Novella - The Perfect Arrangement (By: Katie Ganshert)

The Perfect Arrangement

By: Katie Ganshert

This novella is one of the Year of Weddings Novella Collection. We enjoy reading these little stories from Zondervan, as a new author writes a wedding tale each month of the year.

 In The Perfect Arrangement, Amelia is shy and likes her quiet life as owner of the Forget-Me-Not flower shop, but her love life has been non-existent since her long standing college relationship that ended years ago. When she finds out her ex-boyfriend is getting married, she can't help but be curious and decides to just "drive by" the chapel on his wedding day. Not paying attention, she rear ends someone - well, a very cute someone - in front of the church while she is spying. Frantic and needing a fast getaway before she gets caught, she leaves this man with her business card and quickly moves on.

Nick is intrigued by this girl who rear ended him. After contacting her, he and Amelia begin a lengthy back and forth email discussion. Soon, both of them eagerly are writing back and forth, and hoping just maybe the other is feeling the same excitement! However, lingering on Amelia's conscience is the fear that Nick will find out the real reason she was driving by the church that day - and what would he think of her then?

This novella is cute and fun to read! Unfortunately, however, we could not give it a higher rating because some parts were just too repetitive for a short novella. Several times we read what happened, only to re-read it again in the emails exchanged between Nick and Amelia. A novella is short enough but this made us feel our time was cut too short.

Find it on Amazon: The Perfect Arrangement

Novella - An October Bride (By: Katie Ganshert)

An October Bride
By: Katie Ganshert

What a fabulous novella!! It was well written and full of moments that got our hearts racing, yet emotional and tender too. Well done Katie Ganshert! 

Emma Tate is having a hard time dealing with possibly losing her father, who has cancer and is told he has two months to live. She stumbles across a "bucket list" of her father's, and sees "walking my daughter down the aisle" as one item not crossed off yet. Emma longs to give him this - but how?
 
Jake Sawyer is Emma's brother's lifelong crush.  After a run in with Emma and finding out about her dilemma, he offers to marry her. Can Emma go along with this fake wedding/marriage and not lose her heart in the process? Why is Jake offering to do this?
 
Read An October Bride to hear how all of this turns out. You won't be disappointed!

Find it on Amazon: An October Bride

A Broken Kind of Beautiful (By: Katie Ganshert)

A Broken Kind of Beautiful
By: Katie Ganshert

Storyline

This story is about Ivy Clark, a model who is quickly aging past her prime. As her 25th birthday approaches ("aged" by industry standards), her job offers are drying up after being in the modeling business for over ten years. This story also centers around Davis Knight, a former fashion photographer who has decided to quit the business. The two are thrown together when they are both commissioned to do a photo shoot for Ivy's step mother, Marilyn. The plot is original and interesting, and the lovable characters are well developed.

Depth

Books rarely get much deeper than this! As the title indicates, the central theme is brokenness, and Katie Ganshert tackles it wonderfully. All of the characters are dealing with their own kind of brokenness in that life has not turned out the way they planned nor wanted. They all wrestle with these issues and must discover what it takes to be made whole again.

Faith

A Broken Kind of Beautiful believes that God is the answer to people's brokenness. He loves the characters where they are at and wants to redeem them. Most notably, they learn that sometimes God asks us to do the hard things - but He is there every step of the way and Has great purpose in it. The redemption in this book is satisfying and deeply written.

Love Story

The only area we would have liked a little more of! A couple of touching scenes between Davis and Ivy grace the pages, but nothing sent our hearts racing.

Overall Overall, a fantastic book and one that stayed with us for quite awhile after we turned the last page. It gave a quick, but fascinating, glimpse into the modeling industry and left us with some deep insights into God's character and His powerful ability to redeem even the most broken of people.