Author: vicklea

I love to read! I’m a retired teacher with a spouse of 45 years, three amazing children and nine wonderful grandchildren. I am blessed!

Review: One of the Family by Jess Ryder

On By vickleaIn blog tour, Book Promo, Book ReviewLeave a comment

About the Book

ISBN-13:9781837908486

Publisher:Bookouture

Publication date:10/30/2025

Pages:330

My daughter’s boyfriend feels like one of the family. I couldn’t be happier to have him living with us. But now my daughter’s disappeared… 

I never wanted to have an empty nest. So when my daughter, Liv, asks if she and her new boyfriend, Jensen, can move in, I’m thrilled.

Jensen is so helpful. He tells me how he loves being part of a close-knit family. He’s felt so alone since his parents died. And for me, his presence goes a little way towards replacing the son I lost.

Still, I can’t help but notice that Liv and Jensen are starting to argue. My daughter seems unhappy. Perhaps they just need some time alone together?

But when my husband and I return from our weekend away, Liv is missing. The relationship with Jensen appears to be over but he doesn’t want to leave. And then I discover exactly what he will do to stay in our family…

An utterly gripping psychological thriller that will have you turning pages late into the night. If you love Lisa Jewell and Freida McFadden you will be hooked on One of the Family.

My Thoughts

This story of a dsyfunctional family was absorbing as well as disturbing. It is absorbing in its realistic depiction of a family with multiple issues among multiple people, all living in a whirlpool of circumstances and regrets. It is disturbing because it is so easy to imagine oneself caught up in similar circumstances and being swept away by them. The nuclear family consists of a workaholic father, a meddling mother and two daughters, one just finishing secondary school and one graduating from university. Rachel, the mom, works in a boutique but not so many hours that she cannot involve herself in her daughter’s lives. She is concerned about Meg who is being bullied and about Liv who needs to find a job now that she has finished school. Add to that the fact that her husband Dom is away a lot on business trips, so most of the decisions in the family fall on Rachel. When Liv graduates, she moves home and brings her boyfriend Jensen with her. Jensen is a happy-go-lucky sort, thrilled to be with the family since his parents died when he was young and he has been on his own for a while. Rachel is happy to accommodate the young couple since it means that she will have Liv around again. The dad and Meg are not too excited about having Jensen living with them, but their warnings and appeals to Rachel fall on deaf ears. When Meg decides to strike out on her own, Rachel and her husband choose to go away for a weekend so that they have some time to reconnect. It also means that Liv and Jensen are alone for the weekend and can possibly work out some of their recent disputes about Jensen not actively looking for employment. When Rachel and Dom return from their weekend getaway, Liv has disappeared, and Jensen tells them that she has decided to leave. Getting to this part of the book, which I considered the central point of the story, took a while, but the author did a good job of keeping my interest by filling in with background information about all of the characters. By the time Liv disappeared, I was invested in the lives of all of the characters and wanted a happy ending for them, even though that did not seem feasible or likely. The book’s pace picks up from moderate to rapid once Rachel sets out on her quest to find Liv and Jensen is obviously hiding some secret that the reader is not privy to until the end of the book. I really was captivated by the storyline of a young woman just leaving her family and the boyfriend remaining with her family. This engaging and enthralling story kept me guessing to the end, with many twists and a lot of clues, some of which I was able to grasp and appreciated their subtlety. This is a masterfully written thriller that had my head spinning and my heart racing, especially as the inevitable conclusion was approaching without any sign of Liv. I enjoyed the realistic characterization, noting that even the secondary characters were developed enough for me to decide to relate with them or not. I especially liked the mystery and the relationships between the characters that kept the plot moving along. There was always some drama going on in someone’s life in this book. This is a book that was hard to put down once I got immersed in it, but it did take me about a fourth of the way through the book before I was thoroughly captured by all of the action and the lives of the characters. This is thriller/suspense/family drama at its best and I highly recommend it for those who enjoy contemporary fiction with a nod to Hitchcock-like twists.
I voluntarily received a complimentary copy of this book from Bookouture via Netgalley. I was not required to write a positive review, an all opinions expressed are my own.

Rated PG-13, Contemporary Fiction

About the Author

Jess Ryder is the pseudonym of Jan Page, author, screenwriter, playwright and award-winning television producer. After spending many years working in children’s television, she returned to writing novels and has written nine psychological thrillers to date. These include the e-bestseller The Ex Wife, which was adapted as a TV miniseries for Paramount Plus. She lives in London with her husband.

Mailing List: https://bookouture.com/subscribe/jess-ryder

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JessRyderAuthor/

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/16557458.Jess_Ryder

Purchase Links

Amazon

Barnes and Noble

Seek and Find

On By vickleaIn Admonition, Characteristics of God, Scripture, YouVersion App2 Comments

Seeking and Finding God (Daily Refresh, 11-01-25)

In the Old Testament, God’s presence and His relationship with His people was mediated through priests and the temple system. The people of God worshiped God and prayed to Him, but it was the priests who would enter a sacred space and speak with God on their behalf.

They revered God, but they were still separated from Him.

However, the prophet Jeremiah wrote about a time when God’s people would be able to experience a direct relationship with Him. God’s Spirit would dwell in them, and they could find Him anywhere at any time.

Through Jesus, Jeremiah’s prophecy was fulfilled. Jesus sent the Spirit of God dwell within us, to have access to God’s presence at any time.

This means that God is never far from you—just like it says in Jeremiah 29:13, He can be found when we seek Him. He is present and ready for a relationship with you.

Jeremiah also says that we must seek God with all of our heart. We don’t just seek God, He seeks us as well. When you pursue a relationship with God, He wants access to every part of you. The way you think, the way you act, and even the way you feel.

God wants to transform your entire life.

At first, it may seem hard to give God access to our past, or the things we’re ashamed of. But, God is full of grace and mercy, and He wants us to be free from those things. Seeking God with all of your heart may feel risky at times, but we can trust He knows best and will love us regardless of what we’ve done.

Ask God to reveal within you any part of your life that you haven’t surrendered to God. Pray for the strength and courage to give all of your life to Him. Continue to seek Him and follow Him each and every day.

My Thoughts

When I became a Christian, I wasn’t looking for God, but He was definitely looking for me. He sent a neighbor to tell me about His Word and to encourage me to read it. She also invited me to church and mentored me in my new life as a Christian. I don’t think any of that was a coincidence. I truly believe that God was seeking me and I allowed myself to be found.

We seek God daily by spending time with Him. That’s what I am doing now as I ask Him for inspiration to write this blog. I want each of my readers to know God so well that when a counterfeit comes along, you immediately recognize and reject it.

I cannot imagine not being able to call on God at any time and any place, knowing that He is right there to listen. I think it would have been hard to go through the priests and expect them to tell God what is on my heart. I think that is why I have difficulty with the whole confess to the priest practice that is prevalent in some religions. Why is that needed when God shows Himself to each of us individually, as the Father, Creator and the seeker of what is best for us. I don’t know and don’t pretend to understand this practice, but I am glad that I am not part of a ritual that keeps me at a distance from God when He wants me to seek and find.

There are some things that I try to hold back from God, especially when I know that I have a wrong attitude and need to change it. But I have found that He sees all things in spite of my attempt to keep some things hidden, so I may as well be honest with Him and open my heart to the change that needs to take place. God wants total access to me and everything about me. He has Top Security Clearance into all the parts of me. I seek, He seeks and together, God and I make an awesome team of finding others who also need to seek.

Die So You Can Live

On By vickleaIn Admonition, Scripture, YouVersion App2 Comments

Dying to Live (YouVersion, Daily Refresh, 10-31)

Dying to ourselves can feel like a bad thing. Most people want to exalt, applaud, and promote themselves.

But in God’s kingdom, dying to ourselves is essential.

“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave his life for me.”
Galatians 2:20 NIV

A lump of clay cannot become a work of art unless it is shaped into something else. A container of paint cannot be used for a masterpiece unless it is first poured out. A carbon deposit must change in order to become a diamond. A caterpillar must give up its old way of life in order to become a magnificent butterfly.

The invitation to die is actually an invitation to live.

When we give our lives to God, we’re choosing to surrender our plans, our desires, and our gifts. And that can be hard. But we also know there is something better—and Someone better—on the other side.

God can realign our plans, reshape our desires, and repurpose our gifts for His glory. 

The apostle Paul, the author of Galatians, knew firsthand the life-changing power of Christ. Christ’s power radically transformed Paul, from someone who persecuted believers, into a passionate follower of Jesus.

Because of that experience, Paul knew that the only way to live was by surrendering every area of His life to Christ. And that’s why he invites us to do the same. 

Jesus couldn’t have been resurrected without first being crucified—and the same is true for us. 

So what do you need to give to Jesus today? What behavior, habit, or thought do you need to “crucify”? Come as you are to Jesus, and give Him permission to transform and renew your life.

My Thoughts

This topic resonated with me today, mainly because the older I get, the more I realize that death is waiting. But then, I reflect on my life and realize that God has given me a new life to celebrate Him and to live for Him. I have never seen a caterpillar that stayed a caterpillar and died in that state. They change because that’s what God made them to do. That is also what God created us to do, to change and become more like Him and less like the self-centered creation we were before He came into our lives.

Change isn’t easy, but as the devotional says, it’s essential. If you are not getting closer to God, then aren’t you really moving away from Him? If you aren’t changing to be more like Him, as you die to yourself daily, then are you fulfilling God’s purpose for your life? God has a good plan and a good purpose for each of us, but in order to find out what it is and follow that path, we have to give up the old things. Remember the Scripture that says that “old things have passed away, we are a new creation.” Let’s strive to be that new creation every day so that we can be the person God created us to be and not a shadow just drifting through life collecting meaningless trophies and accolades that cannot go with us to eternity. Let’s make life count for God by “being all we can be.” (Yes, that’s a military slogan, but I think it really fits here, don’t you?)

Infused with Faith, Grace and Mercy

On By vickleaIn Admonition, encouragement, God’s blessings, Scripture2 Comments

In the last decade, one of my specialists decided that since my bones are so thin, I needed a special medication to be infused into my system every six months. To obtain this “miracle medicine” as he called it, I had to get the insurance to approve it and then show up at the infusion center in his office, where I spent a half hour or so with an IV in my arm while I sat in a comfortable recliner. I followed that procedure for about five years. But my bone density test showed no improvement, my kidney kept declining and the medication was no longer safe or effective for me to use. So, the doctor told me that I need to be very careful not to break bones because they are so thin and I am so much at risk. Bottom line, the infusion of the “miracle drug” did not work in my body.

I have a niece who is diabetic and has been diagnosed since she was in primary school. She had to do finger pricks and insulin injections regularly until just last year when she got a fancy glucose monitor that checks her glucose levels and automatically administers the correct dose of insulin. I have no idea how it works, but I do know that she is much happier and more stable health wise with the monitor than her own personal checks.

My point with these illustrations is that if we allow ourselves to be, we can be hooked up to God twenty-four hours a day and receive all of the faith, grace and mercy we need all the time. Our responsibility is to stay “infused” with His presence so that we receive from Him what we need when we need it. We don’t receive too little or too much, but just the right amount to function with each day’s challenges.

How do we stay so connected to God? I’m glad you are still reading and want to know the answer. It’s actually very simple. Through His Word! God gives us all that we need every day, all day in His Word. Need encouragement? It can be found in His Word. Need wisdom to make a decision? Call on God and read His Word for the answers you need. Need comfort? Peace? Love? Everything we need is right there waiting for us, but we need to pick up our Bibles and use it. It is our infusion center, the place where we are most connected to God and from which we venture into praying to Him and seeking Him more in our lives. Like me going to the infusion center, I had to do my part and show up. The nurses then hooked me up to the IV and the medicine flowed in. Likewise, we have to do our part and show up daily to spend time with God. Then God, through the Holy Spirit, does His part and infuses us with the faith, grace, mercy and whatever other power we need that day to make it to the end of the day. One more analogy and then I will let you get back to the Word yourself. You don’t pull up to the gas tank at the service station, sit in your car and talk on your phone and then pull away from the tank without filling up. Your tank is still empty. You can’t go before God and just sit there. You need to be actively engaged in reading His Word and listening for His voice to speak through it. Infusion from God comes from those who are willing to allow God to work in our lives, not those who pull away because what is happening may be uncomfortable (truth often is). Stay there, fill up and then move into your day ready for whatever happens. After all, that is part of putting on the armor of God that I addressed in a previous post. (See Ephesians 6.) Since all things come from God and we live through Him, let’s start our day with an infusion of His power and presence.

I pray for each of you to be infused with so many good things from God that you can’t hold it in so it has to overflow to others! We are blessed to be a blessing!

Review SHATTERED AMISH IDENTITY by Mary Alford

On By vickleaIn Book Promo, Book Review4 Comments

About the Book

ISBN-13:9781335957351

Publisher:Harlequin

Publication date:10/28/2025

Pages:208

When Amish school teacher Hannah York is attacked, she defends herself with skills she never knew she had. CIA agent Titus Miller arrives, claiming that she’s actually fellow agent Lara Redmond—and that she’s in danger from a powerful enemy. Despite suffering from amnesia, Hannah is certain she’s only ever lived a quiet Amish life. But why does Titus seem so familiar, and could it be true that he loved her once? When Hannah’s family is abducted, she and Titus must work together to find them. Can Hannah trust him to help unlock the truth of her past…and keep her safe? (Synopsis courtesy of Barnes and Noble)

My Thoughts

This book is a fast-paced cat and mouse game between the good guys and the bad guys. The big twist is that I didn’t know who the bad guys really were until the big reveal near the end. What a suspense-filled and heart-pounding story! Hannah York is a teacher at a local Amish school when she is attacked. Then, things start happening quickly as a man named Titus, a secret agent, claims to know her by a different name and warns her that she is in grave danger. Together, they race to try to find safety, only to constantly run into more danger. This book was hard to put down because every chapter held more threats from some unknown source. With lies and secrets as well as the CIA involved along with spies, this story held me totally captivated by the non-stop action and the chemistry between the characters. I had no idea who was trustworthy, but I really liked Hannah and her faithful dog Nala and wanted them to escape the evil that was surrounding them. No matter where they ran, the evil men followed. My imagination went wild as I tried to figure out, along with Hannah and Titus, how they were being tracked. The author did a masterful job of laying false trails with red herrings that kept me guessing all the way to the end. This is an edgy page turner that, in my opinion, is one of the best I have read by Mary Alford. The plot twists were terrifying brilliant and the tension was relentless, with a cleverly crafted and believable story. The theme of overcoming the past and forging on towards a hopeful future had me sighing at the end and wanting more of this remarkable story, with romance and action perfectly balanced and leading to a satisfying outcome.
I voluntarily received a complimentary copy of this book. I was not required to write a positive review, and all opinions expressed are my own.

About the Author

Mary Alford grew up in a small Texas town famous for, well not much of anything really. Being the baby of the family and quite a bit younger than her two brothers and her sister, Mary had plenty of time to entertain herself. Making up stories seemed to come naturally to her.

As a teen, Mary discovered Phyllis Whitney and Victoria Holt and knew instinctively that was what she wanted to do with her over-active imagination.

She wrote her first novel as a teen, (it’s tucked away somewhere never to see the light of day), but never really pursued her writing career seriously until a few years later, when she wrote her first inspirational romantic suspense and was hooked.

Today, Mary lives in Texas with her husband and loves to create characters who face dangerous situations with faith on their side.

Mary is very active online and would love to connect with readers on Facebook, X, or any of the social media platforms listed at maryalford.net.

Free Preview: https://a.co/cbJDCu8

Purchase Links

Harlequin

Amazon

Barnes and Noble

Books-a-Million

Bookshop

Walmart

Rising Above

On By vickleaIn encouragement, God’s blessings, Scripture, Song, worship1 Comment

Have you ever been on top of a mountain and stopped at an overlook? We don’t do that much anymore, but my husband and I and our children would pause from a long trip and just take in the view. It was refreshing to be out in the nice clean air and look at the clear sky above us and the beautiful farmland and houses scattered in the valley below us. From that perspective we didn’t see the troubles people were having, the traffic snarls or the billboards that interrupted God’s creation. We saw the beauty, the peace and the stillness that comes from rising above all of it and looking down. A totally new perspective! We would linger a few minutes, do some stretches and head back to the car to continue our journey. Our mood is better because we got to take a break from the stress of the long trip.

I think all of us need to take some time at various intervals in our lives just to rise above the circumstances that are plaguing our lives and get a new perspective. God isn’t bothered by the cacophony all around us, but we are. We need to rise above it and rest with Him, seeing things from the protection of His comforting arms and love.

What we oftentimes see as a disaster about to disrupt our entire lives ends up being a small thing instead. As I write this, I am thinking about the looming storm heading towards Jamaica and other Caribbean islands. They indeed have a disaster about to happen. I am praying that the people there will take refuge in God and that God will have mercy on them. I would like to hope that the storm will turn and go out to sea, but the prognosticators say this storm will hit the island directly and cause massive damage. I am saddened by the plight of this nation, but I know that this storm will pass as so many others have before it. It will leave destruction behind, or that is the expectation of a Cat 5 storm and helpers will appear to offer assistance and hope.

Meanwhile, we are safe in our homes, with gray skies perhaps and a storm raging in our hearts because of the circumstances in our lives. We may not have a hurricane barreling towards us, but there is always a storm somewhere waiting for a period of time when we leave the shelter of God’s protection and venture out on our own to find out what is happening in our world. My answer to that is “nothing good” so it is better to keep our eyes focused on God and stay sheltered by Him. Let the storms find us in the shadow of His wings, not running around looking for troubles. May God help us learn a lesson from the storms that others face and endure!

The lesson that I am still learning after weathering various storms in my life is that I cannot change the direction of the storm so that it changes the direction of its course, but I can change my attitude. It is in praise that I find my peace and security in God. If I look at the circumstances when I am in the middle of the storm in my life, I lose hope and begin to focus on the solutions that I can come up with in my finite mind. But when I focus on God, I have a new perspective. I rise above the storm and see things in a different way that I never expected to see. My attitude is changed from one of hopeless surrender to one of victorious expectation.

God is and always has been faithful. We change, wavering with the winds that blow into our lives. What we forget is that the winds will die down, but God will still be there, right there beside us, waiting for us to take shelter in Him. For many, that means quietly waiting before Him for an answer. For others, like me, it means singing through the storm and repeating scripture verses to help remind us of God’s faithfulness. God doesn’t change just because our circumstances do. He is always the same—always loving, always present, always ready to help us if we just try to rise above the circumstances and take time to be with Him instead of wallowing in our problems.

I was guided to a new-to-me song in my devotional this morning. I hope that you enjoy it as much as I do. It seems to be based on Psalm 57 and spoke to my heart about taking shelter in God and not in man-made, temporary solutions.

Shadow of Your Wings-Thrive Worship

May God bless you and keep you as you seek to rise above!

Choosing an Epitaph

On By vickleaIn grief, promises, Scripture4 Comments

I have my burial all planned, with instructions sent to my daughter and her husband. But what I don’t have written is my obituary or my epitaph. The obituary is for the grieving family to write, as they ponder the life of the loved one and decide what to include. The epitaph may also be theirs to write, but you may consider some of these examples as fitting for you.

I like this one because it carries the truth that everyone dies. After all, the Bible says, “It is appointed to man once to die…” (Hebrews 9:27)
We all suffer in life, so this is another one with truth and hope for a better life to come. I would like to see a cross on it or something that signifies Jesus’s Resurrection.
This is a quotation from Psalm 63:7. I like using scripture for the epitaph, especially one that is meaningful to the person who died.
Another epitaph with a warning that everyone dies. How do you prepare for death? By believing in the Son, receiving the free gift of salvation and living your life for Him.
This is my favorite. Notice that it is not on a tombstone, but is a scripture verse from Paul as he prepares to die. Would that all of us could have this verse written on our tombstone and that it would bear the truth. I would like for others to be able to say of me: She fought the good fight, She has finished her race, She has kept the faith.

I am not planning on dying imminently, but the curious part of me would like to know what the most fitting epitaph for me would be. What do you think would be the most fitting words for your life?

God bless you as you follow Him!

Enduring to the End: Finishing the Course

On By vickleaIn Admonition, Re-blog, ScriptureLeave a comment

ettingerwriting.wordpress.com/2025/10/26/enduring-to-the-end-part-2-finishing-the-course/

I hope many of you read part 1 that I re-blogged yesterday and are now following David so that you got this message in your feed. If not, here is another chance to follow one of the most insightful and intelligent Biblical scholars on WordPress. Please go to the original post and follow David.