Faith moves to Florida to escape her ex-husband, be closer to her friends, and to start a new job and life. Her friends keep matchmaking her with the local sheriff. One night one of her students who lives two doors away comes to her house afraid because she cannot find her father. The sheriff lives in the cul-de-sac at the end of the street so Faith takes Jasmine, her student, to the sheriff's home. He goes and searches Jasmine's home but cannot find her father so he takes her to her aunt's where her mother has been helping with a new baby. He walks into a murder scene. Who was murdered and why? Who did the killing? Can the sheriff keep Faith safe? Can he keep Jasmine safe?

I liked this story. The plot is simple and the murder easy to solve. I liked Faith a lot. She is stronger and feistier than she believes. It is good to see her being strong and not taking the sheriff's guff. Cole, the sheriff, is a good match for her. He is strong but knows when to back down and when to get stern especially with the murderer after her. Faith overcomes her fear and manages to help the sheriff. I look forward to reading the rest of the series.

Leah Warner has been in a serious car accident and is in a coma on life-support. Her multiple injuries include broken bones, brain trauma and face lacerations. When the cardiac arrest alarm sounds in the critical care unit two nurses rush to Leah’s room expecting the worst. Instead, they find her sitting on the side of the bed, “illuminated by the harsh shaft of light”. She is conscious, coherent and not experiencing any pain. It appears the patient has had a spontaneous recovery of all her injuries including the deep cuts on her face, but for Leah, a thirty-eight-year-old widow with two young sons what is even more amazing is “Of all the people in the world, God chose me to be a messenger”.

Leah declares she has been with God and the message he wants her to convey to mankind is “… a message of love. God loves us and wants us to love each other in the same way. God wants us to embrace humility and selflessness instead of acquisition and achievement.”

Subsequent medical examinations confirm Leah’s miraculous recovery and though Leah doesn’t believe she has been instilled with any kind of holiness or divinity she is committed to spreading God’s message.

Very quickly sides are drawn up between those who accept and embrace Leah’s message from God as new hope and direction for a troubled world and those who reject her and the message concerned it will spawn religious bigotry and undermine the status quo.

These opposing positions are represented by two powerful and competing organizations. Americans for Social Progress want “an end to discrimination of all kinds; economic parity; religious freedom; cultural freedom; and the protection of personal privacy.” Their concerned Leah’s message “…will be politicized. It will be abused by those who wish to make God, or their perception of God, the supreme leader of the land.” They’ll pay big bucks for her to muzzle God’s message.

Then there are Americans for the Advancement of Faith, an organization devoted to the promotion of faith who “…only wish to promote a faith-based society.” They’ll pay big bucks to help Leah deliver God’s message.

As the stakes increase and the country becomes more divided violence is inevitable.

The Message? A Thinking Thriller About Change and Choice by Avam Hale is a trope on the theme of how someone espousing fundamental tenets of Christianity would be received in modern society but despite being unoriginal it’s well researched, structured, realistically portrayed, and entertaining.

Hale cleverly has the main narrative supported by a parallel plotline of a twice-weekly class on the philosophical arguments for the existence of a monotheistic God and Creator delivered by a Professor of Philosophy. As Leah’s story advances so do the lectures converging with the question of the authenticity of Leah’s message from God.

The biggest problem I had with this book was a growing suspension of disbelief as the story unfolded. I couldn’t believe that God’s generic, unoriginal message, similar to lessons taught in Sunday school would get the push back Hale builds the tension in his story on. I kept waiting for some validation. A reason to believe. It never came.

Title: Good Faith (Stewart Realty, #8)

Author: Liz Crowe

Genre: Family Saga, Fiction

Release Date: June 8, 2021

Cover Designer: Buoni Amici Press

Publisher: Buoni Amici Press

Hosted by: Buoni Amici Press, LLC.

Brandis Gordon struggles to maintain control as he ricochets between wild success and miserable failure as an energetic boy, an athletic teen, and young adult, proving time and again how even the strongest relationships can be strangled by the ties that bind.

Blair Freitag spent her entire life in close contact with her family’s friends, the Gordons. But when her obsession with the boy who at one time was nothing but a teasing nuisance, blossoms into a strength of will that Brandis comes to depend on a little too much, all bets are off.

A chronicle of three families navigating teen years minefields, into the turbulence of young adulthood, Good Faith holds up a mirror to contemporary life, unflinchingly reflecting life’s joys and temptations. Somewhere between the tangle of good memories and bad, independence and addiction, optimism and despair, the intertwined destinies of the new Stewart Realty generation collide, leaving some stronger, others broken, but none unscathed.

AMAZON

Liz Crowe is a Kentucky native and graduate of the University of Louisville living in Central Illinois. She's spent her time as a three-continent expat trailing spouse, mom of three, real estate agent, brewery owner and bar manager, and is currently a social media consultant and humane society development director, in addition to being an award-winning author. With stories set in the not-so-common worlds of breweries, on the soccer pitch, inside fictional television stations and successful real estate offices, and even in exotic locales like Istanbul, Turkey, her books are compelling and told with a fresh voice. The Liz Crowe backlist has something for any reader seeking complex storylines with humor and complete casts of characters that will delight, at times frustrate, and always linger in the imagination long after the book is finished.

Start the series by reading books 1-7

AMAZON | AppleBooks | Nook | Kobo

I'm a chapter past "Mr Wegg looks after himself", and damn if now that I look back at that chapter title I don't giggle at how doubly appropriate it is. And on it's own is quite the short tale of the absurd.

So far I find the Boffins a bit naive but lovely, as is Lizzie (on that note, I want a whole volume of episodes starring Miss Abbey, the taproom owner), Bella somewhat shallow and YOUNG, but also (from a cynic point of view) right, and the whole things around the Veneerings as Dickens at his best (name and all).

This review can also be found at Carole's Random Life in Books.

I really enjoyed this book. I picked this one up as a freebie on Audible and decided to listen to it right away. Unfortunately by the time I got around to writing my review, I didn't remember enough of the details to put together any kind of halfway decent collection of thoughts. It is a rather short book at just 5 hours of listening time so I decided I would just give it another listen, which is what I did.

While I read and listen to a little bit of just about every genre, I don't tend to read a lot of science fiction. I did appreciate the futuristic world that this story was set in. I liked the technology that was worked into the story. Even the cats in this story were not the normal cats like I have come across in my life. These cats work as a team and treat Shining as their leader. I liked the way that the world-building gradually built over the course of the story with each piece of information adding to the overall world.

I thought that this book was exciting. There was a lot going on and it is obvious from the very beginning that things are looking bad for Shining and the gang. As the story progressed, I realized just how much danger they were really in. I liked the way that the past that brought the characters to this point in their life was worked into the story and I thought that it really helped me get to know and like the characters better.

Khristine Hvam did a fabulous job with the narration. I thought that she did a great job with all of the character voices and was able to add a lot of excitement to the story. She read the story with a very pleasant voice and read at a perfect pace. I think that her performance added to my overall enjoyment of the story.

I would recommend this book to others. I found this to be a great story filled with great characters and just the right amount of action. This is the first book in the Junkyard Cats series and I look forward to reading future installments.

Initial Thoughts
This was really well done. I have had Faith Hunter's books on my tbr for years but haven't picked one up before starting this audiobook yesterday. I ended up having a fantastic time with this story. I thought that the premise of the story was very unique and I thought that the world-building was very well done. I thought that the characters were great and I wanted to see Shining Smith come out of the situation she found herself okay. I thought that the narrator really brought the story to life which added to my enjoyment.

Book source: Audible freebie