About the Book: The characters, Rose, Naomi, Mary Lucille, and Gayle: after forming the Prayer Tree circle, find they have started to drift apart. Each is so very consumed in her own life. Naomi misses her friends. She misses the connection they had as a group. With the help of her new husband, Naomi comes up with a plan to bring them all back together. It seems like each year, New Bethany has the Splendor Belle Gala. This cotillion like, time-honored tradition, began as the way young ladies were introduced into society. Now it was basically a fundraiser for the holiday season. One of the town legends is that the elderly Grace Grayson-Wiley was stood up on the night of her ball, over 50 years ago. Hard times, having hit one of the town's most prominent families, "the family's entire future rested squarely and irrefutably on the shoulders of the petite eighteen-year-old Grace. She had to go the Belle Gala to meet and mingle, with hope to win the marriageable intentions of the only kind of man that could save her family from their predicament." After a brief and unsuccessful marriage, the widowed Grace returned home, and now sits on her porch each year in the gown she had worn that fateful night, waiting for the date that never came. Naomi’s idea for a "project" to bring her circle of friends back together, is to bring some life back to Grace- if she doesn't shoot them first.
About the Author: Annie Jones is a beloved, bestselling author who's written more than 19 titles for houses including Multnomah and Waterbrook. She is currently writing for Steeple Hill Café and Love Inspired. Her awards include a Virginia RWA Holt Medallion, for which she was a finalist an unprecedented four times, and an Affaire De Coeur award for Best Inspirational Fiction. THE PRAYER TREE and SAVING GRACE (Multnomah) were on Ingram's "most requested books in America" lists. The Houston Chronicle named Annie best Christian fiction author of 1999 for a series of romantic comedies she wrote for Waterbrook. She also writes as Luanne Jones, and her novel published under that name, THE DIXIE BELLE'S GUIDE TO LOVE (2002), was chosen by the Literary Guild, a rare occurrence for a mass market book, and voted one of the top 5 romances of 2002 by Library Journal, which praised it as "Written with sass and style and brimming with endearingly eccentric yet wonderfully memorable characters, this is an unabashed delight." Annie lives with her husband and two children.
My Thoughts: This book was a delight and such an easy fun read. Each character felt like your best friend and before you knew it you were a part of the Prayer Tree Group. This book would be a definite recommendation from me, especially if you are a fan of Southern fiction. Saving Grace is heartwarming, fun, and a must own. I give this book 5 out of 5 stars.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from Waterbrookmultnomah Publishing Co. as part of their Blogging for Books program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255: "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising."
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