Book Review: Hope Springs

The latest book that I chose to read and review for Booksneeze was Hope Springs by Kim Cash Tate. This was also my first ebook that I've ever read! I don't have any of those electronic reading devices but I do have my iPhone and I discovered they make a snazzy Kindle app for it! Woo! I did enjoy the ease and accessibility of being able to read the book whenever I wanted on my phone but there was something missing not holding a physical copy of the book in my hands. That and it made it really hard to flip back a few pages to check on something that happened prior. There was no way to keep my current page while flipping back. So I'd have to remember what number I was at and go to that location. I kept forgetting. =P Anyway... it wasn't all bad. But this is a book review not a review of my e-reading experience!

Hope Springs was a great novel! I'd never read anything by Kim Cash Tate before but after reading this book I will definitely be reading some other novels from her. The book took place in a small North Carolina town called Hope Springs. It featured three main character women, Stephanie London, Janelle Evans, and Becca Anderson. Stephanie and Janelle are cousins from a very large extended family and Becca married a man who grew up in Hope Springs and was close with the other ladies' family as a child.

Stephanie is married to a doctor and lives in St. Louis with her husband but has no job and no responsibilities. Stephanie and her husband go to Hope Springs for Christmas to visit but when Stephanie finds out her grandmother is gravely ill she decides to stay and help her cousin Janelle take care of her. Stephanie had been feeling like she needed to do something more with her life and takes this as her "ministry boot camp" while her husband is in Haiti on a medical mission trip for a month.

Janelle lost her husband two years before the start of the book. She lives in Maryland and has two young children. They also make the journey to Hope Springs for Christmas and when she learns that her grandmother is sick and needs someone around to take care of her she volunteers to stay and help because she realizes there is really nothing in Maryland that she urgently needs to get back for. While in Hope Springs she reacquaints herself with her first love and falls into an easy friendship with him. She helps to start a Woman's Bible study and slowly grows into a fresh relationship with God since her husband's death.

Becca has been a small time woman's speaker at Christian conferences and the like. She recently got an offer to become part of the speaker team for a well renowned women's Christian conference and finally feels like God is leading her into a wonderful path for ministry. Then her husband feels called to become the pastor at his late father's church in Hope Springs. Becca is unsure how living in the small town will affect her ministry dreams but she will soon find out that God has big plans for her!

This was such a good book! Like other books I've loved, it was told from the perspective of the different women and each chapter featured a different woman. It was all told in third person form but you really got to know the characters through each of their chapters. And the chapters all intertwined which was really wonderful. I definitely did not want to put this book down which I suppose was a good thing it was on my phone because it made it a lot easier to read whenever I wanted. Even though it was a fairly long novel it went by so fast! I got the book on Wednesday of last week and finished it on Monday. And that included my very busy weekend where I didn't read at all! I love that this book included not just one God lesson but many. And each of those lessons were poignant and touching. It was a great reminder to me that God is working in all my circumstances and has a plan much bigger than I can ever imagine. =) I highly recommend you pick up this book. Definitely a five star rating in my opinion!

Cindy

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze®.com. 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 guidelines.