Ozarks: A Sign of Love / A Place for Love / The Hasty Heart / The Healing Promise

by Veda Boyd Jones, Mary Louise Colln, Helen Spears

Four young women learn that there is no hiding from God - and love - in small towns among the rugged bluffs and clear-water lakes of Arkansas and Missouri. Amity and Emily face the biggest transitions of their lives, while Andrea and Carla fight the change that threatens their comfortable existence. Each of the four is about to embark on a journey of trust. Leaving behind nearly everything she treasures, Amity Hudson Edmonds flees her home for The Healing Promise of safety at her aunt's Eureka Springs bed and breakfast. Even there she is a hunted woman, but why? Who can help her? For the next two years, Dr. Emily Richards plans to serve the new clinic in her small hometown in southern Arkansas -then join her fiance on the African mission field. The new owner of the local lumber mill, however, is challenging her goals and ideals. Where can her heart find A Place for Love? As a teacher, president of the local historical society, and a single woman, Andrea Cooper has a comfortable life - until Grant Logan, a talented architect, adamantly refuses to register his Civil War-era house or place a marker in his yard. Will that marker be a symbol of conflict between them - or become A Sign of Love? Carla Bennett is the proud owner of a mountainside bed and breakfast. She is determined to deny The Hasty Heart that beats within her when she first meets Jim Donahue - who has plans for logging her idyllic surroundings. Can these two find a compromise? The road to contentment may be long and winding, like an Ozark highway. What does God have in store for each woman along the way?

Genres: Christian Fiction, Romance, Fiction

464 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2001

About the author

Veda Boyd Jones enjoys the challenge of writing for diverse readers. She is the author of forty-two books: five children's historical novels, twenty-one children's biographies, three children's nonfiction books, three picture books, nine romance novels, and a coloring book. Other published works include over 400 articles and stories in children's and adult magazines (Cricket, Highlights, Humpty Dumpty, The Writer, Writer's Digest, Woman's World, etc.), articles in reference books, and five romance novellas. Veda has taught writing at Crowder College in Neosho, Missouri, and currently teaches for the Institute of Children's Literature. She and her husband, Jimmie, an architect, have three sons, Landon, Morgan, and Marshall.

Veda is a previous winner of the Writer's Digest Writing Competition in the articles division for a children's profile of Rachel Carson. Her romance novel Callie's Mountain was voted best contemporary in the annual readers' poll by Heartsong Presents a few years ago. Among her awards through the years from the Missouri Writer's Guild are Best Magazine Article, Best Historical Article, Best Adult Fiction, Best Children's Fiction, Best Children's Book, and Best Romance Novel.


Joe's Ghost is now available on Amazon Kindle.

Reviews

[Janice · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ozarks is a collection of four, G Rated, quasi 'Christian romance' short stories, each set in an Ozarks location. (It appears the publishing house, Barbour Publishing, Inc., offers a variety of novellas set in specific locals to attract readers.) With the Ozarks as my stomping grounds, the title caught my attention. I especially enjoyed the Eureka Springs, AR, setting of The Healing Promise. For me, that was the best part of this rather lack luster suspense / romance. My thanks for not having to jump over or read around foul language, as well as gratuitous sex, so unnecessary in the telling of a good story. I would also appreciate the withholding of gratuitous 'Christian' dogma. Just tell the story and let it stand or fail on its own merits.

[JoAnn M · Rating 2 out of 5]

4 Christian romances that are rather dated. I picked up the book because of the setting, and that part was satisfying. The stories, however, were just okay.

[Ranee · Rating 3 out of 5]

First didn't hold my interest. Second one was better. Working through the next two.

[Brittany · Rating 3 out of 5]

Stories a bit predictable, and one is has moments of out right Christian propaganda. That said, the stories were pleasant quick reads that did have an lighthearted feel.

[Lauri · Rating 2 out of 5]

I enjoyed the middle two stories here. The fourth one - the fact that no one had missed the child I found to be beyond the suspension of disbelief. The first one - the hero was so controlling that I found myself wanting to shake him and suggest he listen to the heroine before he made decisions regarding her life.

[Partridge Public]

Alexander, Hannah PB