to be with and help us out? Probably quite a few. But I have heard horror stories about some in-laws, and Patricia certainly seems to fit the bill for that. The thing is, every now and then the author showed you an almost sweet side to her, which unfortunately didn’t last very long, but gave you hope that perhaps someday her character might change. I like seeing that in “bad” characters, because I think people like that in real life need someone to believe that there is good in them.

Certainly faith was tested in this book, and Jake and Tiffany founds themselves in some very difficult situations. Through it all, God was with them, as He is with us. This was a great reminder of that. I’m going to warn you, overall this is a very sad book. It will pull at your heart strings and make you hug your kids a little tighter. But don’t let that stop you from reading it. It will touch your heart in places you didn’t think possible!

I received a complimentary copy of this book. I was not required to write a favorable review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

About the Author

Alana is a pastor’s wife, homeschooling mom, self-diagnosed chicken lady, and Christian suspense author. Her novels have won awards from Women of Faith, Book Club Network, Grace Awards, Readers’ Favorite, and more. Alana’s passion for social justice, human rights, and religious freedom shines through her writing, and her books are known for raising tough questions without preaching. She and her family live in rural Alaska where the northern lights in the winter and midnight sun in the summer make hauling water, surviving the annual mosquito apocalypse, and cleaning goat stalls in negative forty degrees worth every second.

Guest Post from Alana Terry

Click here to see the special video message from Alana.

“You better come in,” I told my husband. “The doctors don’t think he’s going to make it.”

Not the kind of conversation you want to have with anyone at one o’clock in the morning. I was spending the night at the hospital with our nine-month-old baby Silas and hadn’t left the hospital complex in days. Scott was home with our toddler trying to get some sleep.

And our son Silas was dying.

Raising a medically-fragile baby changed me like nothing else ever has. Thankfully, Silas pulled through that horrific evening, but that didn’t mean life was sugar and cream from then on.

As anyone with experience knows, it’s hard work being a special-needs mom.

And it can devastate a marriage.

Thankfully, God brought my husband and me through those nearly impossible first few years while Silas was in and out of the hospital with no guarantee of his survival.

And he continued to sustain us through even more years of therapy, hospital visits, and medical tests.

And now we have a happy marriage, a healthy boy, and hearts full of gratitude for all God’s done for us.

But I never want to forget where we were.

The depths God delivered us out of.

The despair that would have overwhelmed us if God hadn’t been our strength and our support.

Writing Beauty from Ashes was one way to remind myself of those difficulties God brought us through. It’s not strictly autobiographical, but the baby in this novel went through a very similar traumatic birth experience as Silas did, and all the health issues — including that night in the hospital when I truly thought we were going to lose our baby — are based on the trials we went through when Silas was young.

I wrote Beauty from Ashes because we all need to be reminded every now and then that even though life can be impossibly hard, even though there’s no guarantee our children will grow up and love Christ and make good choices with their lives or even survive until adulthood at all, God is good, and he will sustain us through all the trials we have to endure.

I think that’s why Beauty from Ashes resonates so much with Christian readers hungry for more than a simple story with a happily-ever-after ending, like these readers:

“…by far some of the best Christian fiction I’ve read.” Amy L, author

” … a story that is both heart-wrenching and heartwarming.” ~ Jaime Hampton, award-winning author of Malnourished

“I didn’t think it was possible that the author could write any better than she already does … This is a book I will never forget … She writes with realism and doesn’t pull any punches … Every time I read a book from this author, my faith grows.” Deana at Texas Bookaholic

I hope you’ll take a chance to grab your own copy of Beauty from Ashes today, and don’t forget to watch the video and enter to win the $100 gift card to christianbooks.com.

Because Christian fiction should encourage, edify, and inspire.

And because God is big enough to carry all our burdens.