"A Wedding Invitation" Book Review

This week, the
Christian Fiction Blog Alliance
is introducing
A Wedding Invitation
Bethany House (October 1, 2011)
by
Alice Wisler



ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Alice was born in Osaka, Japan in the sixties. Her parents were Presbyterian career missionaries. As a young child, Alice loved to walk down to the local stationer's store to buy notebooks, pencils and scented erasers. In her room, she created stories. The desire to be a published famous author has never left her. Well, two out of three isn't bad. She's the author of Rain Song, How Sweet It Is, Hatteras Girl and A Wedding Invitation (all published by Bethany House).

Alice went to Eastern Mennonite University after graduating from Canadian Academy, an international high school in Kobe, Japan. She majored in social work and has worked across the U.S. in that field. She taught ESL (English as a Second Language) in Japan and at a refugee camp in the Philippines. She also studied Spanish at a language institute in San Jose, Costa Rica.

She has four children--Rachel, Daniel, Benjamin and Elizabeth. Daniel died on 2/2/97 from cancer treatments at the age of four. Since then, Alice founded Daniel's House Publications in her son's memory. This organization reaches out to others who have also lost a child to death. In 2000 and 2003, Alice compiled recipes and memories of children across the world to publish two memorial cookbooks, Slices of Sunlight and Down the Cereal Aisle.



ABOUT THE BOOK

After returning home from teaching English at a refugee camp in the Philippines, Samantha Bravencourt enjoys her quiet life working at her mother's clothing boutique in Falls Church, Virginia. When she receives an invitation to a wedding in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, she looks forward to reconnecting with her college friend. Instead her life collides with Carson, a fellow teacher and the man who broke her heart, and a young Amerasian refugee named Lien who needs Samantha and Carson's help to find her mother before Lien's own wedding. When the search for Lien's mother reveals surprising secrets from the past, Samantha must reevaluate her own memories and decide whether to continue to play it safe or take a risk that could change her life.



If you would like to read the first chapter of A Wedding Invitation, go HERE.



Watch the book trailer:







MY REVIEW:

A year in the Phillipines teaching Vietnam refugees was just that, one year of her life - right? Samantha finds out that isn't the case when that year of her life is thrown back at her as she runs into pieces of her past when she attends a wedding. It takes her on a journey into the past that is coinciding with her present and brings her face to face with the young man she fell in love with in the Phillipines. Now that they have run into each other again will things be any different? Can Samantha balance her obligations to her mom, her job and help track down a missing Vietnamese woman all while trying to fend off her feelings for Carson.


This book is a new offering from Alice Wisler that will entertain as you follow Samantha on her journey to where she should be. And can I just say that this cover is absolutely delightful and I love it!