Hearts Books

I read The Maiden of Mayfair a couple of years ago and bought its sequel shortly after. But then I forgot all about it. A few days ago, in the mood for a novel set during the turn of the twentieth century, I was digging through my rather large TBR pile and found Catherine's Heart. As I read it, I remembered the characters in The Maiden of Mayfair and was absorbed with the wonderful historical accuracy, which is set in the beginning of the 1880s. It is eighteen-year-old Catherine Rayborn's new life as an university student at Gilton. She meets two lovely friends and three potential suitors. One is a dashing young man who likes to pull pranks, but possesses a kind soul. He has a great deal of success at his father's business, but there is an empty void in his heart that he can't seem to fulfill. The other is an army officer that Catherine finds charming. The third one is the notorious Lord Holt, a rake and someone who had treated William Doyle, Sarah's husband and protagonists of The Maiden of Mayfair, with contempt for having no rank and being what he considered to be a low-class citizen. Catherine has her heart set out on Lord Holt, or does she? After all, he has admitted to his sins and seems to regret his past actions. But something tells her that not all is right, especially when he wants them to meet up in secret. Will she be able to listen to what God, her family and friends and her very own instincts are telling her about him before it's too late?

The second part of the Tales of London is beautifully written and wonderfully told. You get reacquainted with the characters from the first book and meet some great new ones. A lot of things brought up on the Bible -- including those about disobedient children and overindulging parents, which could be found in Proverbs -- are here, and Lawana Blackwell tells them with a great deal of insight and Christian soul without sounding preachy. But the historical elements are what most impressed me about this novel. I love the way Blackwell describes the turn-of-the-century setting with its development of technology and the way in which women begin to become independent. The telephone is brought up a lot in this installment, and I felt as though I had been transported to this fascinating time period, which happens to be my favorite. The characterization is also excellent. Catherine is sweet and relatable, but she is so naïve that sometimes I wanted to get into the book and shout, "Can't you see that the man you are secretly seeing is a total jerk?" I loved Catherine's Heart and I look forward to reading the Tales of London 3. I hope it won't take as long to get to as it did me with this one though!

I really liked Catherine's Heart. It showed girls that not all men are what they seem to be, and you really should really get to know the guy before you agree to marry him. I was glad that this book also continued with the story of Sarah and William.

Four years have past since we left the lovable cast of characters of The Maiden of Mayfair. For the first part of this story the author splits the focus between Sarah, the main character in the previous book, and Catherine Rayborn, Sarah's cousin, who is leaving for her "fresher" year at Girton.
Young nineteen-year-old Catherine seems to fall in love at a drop of a hat, however, she's convinced she's finally found true love with Lord Holt. Despite warnings from her cousin Sarah, who has discovered their secret meetings, Catherine is determined to see Lord Holt no matter the price. And it is a steep one. Catherine begins a web of lies that could be her undoing. She begins scheming and lying to spend every free Sunday afternoon with the man she believes truly loves her.
Meanwhile, Sarah has married William, the love of her life and they are now blessed with an addition to their family. They've moved their family, and their extended family from Mayfair. The home they've moved into has ties to their past as well as Catherine's future.
Catherine gives up too much of herself for the man she loves, and she pays a dear price. When she finally discovers just what kind of man she's given her heart to, will it ever heal? Can she make things right with her friends and family, who she treated badly? And what about how she treated God?
This story is a good one, however, I did feel a few small lulls here and there. It was almost like, too little time spent here, and not enough time spent there. All in all it's a great read, and I'd recommend this book, and any other by this extremely gifted author.
Reviewed by Katharine L. Kroeker for ShortHand Publishing

Catherine Rayborn is enjoying her first taste of freedom and independence after a sheltered upbringing. Her head and heart are easily turned by any young man who looks her way and gives her a kind word. Even though she knows better and has loving, supportive people in her life to offer Godly counsel, she allows her heart to rule her head.

Kudos to Ms. Blackwell for another wonderful series. Her writing is warm and genuine, and her characters draw the reader into the story at the very beginning. Most series weaken with each new addition, but Lawana Blackwell's characters stay strong and true to form. The storyline does not grow tiresome after several books. Unlike most series, I always regret when hers come to an end. She is probably my favorite writer of Inspirational fiction today. I can't get enough of her realistic, endearing characters and their stories.

Great work, Ms. Blackwell. Thank you for an excellent read.

I have been a fan of Lawana Blackwell for about 4 or 5 years now, and I've learned that you can't go wrong with her books. Catherine's Heart is no exception. This was probably the hardest book for me to get through, not because it was poorly written by any means (I sometimes think that Blackwell could re-write my phone book and it would be an interesting read), but because of the story. As a young girl who has yet to embark into the unknown world of boys and their charms, I found myself relating to the main character throughout the entire story. Catherine makes decisions that you know are not good for her, and it's difficult to watch someone you're investing time and energy into doing so. It was because of this that I believe Catherine's Heart is so powerful. I learned the importance of guarding your heart, especially as a young inexperienced woman. Every young girl should take time to read this book. I'm so thankful that I read it when I did before I do begin that portion of my life. Wonderfully written and beautifully told!

I do not have that book on hand yet.
Please, resubmit when the book would have been sent to me.

Thanks for another great book in the "Soup" series. We grandparents appreciate you celebrating us with this special book. We all need inspiration, and this book helps us all, whether we are a grandparent or not.

When I married for the second time recently, I instantly became a grandmother. And I had not had any children of my own, so now I have a whole family! I really enjoyed this book. Okay, so the soup books may get repetitious if you read enough of them. But this was the only one I've read and I thought it was good.

I just don't know how the Chicken Soup people keep putting out such great books. There are so many of them and each has about 100 stories. Where do they get all of them? Frankly, after having read three others in the series, i didn't expect this one to be special in any way, but it surprised me alot. I found that the stories had such a wide variety of experiences that grandparents have today --- some that my own grandparents could never have had. I found just a few stories to be 'blah', but on the whole, most of the stories were either really touching or made me laugh out loud. I read several aloud to my children on the phoen becaause they reminded me of 5things that had happened in our house as my kids were growing up.
This book is an affirmation of grandparenting.

This book is about the love and caring of grandparents for their grandchildren. It contains so many heartfelt emotions that were put into words so beautifully that I was touched by them very much. My friend Debby Stoner was a contributor and I was so impressed by her writing skills and how she expressed the depths of her feelings for her grandson. The book was an easy read, supplied me with hours of pleasure and was difficult to put down.

Ann evokes memories of a child in an Irish family and days spent in Catholic school thinking nuns are smarter than mothers. Her younger brother Joey is sometimes cohort; sometimes torturer.
She's overweight, clumsy, holy and unholy. At age nine, she fails to develop a talent. So, prepares herself (with hilarious contrivance) to attain the Miss Congeniality title in the Miss America contest.
Her infirm Mother is often hospitalized, leaving her with kind adults who sometimes become unkind when no one's looking.
Unique to the book are Ann's brief accounts of what happened in later life following each very entertaining narrative.

This is a heart-warming book that every girl can relate to! One page your eyes will be all teary and the next you'll be giggling... once you pick this book up you'll not want to put it down as every page is a new tale, triumph, adventure or tribulation of youth!

Such a charming and funny book! Ms. Burnell perfectly captures the immigrant experience - a stranger in a strange land who finds out that the things and people in this country are not so strange after all. This book will resonate with everyone, whether or not you are Irish! I thoroughly enjoyed this book and was almost sad to finish reading it. Pick it up for an easy and entertaining read.

A Child's Heart makes you laugh and it makes you cry, it is such a good read. I highly recommend it for all book lovers.

Funny and feisty Rosie captures the essence of an Irish-American childhood in mid-century Brooklyn with her hilarious yet heart-rending tales of family and friends, nuns and neighbors in the American melting pot.

This was the first of Priscilla's books that I came in contact with and I was pleasantly surprised and I got impressed later on in the book. Impressed because it isn't often that you find an American author that cites an old Swedish song. One that just so happens my parents sung to me as a child and that I've always loved highly. Being a Swede that has never crossed the ocean in that direction, I found it very helpful to read her books to get just a little peek into the native American people, that you see in various films all the time and hear quite a bit about, but never this personal. I am grateful for this chance to look into their ceremonies closely and get inside another persons experience with them, from both a native American and a non-native American perspective.
That on one hand and then Priscilla being a psychologist and writing about a western psychologist's meeting with these traditions and ceremonies, was superb to me.

So different but yet so familiar.
-Yes, she's got it all covered so well, that although Meggie recons these things are all knew and she has her own beliefs, because of her psychological education you can not help but feel that what is happening in this book is all very usual and every-day kind of things. Priscilla deals with all of Meggies questions and therefor she also deals with my own questioning as a reader. The feeling, a long time after reading her book is that it is perfectly normal and nothing out of the ordinary going on in it. Not all psychologists manage to make me feel at such ease with things the way Priscilla does, which is an excellent skill. The skill of integrating a western type of societal hierarchy with tribalism. That and Christianity along with naturalistic belief's without to much of a clutch can really be something to master.

This was a very good book, a book hard to put down. The characters are your friends and you want to keep them in your life. If you want to another read a book that goes straight to your heart, read Stolen Moments by Barbara Jeanne Fisher. . .It is a beautiful story of unrequited love. . .for certain the love story of the nineties. I intended to give the book a quick read, but I got so caught up in the story that I couldn't put the book down. From the very beginning, I was fully caught up in the heart-wrenching account of Julie Hunter's battle with lupus and her growing love for Don Lipton. This love, in the face of Julie's impending death, makes for a story that covers the range of human emotions. The touches of humor are great, too, they add some nice contrast and lighten things a bit when emotions are running high. I've never read a book more deserving of being published. It has rare depth. Julie's story will remind your readers that life and love are precious and not to be taken for granted. It has had an impact on me, and for that I'm grateful. Stolen Moments is written with so much sensitivity that it made me want to cry. It is a spellbinder. What terrific writing. Barbara does have an exceptional gift! This book was edited by Lupus specialist Dr. Matt Morrow too, and has the latest information on that disease. ..A perfect gift for someone who started college late in life, fell in love too late in life, is living with any illness, or trying to understand a loved one who is. . .A gift to be cherished forever.

Many thanks to Priscilla Cogan for writing this beautiful book continuing to weave the story of Winona, Meggie O'Connor and Hawk. Not only is this a wonderful love story, but a story that allows the reader to learn about beautiful Lakota traditions.

I fell in love with this book and didn't want it to end. It was a story of relationships at many different levels. The growing love between Meggie and Hawk, the Lakota wisdom Winona shared with her Grandson Adam, and the struggling relationship between Wynona and her daughter Lucy, who in many ways rejected her Lakota heritage. It was simply beautiful, and I couldn't put it down.

If reviews had a 10-star rating, that would be my pick for Compass of the Heart.

Priscilla Cogan has brought us the second title in the Winona Trilogy, the first being WINONA'S WEB. Although reading COMPASS doesn't really reveal anything that would ruin it for the reader if she chooses to read it first, I would still recommend finding WINONA'S WEB and reading it before COMPASS.

The story is a contemporary romance and takes place on the Indian Reservations in Northwest Michigan. Winona Pathfinder is an elderly medicine woman who knows she is dying. She calls in her younger cousin Hawk, who she has been teaching and tells him to gather the family. The family is her daughter, son-in-law and two grandchildren. As the family tries to communicate in this sad and awkward time, the author lets us hear what each one is really thinking although tradition and manners has them saying something different. We learn Winona's daughter is as much a woman of the present as her mother is of the past. And one of her grandchildren will someday carry on the tradition. Hawk is surprised when she tells him to give her social pipe to a white woman named Meggie. Meggie is a psychologist who attempted to treat Winona and convince her she wasn't dying, instead Winona taught Meggie about the earth and spiritual world. Hawk is even more surprised when Winona asks him to watch over Meggie. Hawk has dedicated his life to his people and he feels to love a white woman would be a betrayal, yet here is the wise woman he left the South Dakota Reservation for, telling him to watch over the one white woman he already fights temptation with, Meggie O'Connor.

The reader will be drawn into the enchanting world of Indian life; its myths, its beliefs. And they will see how our American Indians must balance their past with their present. The glimpse into their version of the afterworld is captivating. I think we all can learn from the different traditions and methods of other cultures. Priscilla Cogan shows a side of the Indian culture that is both mesmerizing and fascinating. Also, take notice of the Glossary of Lakota words at the back of the book.

Look for the first award-winning book in this trilogy, WINONA'S WEB, to become a movie in the year 2000.

As in psychologist Priscilla Cogan's debut novel, "Winona's Web," which was praised for its noteworthy depiction of Native American beliefs and customs, Compass Of The Heart, also invites readers into a world of little known rituals. This is a place where individuals struggle to
maintain tradition amid America's homogeneous secularity, and where spirits of the dead materialize to instruct, advise, or sometimes tease.

With a cross-cultural romance as her springboard, the author probes the minds and hearts of those with one foot in the past and another in the present. A practitioner of Native American rituals, such as pipe and sweat-lodge ceremonies, Ms. Cogan is an Irish-American who joins her Cherokee husband to teach workshops pertaining to these healing practices. Thus, she brings an informed eye to her novel's setting.

Hawk, a medicine man, has come to upstate Michigan, "to the tiny Ojibway and Ottawa reservation of Peshawbestown" to study with Winona, an aged teacher. She not only instructs but tells him of her imminent death, saying it is time for her spirit to go home. Winona asks that Hawk give her pipe to a divorced psychologist, Meggie O'Connor, who employs him as a part-time handyman. When Hawk protests that she is a white woman, Winona replies, "She is a woman of good heart."

A divorcee of 40, Meggie is attracted to Hawk, and they soon become lovers. To the obvious chagrin of other tribespeople Hawk invites Meggie to be a doorkeep at an inipi, a therapeutic sweat lodge ceremony for which the men gather in a hut heated by steam from water poured on red hot stones, believing that the excessive perspiration washes away "that which was false and unclean." It is also at this inipi that Hawk receives instructions from a former teacher, now dead and living in the Spirit world.

It is at such a point that those with less than an avid interest in the minutia of ritual may feel the story's pace flounders, as plot turns to podium for the advocacy of the author's beliefs.

Nonetheless, the blossoming relationship between Hawk and Meggie is truncated by the unexpected arrival of beautiful Rising Smoke, the medicine man's ex-wife. As old desires reawaken, Hawk believes himself to be in love with two women. To further complicate matters, Meggie discovers she is pregnant.

Winona, meanwhile, is caught between worlds, awaiting with impatience her new life as she observes the interplay between Hawk and the white psychologist. Disgruntled with the people "Back There," Winona mutters of Hawk, "What he needs is a good kick in the butt," and hisses to Meggie, "Go fight for your man! She (Winona) never could understand white people with all their confusion about what was important."

Only a return to his former home and the ministrations of another teacher enable Hawk to choose between the two women. Discarded again, Rising Smoke wrecks vengeance on an unsuspecting Meggie.

Alternating narrative voices, among which are Fritzi, a white furred terrier, proves to be cumbersome. While peripheral characters whose motivation is unclear, and whose plights are left largely unresolved tends to puzzle.

However, there is much to be learned about Native American tradition in Compass Of The Heart, and Meggie's Thanksgiving toast is a valuable reminder: "I would like us to remember that people of different races can come together, help each other, teach each other, and celebrate their differences.....Rooted in this continent, the native people taught and continue to teach respect for the land and all its inhabitants, the truth that we are all in this Creation together."

- Gail Cooke

This book is great for those who are trying to find that special someone but keep attracting the wrong person. Dr. Sherman takes the dating process to a whole new level by getting to the core of the issue- ourselves. She teaches us how we often get in our own way when it comes to dating and that we must begin the process by first knowing ourselves. Her clever approach allows us to date consciously to attract the one we are most looking for.

I had recently returned to the scary world of dating - this book was just
what I needed to get off the couch and into the world again!

"Dating From the Inside Out" is a profound and important book. Unlike most relationship books out there, this book identifies the real reasons why so many relationships burn and crash.

As we grow, we form unconscious ideas of who we are, of who people are in general, and of how we understand the world, We use these patterns to pick mates without even knowing what the patterns really are.

Dr. Sherman helps you identify the patterns, change them when they are counterproductive, and combine these new productive patterns with the practical strategies that will make healthy relationships bloom. BRAVO!

Psychoanalytic Psychotherapist

At first glance, I thought that this dating book was written by a woman for women. It ain't so. The principles espoused apply to men as well as women. In the future, know yourself, like yourself and be yourself will be the golden rule for all of my relationships.

A good read. Well worthwhile.

MK

I really enjoyed reading this book. It is actually more of a workbook and the exercises in it help guide you through the thorny world of dating. Though some of the advice has been covered before in other books, the exercises are new to me. They can help you look inside of yourself to find out what may be blocking you in your love life. The book also helps you define what you are really looking for in a mate.

If you are willing to do the sometimes difficult work of introspection, I think this book can help you achieve your dreams and if you don't meet that special someone, it will at least uplift you and give you clarity around who you are as a person.

Este libro nos ensena que las decisiones que hacemos en nuestras vidas afectan no solamente la vida de uno sino a las vidas de sus hijos y las futuras generacions.

Es un libro sencillo, claro, emotivo y muy profundo, para leer, releer y meditar, pero sobre todo para no olvidar. Se lee con facilidad, pero se nos introduce en nuestra propia alma y al revés lo vamos completando con nuestras propias vivencias. Deja una huella muy profunda. Abstenerse curiosos, puede tener efectos secundarios, aunque pienso que todos positivos.

Me encanto este libro. Todas las madres y abuelas lo deben de leer. Es un libro bien escrito, facil de leer y con montones de frases y parrafos que debemos subrayar y tener presentes todos los dias. Imposible leer el libro sin relacionarlo con nuestra propia vida. Trata de la relacion de una mujer con su hija y su nieta, pasando ademas por sus relaciones con los hombres. De una forma realista, no sentimental, nos llena de ternura y de gratitud hacia nuestro nucleo familiar, aunque este no siempre haya sido perfecto.

Al comienzo cuando abri' el libro, pense' que se trataba de otra rareza ma's de la literatura. Pero, poco a poco, me fue' atrapando con su lenguaje reflexivo y tierno que, sin lugar a dudas me hace pensar que es uno de los mejores libros que he lei'do. Con razo'n es un libro internacional. Ah! Un buen regalo para las madres y abuelas.

This book is a must for every woman. It touches every part of our lives. It brushes over our hopes, dreams, regrets, mistakes and the love that makes us daughters, wives, mothers and grandmothers. Susanna Tamaro uses language rich in her culture to paint one of the most touching of literature's portraits!

Following the advice in this book reduced my total cholesterol by 30 points, and my waistline by 15 pounds! No other book has been able to deliver like this one. I'm never bored by the recipes, and Jones makes it easy to shop, eat, and live a healthy life. Totally delectable and worth every penny.

We're discovering this cook book and we're just loving it. Last night we did a vegetarian meal that featured the Healthy Lentil Salad with Tomatoes and Radishes, Hearts of Palm, Tomato and Asparagus Salad, and the Romaine Lettuce with Chickpeas, Feta and Lemon Shallot Vinaigrette.... DELISH and totally filling.

We're also big fans of:

Chicken, Arugula, Sun-Dried Tomato, Olive, and Feta Cheese Pasta Salad
Chicken Fajitas with Homemade Guacamole (YUM! - Served it at a dinner party and it was a huge hit)
Feta and Fresh Basil Chicken Burgers
Turkey Loaf
Southwestern Breakfast Burrito

The recipes are very easy to make. The ingredients affordable. And the taste is something everyone in the family will appreciate!!!

This book has a very good introduction on how to change the way you cook and eat. The recipes are simple and easy to prepare. Basically shows how to replace high calorie ingredients with low-fat, non-fat ingredients. Quite good overall.

I have loved all the recipes so far. Recipes use some of the same ingredients so that you don't have to spend tons of money. Nice information sections of foods to stay away from and why. I feel heart healthier already.

Let me start by saying that I love this book! I'm not calling it a cookbook because it is so much more than that. It is also an easy to understand nutritional reference.
I do not have high cholesterol, nor does my husband or children, but I stumbled on this book and it quickly grabbed me. Anyone and everyone can benefit from following a heart-healthy diet.
The recipes are fantastic. Some of my family's favorites are: Black Bean Soup, Crab Cakes with tomatillo-avacado sauce, Sesame coated Yellowfin Tuna, Lupita's Lemon Chicken, Chicken Fajitas with homemade guacamole, Buffalo Burgers, and Cashew Chicken. I've made several wonderful vegetable and salad recipes as well. The desserts are delicious AND heart-healthy!
The book also helps me with making food choices when I need to pack processed snacks for my kids or when desperate measures call for fast food. The nutritional information that I gained from this book is invaluable. A MUST READ!

This is a book that you can read over and over and over again, and God will minister something new to you every time. This book took me into the throne room of God, where we had an awesome talk.
Kathy, your annointing and giftings shine brightly in this book. God is all in this book. I can not wait for the next book of this series to be released.

Cathy Heiliger has put into print a revelation of God that shares the heart of the Master and those that encountered Him. I am so pleased that she has done such a great job in writing this pictograph of Jesus and His deciples and the ones that He touches and heals.

What a blessing!

In the more than seven decades of my life, I keep re-learning what poor communicators and relaters men are compared to women. I found that this book was an incredible facilitator in this (for me) most difficult area of life. When communicating with and understanding our fellow human beings is so difficult, how much more so with God.

This book is a real blessing in perceiving the true heart of God and how deeply He cares for His creation. You are a virtual bystander in His relating to the most humble of His people in settings that ring with the authenticity of the age. Although many have been touched with "the issue" in the opening chapter, I felt more involved and uplifted with each ensuing story, culminating with "The Anointing". We are eye-witnesses to what a great God we have.

This book moved me in ways that others haven't, because I was impressed with the people in scripture as fellow human beings. It was my automatic reaction to empathize as it filled in many gaps in my understanding of the featured people. Smooth reading, a natural imagery, historically founded, inspiring and deep, it answered my spiritual quest for "more" . . . Since the ladies I work with have varying beliefs, yet are each in their own way searching for "more" from life and/or God, I think this book will gently enable the experience (and be a perfect Christmas gift). I believe we are desperate for the 'out-of-this-world' God, whom we acknowledge is caring and personal, to enter into our own individual worlds and make them entirely meaningful. This book is a resource God used in my life to do that for me.

Cathy Heiliger is true to her promise and takes us straight to the heart of things. Here are stories simple and profound. As she retells those not-so-incidental encounters people had with Jesus in the gospels, she "fills in the blanks" by allowing us to become those people and feel, experience those aspects of their lives that brought them face to face with the Master.

For example in the story "A Woman and Her Issue" we experience how her "issue" is a beautiful metaphor for the heart "issues" of our lives. Particularly impressive is Jesus' insistence that the woman realize He not only healed her physically, but He continues healing (progressive tense) her emotionally, in her soul. The short studies that follow each story take us deeper and provide us an opportunity to encounter the Great Physician in our own, personal way.

Encounters of the Heart takes us beyond "clever writing," beyond mastery of technique and convention, and allows us the opportunity to enter into the mysterious beauty and healing of God, Himself.

After I read this book, I could feel much closer to my god.
From the very beginning there was something going on in myself I could not describe with words.
Something very positive. After 6 month now I look back and can say my life took a better direction. More calmness,
a feeling of security and guidance which I cannot imagine
to life without anymore.
I wish everybody this direct communion and this book is a wonderful guidance for everybody.
I speaks honest from daily life of us and our God !

After I read this book, I could feel much closer to my god.
From the very beginning there was something going on in myself I could not describe with words.
Something very positive. After 6 month now I look back and can say my life took a better direction. More calmness,a feeling of security and guidance which I cannot imagine, that I have lifed
so long without of it.
I wish everybody this direct communion and this book is a wonderful guidance in finding what is in all of us.
It speaks very honest from our daily life and how much our God
desires to be a part of.

When I speak of the word "Dialog," I am speaking of my own on-going personal travelling search for communication with Diety. This book is written in such a way that it can either be an introduction to God for those who are not familiar with the critical fundamental relationship which resides within the heart, because all their efforts have been invested in an external religion...but also for those of us who are familiar with The Dialog and wish confirmation, continued connectivity and reaffirmation of our internal established relationship with God independent of an external world framework. The "Message" is always the same, no matter the avenue, when it is original and proceeds, from The Source. That message is, We Are ONE. Indeed, any kind of separation from God is of our own making.This book uses familiar Christian concepts such as "The Fall" to describe the external world mental separation we have created as a barrier to our Key Fundamental Relationship. So long as we look for God "Out There" instead of "In Here," we will continue to reinforce the barriers which have prempted our rightful and inherent relationship with God. The fundamental principle that God resides WITHIN US and that is where we must look to renew our relationship...not within the confines of external doctrines or frameworks...is central to the thesis in this book and is a continued fundamental principle of every book I have read which I know proceeds out of the Spirit. This book says...do not abandon your current religious framework if it serves you...but build within yourself, your relationship with Me, I am always HERE WITHIN YOU...and if that religious framework no longer serves you...I am always HERE WITHIN YOU STILL. It also says, if you have a religious framework as your context for relationship with Me, Our relationship is NOT complete, if you are only seeking Me OUT THERE. Establish a DIRECT relationship and DIRECT communication within YOU to ME...(Thus the analogy of the "phone."). He has said, this journey is "delicious" in more than one book! It is "time" to give up being a mindless follower to the Messengers and instead...establish a direct relationship with Me. This is indeed, a tough thing to do, when all your life you have been told by established religion, you cannot get to God unless...you do this and this and this and do not do that and that and that...and especially if you do anything without US or our permission or our consent. Yes, it takes a brave soul to realize, you do not need anyone's permission to have a direct relationship with God and no one has any real authority to limit or deny your ability to do so. If you have your eyes OPEN and your mind OPEN when you read this book, you will come out SEEING and THINKING with your heart. And that my friends, is going to get you in a lot of trouble with the world...and its going to establish a relationship which will make the world's permissions...irrelevant. Are you bold enough to take this book and really "read" it? Even if the message of this book remains unheard in you...there will come another chance, another time and place, when you ARE ready for it. I hope, the message in this book, is for you now. For me, it is a re-confirmation of what I have come to understand thru many other such texts. The message is always ONE.

Reading the book and close it, reading it again and close it again. The things I experience are eventualy not in this book but it "goes and exists" inside each one of us. Everybody knows that any spoken language is many times a poor substitute for the living energy that exists within the very core of our heart and soul. Real communication is not easy at all. So what I want to say is that beyond the words written down in this book, there is an everyday-feeling which will bring us all to understandable Common Grounds. It is a TRUE book.

This is a very challenging book. As a Christian I had what I believed to be a safe and good understanding of what/who God is. It challenged my own concepts and has revealled not a God but a parent. It made me realise how intimate this new found parent is in a simple, honest, straight forward way but with a depth I had never experienced before. It helped me understand what our relationship should be like and gave me a renewed desire to get there. There are very few books that have had this kind of impact in my life. It is written in easy to understand everyday language. Would I recommend it? Most certainly yes.

THIS IS A GREAT BOOK AND VERY ACCURATE ABOUT THE THINGS THAT HAPPENED BEFORE, DURING AND AFTER THE FIRST HUMAN HEART TRANSPLANT TOOK PLACE. THE BOOK WAS VERY WELL RESEARCHED PRIOR TO THE WRITING BY DONALD McRAE. I THINK HE WAS VERY FAIR IN HIS APPROACH TO ALL PHASES OF THE BOOK. I WAS DR. RICHARD LOWER'S TECHNICIAN (PERFUSIONIST) FROM 1963 AT STANFORD UNTIL 1989 AT MCV IN VA. I WAS INVOLVED IN ALL HIS HEART TRANSPLANTS SO I CAN ATTEST TO THE AUTHENTICITY OF WHAT MR. McRAE WROTE ABOUT DR.'S SHUMWAY, LOWER, AND BARNARD IN THE BOOK. I BELIEVE IT TO BE THE BEST BOOK THAT HAS BEEN WRITTEN ABOUT THOSE EARLY DAYS OF THE HEART TRANSPLANT BUSINESS.
LANIER ALLEN, RETIRED CCP & RETIRED CHIEF OF PERFUSION AT MCV HOSPITAL, RICHMOND, VA

This is a story of inspiration and intrigue. It is of particular interest to me since I received a heart transplant in 1991.

Many lives have been saved and extended because of the work of the transplant community. The story of how Christiaan Barnard and other surgeons overcame tremendous difficulties is compelling. This book tells that story in a way that all will benefit.

Author of: Mr. NewHeart (New Heart): Heart Attack to Transplant and Beyond

An absolutely spell binding account of the early work in the field of heart transplant. Extremely well written and very factual. A great read, indeed, it is almost impossible to put the book down once you begin.

This autobiography of Lance Armstrong will show you how teamwork plays an important role in the Tour de France. You'll also see how Armstrong coped after his first marriage ended.

The book deals with complicated medical matters, but is written like a novel and is riveting, and hard to put down. It covers lots of medical and human history and is required reading for those too young to understand and appreciate heart and vascular surgery. Bypass and transplant surgery has changed the world and this book tells who made it possible.

Joseph R. Newell, Jr