Diana Lesire Brandmeyer

Diana Lesire Brandmeyer

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Category: Monday Book Review

Most of the books I review are given to me by the author or their publishing company and sometimes the library! I’m not required to post a good review.

However, my momma raised me to to say nice things, and if I can’t then I shouldn’t say anything. I’ve adopted that policy for my reviews. If I don’t like the book doesn’t mean it isn’t someone else’s favorite.

I am required by some strange law to let you know that I didn’t buy the book.

Diana Lesire Brandmeyer

Monday Review of Cowboy for Keeps

Posted on September 27, 2021September 9, 2021 by Diana Brandmeyer

Once again Jody Hedlund has kept me up until I finished reading Cowboy for Keeps.

What is it that makes reading (or writing) about life when it was so hard to survive? I look at the things Greta did to make money in this book and I shudder to think what would happen to me and my husband if I couldn’t put in a Walmart order!

Books with a child side character always touch my heart and this one has Astrid. She is spunky despite her illness. Again, something I lack, a cold will set me to fussing and asking for hot tea and a blanket.

Cowboy for Keeps starts off with a bang and sends Greta right into desperation mode when she finds out the man she’s to marry has died. Now she has no money and no husband. I admire this character as she sets out to find another way to earn money other than working at the brothel. No worries, she doesn’t go there. Instead, she ends up marrying before nightfall.

Hedlund makes me feel like I’m right there in the Colorado mountains looking at all the beauty of the trees, feeling the crisp air and breathing the fresh air that is so good for Astrid.

What I liked about this book is there is an attraction between the two of them—a slow simmering pot of water just ready to boil. The romance feels realistic, what should happen when people are getting to know each other. Hedlund carries this off well throughout the book never crossing the line of what Christian readers expect from a Christian romance.

Mountains in the background, man wearing a cowboy hat sitting on a brown horse with a white strip done it's face

Greta Nilsson’s trip west to save her ailing little sister, Astrid, could not have gone more wrong. First, bandits hold up her stagecoach, stealing all her money. Then, upon arriving in Fairplay, Colorado, she learns the man she was betrothed to as a mail-order bride has died. Homeless, penniless, and jobless, Greta and her sister are worse off than when they started.

Wyatt McQuaid is struggling to get his new ranch up and running and is in town to purchase cattle when the mayor proposes the most unlikely of bargains. He’ll invest in a herd of cattle for Wyatt’s ranch if Wyatt agrees to help the town become more respectable by marrying and starting a family. And the mayor, who has promised to try to help Greta, has just the candidate in mind for Wyatt to marry.

Get Cowboy for Keeps

carry out cup for hot drink, old fashioned typewriter, picture frame with book cover

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Monday Review of Come Back to Me

Posted on September 5, 2021September 6, 2021 by Diana Brandmeyer

Come Back to Me by Jody Hedlund starts with some suspense and rocky family dynamics. It doesn’t take long to realize you won’t be setting this book down to do something else.

It’s another book a bit different for me. I’m no fond of time travel books but it’s Jody Hedlund, I had to try it. Sometimes it pays to read in something different. I enjoyed this book isn’t strong enough to convey my feelings.

This is part 1 of a 6 part series. I can’t wait for part 2 Never Leave Me which you can preorder now. It comes out Jan. 4, 2022.  Hedlund pulls off a time travel that makes sense. She doesn’t time hop constantly which means most of the time in part 1 is spent in medieval times. This book is rich in details that put you there with Marian as she tries to navigate the times when women weren’t heard, and the clothing weighs heavy with its many layers in warm weather.

I’d recommend this book in a heartbeat.

Come Back to Me

Woman with long hair looking at a church

The ultimate cure that could heal any disease? Crazy.

That’s exactly what research scientist Marian Creighton has always believed about her father’s quest, even if it does stem from a desire to save her sister Ellen from the genetic disease that stole their mother from them. But when her father falls into a coma after drinking a vial of holy water believed to contain traces of residue from the Tree of Life, Marian must question all of her assumptions. He’s left behind tantalizing clues that suggest he’s crossed back in time. Insane. Until Marian tests his theories and finds herself in the Middle Ages during a dangerous peasant uprising.

William Durham, a valiant knight comes to Marian’s rescue and offers her protection … as his wife. The longer Marian stays in the past, the more she cares about William. Can she ever find her father and make it back to the present to heal her sister? And when the time comes to leave, will she want to?

Bestselling author Jody Hedlund is your guide down the twisting waters of time to a volatile era of superstition, revolts, and chivalry in this suspenseful story.

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Monday Book Review of Carnegie’s Maid

Posted on August 30, 2021September 6, 2021 by Diana Brandmeyer

Having a library card of my own was a big deal when I was a kid. It was a passport to all kinds of worlds through the pages housed in the library.

I stepped back in time and now have a card. My local library which is about 5 minutes from my home is located outside I (by about 100 ft.) of the city limits. To get a card there I would have to spend over $300 because they go by the tax value of your home. It doesn’t matter that we pay taxes to the schools etc.

To get a card I could afford I went to a neighboring town. It gives me chills to walk in this library.

The Belleville Public Library is a Carnegie Library and while not as grand as the one in Nashville it still shines.

Carnegie Library brick building with 3 sets large windows on 2nd floor. Flagpole in front next to the steps, sidewalk and big leafy tree

The building was designed by Otto Rubach, a Belleville native. The building is designed in the Beaux Arts Style which the Carnegie Corporation preferred.

Inside the staircase has marble sides and a brass handrail! Just walking those steps to the second floor takes you back in time.

stepping inside the library, green and white marble walls, book cases , brass rail
Looking down to double wooden doors, marble steps, brass handrails, surrounded by green white marble, 3 photos of the library in frames , books in cases

So I checked out my first book using their digital system Hoopla. I thought this would be an appropriate read.

This book begins with a necessary lie that seems as if it will hurt no one. When mistaken for another person with the same name, Clara Kelly. This was a slow read for me because the writing is rich with details and phrases that I re-read to enjoy them. Like this one: He whispered her name, letting it roll over his tongue like a fine cordial.

This is a clean read, no heat so no worries if you are concerned about that.

I enjoyed this, while not my usual read I think I’ll be looking for more of her books. As an author, I like to study writers who can write with such care for history and yet still entertain.

yellow drapes, white floor, woman in black skirt and green shirt, chandelier

Clara Kelley is not who they think she is. She’s not the experienced Irish maid who was hired to work in one of Pittsburgh’s grandest households. She’s a poor farmer’s daughter with nowhere to go and nothing in her pockets. But the woman who shares her name has vanished, and assuming her identity just might get Clara some money to send back home.

Clara must rely on resolve as strong as the steel Pittsburgh is becoming famous for and an uncanny understanding of business, attributes that quickly gain her Carnegie’s trust. But she still can’t let her guard down, not even when Andrew becomes something more than an employer. Revealing her past might ruin her future—and her family’s.

With captivating insight and heart, Carnegie’s Maid is a book of fascinating 19th century historical fiction. Discover the story of one brilliant woman who may have spurred Andrew Carnegie’s transformation from ruthless industrialist to the world’s first true philanthropist.

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Monday Review of Not a Sparrow Falls

Posted on August 23, 2021August 27, 2021 by Diana Brandmeyer

Not a Sparrow Falls (Wyldhaven Book 1) by Lynnette Bonner


Bonner starts out with the most impossible character I could imagine for a western adventure set in 1891. Charlotte Brindle doesn’t need to get married for financial reasons; she has her teacher’s degree. The problem comes when her parents have picked a man for her to marry. She just can’t stand that man and for good reason!


Her impulsiveness has her applying for a teaching position in Wyldhaven and before she can take a breath, she’s on a stage heading for her new adventure, one she didn’t think included bullets aimed in her direction.
This is a fun fast-paced read. I’m looking forward to book 2, On Eagle’s Wings.

woman with green jacket , holding the edge of her hat which has feathers. The other hand is holding a book and she is standing in a field of lavender.

Schoolteacher Charlotte Brindle is relieved that her long journey from Boston to Wyldhaven is about to come to an end. And then the bullets start flying! As she sprawls on the floor of the coach and curls her arms around her head, she wonders whatever in the world possessed her to give up the civility of a Boston school for the promise of adventure on the wild frontier?!

Her fellow passenger, an elderly man named Patrick Waddell, has obviously angered the men outside. And he has no intentions of going down without a fight—or without a bargaining chip!

Sheriff Reagan Callahan grinds his teeth in frustration when Patrick Waddell emerges from the coach with the tiny slip of a schoolteacher as his hostage. Reagan’s perfectly planned-out capture has just been shot to smithereens. What had the town’s founder been thinking when he hired a woman like her? A petite and prim woman was not the kind of teacher Wyldhaven needed. He should be back at his desk drinking coffee! Instead, he now has to mount a rescue!

Take the next stagecoach to Wyldhaven,
where the coffee’s perked hot,
the sheriff likes his apple pie fresh from the oven,
and adventure invariably waits just around the next river bend.

*affliate links used only for things I like and read or use

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Monday Review of Penance on the Prairies

Posted on June 28, 2021September 6, 2021 by Diana Brandmeyer

Penance on the Prairies by R.L. Syme was next up in my to be read pile.

Is it possible to ever get to the end of the to-be-read pile? Every time I finish a book I tend to add two or three more to my list to read. And that’s what happened after reading Penance on the Prairies. The test will be is — can I wait to read the rest of the series? It’s going to be hard since I’m attempting to read and review on the blog I don’t want to review every book in a series.

Ah, I suppose I could do that or I can read more books in a month so I can have something fresh for you to discover and add to your own to-be-read pile.

Back to this book.

This was fun. I suffer from the “I know who did it” problem I think because I am a writer and know what to look for but… I didn’t see the way R. L. Syme would have it all play it. I was surprised. And I love that! I was still right but Syme did not take the easy way out. Her ending was great for those of us who want to have a bit of “I didn’t see that coming.”

This is book 1 and it is .99 and not in Kindle Unlimited which is sad for me but I will still get the rest of the Vange Vale series because I like it.

Vange is a part-time pastor and the rest of the time she runs a bakery. I wanted to make macaroons after reading this book. In fact, when you get this book have some macaroons available to eat. 🙂 Pinterest has tons of recipes if you don’t know how to make them. They are easy.

All Vange did was give an irritating person the wrong directions… and life spiraled out of control. Actions do have consequences, even those simple ones!

This book has excitement, danger but not the kind that stops your heart, and a small town. All necessary ingredients for a good cozy mystery.

Here’s the back of the book information.

One part Vicar of Dibley, one part amateur sleuth who loves pastries, set in the mountains of Montana where no one’s business is her own…Between the police scanners, the coffee ladies, and the senior center, no secret is safe for long. But Vangie Vale wants nothing more than to stay under the radar…especially the police radar. So when her new business is linked to a murder investigation, nothing will stop the gossip mill from connecting her to the dead body.

Can’t have that.

In order to clear her good name and keep her face off the front page, this part-time-baker-part-time-pastor becomes extra nosy…with a little side of breaking-and-entering. But when she comes face-to-face with the Sheriff, Vangie can’t ignore the fact that one of her macarons was involved in a murder. She has to find the real murderer.

Get Penance on the Prairies here!

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Monday Book Review of The Cedar Key

Posted on June 21, 2021August 30, 2021 by Diana Brandmeyer

The Cedar Key by Stephenia H. McGee

neckalce with  two-toned wooden ornament heart with a cross, white flowers

This was a pleasure to read. While it is a small southern town contemporary it almost feels like a historical read. That ticks both of my love to read genre boxes.

It starts with the inheritance of a Victorian house and a very broken character, Casey Adams. She’s been fighting her whole life looking to belong to someone. This is her second chance but before she can find out much about her past her grandmother, the one person who could tell her dies.

But her grandmother leaves her clues through letters delivered to her by her neighbor.

Casey hasn’t had an easy past and it looks like the future of a good one may very well disappear like sugar in rain.

It’s a book that surprises in a gentle way. Perfect for afternoon reading on a swing while you sip iced tea.

I enjoyed the way it entertained but didn’t stress me while reading and yet I couldn’t stop reading it.

It has a great spiritual thread that doesn’t preach at you but fits into the story the way it should in a Christian book.

Casey’s journey will stick with me for a long time.

Get it here https://amzn.to/2TNyyek

Casey Adams unexpectedly inherits an old Victorian house full of other people’s memories. Stuck in a quirky little Mississippi town, Casey’s hope for a fresh start died as soon she had to lay the grandmother she’d just met to rest.

But Grandma Ida carried secrets beyond the grave.

Before her death, Ida carefully planned a trail of clues to help Casey unlock the Macintyre family secrets and finally explain why they abandoned her. But each of Ida’s letters will only come from Casey’s handsome—and often frustrating—new neighbor. As Casey pieces together the stories behind the objects filling her grandmother’s house, she embarks on a heart-stirring journey that rattles her foundations, ignites her faith, and leads her to a startling discovery that will reshape her future. But only if she can face the lies that have been slowly tearing her apart.

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Monday Review of The Strange Journey of Alice Pendlebury

Posted on June 7, 2021August 30, 2021 by Diana Brandmeyer

The Strange Journey of Alice Pendlebury

woman with short brown hair wearing a blue dress standing in front of colorful buildings

Isn’t that a great title? The book is by Marc Levy, a French writer but the book is translated well into English.

This is one of those writer moments when you read a book and think you wish you would have written it. 

It’s a bit different from what I normally read. I do try to read in my genre so I know what my readers expect when they pick up my books. 

The Strange Journey of Alice Pendlebury is a bit more literary and I found it refreshing because I had to work a bit harder at reading it. I didn’t know how it would end, I suspected but I think that is because I am a writer and I know the ‘things’ that make a book work. You don’t want to watch a movie with me. I can tell you how it will end almost every time within five minutes of watching it. 

Alice is a Nose. She creates perfume and sees the world through smells.

One evening Alice’s friends tease her into seeing a fortune teller at the fair. She doesn’t believe in such things of course but she goes to get them to leave her alone and that they can catch the train back to London on time. 

That is when her life shifts, memories she doesn’t believe are hers infiltrate her dreams and eventually sends her on a trip to Istanbul with her neighbor Mr. Daldry.

This is not a paranormal book, it’s historical and takes place in 1950. I want to make that clear because of the fortune teller comment earlier.

This book…with the way the author brings in smells and taste it feels as if you are in Istanbul.

I wanted to take my time and savor every page but Marc Levy has a way with words. I kept turning the page until it was early in the morning.   

Get it here!

From international bestselling author Marc Levy comes a witty and beguiling novel of one woman’s unexpected journey to follow her destiny.

Alice Pendelbury believes everything in her life is pretty much in order—from her good friends to her burgeoning career. But even Alice has to admit it’s been an odd week. Not only has her belligerent neighbor, Mr. Daldry, suddenly become a surprisingly agreeable confidant, but he’s encouraging her to take seriously the fortune-teller who told her that only by traveling to Turkey can Alice meet the most important person in her life.

What’s more, the peculiarly insistent Mr. Daldry has even agreed to finance Alice’s trip—one that against all reason seems to be predestined. It’s on this journey, crazy from the outset and strangely irresistible, that Alice will find out that nothing in her life is real, that her past is not true, and that the six people she’s about to encounter will shape her future in ways she could never have dreamed.

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Monday Review of Broken Lines

Posted on November 9, 2020August 30, 2021 by Diana Brandmeyer

Broken lines by Kelsey Gietl is not a book for the faint of heart. It definitely does not fall into the category of rainbows and puppies. This book comes with a sensitivity warning for those readers who are triggered by alcohol-related stories or domestic abuse.

That being said, Gietl’s book Broken Lines is a terrific read with a satisfying ending, one I wasn’t sure would happen.

What if just before you board a ship back home to Germany, your brother informs you that you can’t come with him. Instead, he insists that you don’t. He hands you a ticket to St. Louis, tells you to change your name and to marry an American? That’s what happens to Amara. When she tries to do as her brother requested she is rejected and abandoned on a street in a city she doesn’t know.

The main characters of this book struggle with what side of the war they favor. How do you give up what you know and embrace what is new or has been your life for only a few years? There is an identity struggle that was common before and during the war. Are you German or American? There is not an in-between and if your name sounds German then there will be trouble.

The story begins just before America joins the allies fighting against the Germans. It is set in St. Louis, Missouri during 1916. A familiar city to me as I grew up in a small town close by as did the author. A lot of the landmarks and history in the story were familiar, making the reading the descriptions of back then even more intriguing to me.

Emil works as a morality police officer. He along with his partner frequently breaks the moral laws that he is supposed to be upholding.  He wrestles with this throughout the book knowing that what he is doing is not right. He’s not willing to change until he meets Amara a woman he must decide to change his life for, or let go. It is not an easy decision for him.

Amara has her own demons to fight, an abusive ex-fiancé, and a man she thinks she could love but wants nothing to do with her. How will she be able to stay safe if she can’t find an American citizen to marry?

Emil and Amara’s journey is intense with action and filled with secrets. Broken Lines is book 1 in this series but it is a complete story. If you like books where characters have a chance at redemption this one is for you. 

Broken Lines is a terrific read and will likely keep you up until you finish it. Geitl knows her history and she weaves it throughout the book with an intricacy that doesn’t shout here’s a historical fact that you need to know. She slips in those details where they make the most sense helping the reader feel the story.

woman in red dress, long necklace, short pearl necklace, elbow length gloves standing in front of stone house

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Monday Review of All That Was

Posted on October 19, 2020September 3, 2021 by Diana Brandmeyer

All that Was by Tanya. E. Williams

half a woman from the past and half a woman from now equally standing on cobblestones or concrete in front of Church in Seattle

I picked the perfect day to read this book. It was raining and gloomy with a chill in the air. Perfect for a book set in Seattle.

This book isn’t a quick light read. It’s one where you sink down into your reading chair with a cup of tea and a soft blanket and shut out the world kind of read.

When we meet Emily it doesn’t take long to realize she’s bottled up her grief over losing her parents so tight that it has taken over her life. Despite help offered and then refused she gets through her days thinking she is fine, though nothing will ever be good again.

Take heart reader, Emily embarks upon a life-changing experience when she agrees to archive the records of a historic church in Seattle. Hired by her law company as a first-year lawyer she gets the job to comb through centuries of old documents in a dark windowless room.

Emily doesn’t mind doing the work until memories of her parents begin to invade the space. How will she handle them when they won’t stop coming?

Elizabet, a spirit who has refused to move forward takes the reader on a journey similar to Emily’s. It’s not to be missed. Because of Elizabet the reader gets a view of what this church meant to people throughout the decades. The research on this book must have been time-consuming but every detail adds to the ambiance of the setting.

When Emily is forced to look back on her life, she has choices to make moving forward. That’s what this book is about, being afraid for a minute and having the courage to move forward.

There is much to enjoy about this book, so I don’t wish to give away much. It is a good literary women’s fiction book. This is a book about two worlds, but not fantasy, scary type fiction.

All that Was has a happy ending which is important to me.

Separated by a century. Bonded by loss. Will examining all that was invoke comfort or calamity?

Seattle, 2015. Emily Reed refuses to dwell on her emotions. When the first-year attorney is assigned a church archival project, she dives into the records to hide from her own heartache. But when she discovers her parents were married in this very chapel, she is forced to confront the grief she buried a decade ago.

After she died in 1935, Elizabet Thomas was devastated when her beloved husband wasn’t waiting for her on the other side. A lost soul, she’s wandered their church for the past eighty years, desperate to find him. And now she must persuade a young, living lawyer that the historic building needs to be preserved rather than sold and torn down.

Discovering a diary among the disarray in the building’s basement, Emily is first engrossed and then moved by the dead woman’s words. And as the fate of her home unravels, Elizabet realizes she and the grieving archivist have more in common than she ever would have guessed.

Can Emily and Elizabet save themselves and their cherished sanctuary?

Get your copy!

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Monday Review of The Great Alone

Posted on September 28, 2020August 30, 2021 by Diana Brandmeyer

Is there someone in your life that is also a reader?

Do you share the same love for certain genres?

My mom is responsible for helping me learn to read at an early age. She spent hours reading to me, helping me pick out the words for myself and even walking with me to the bookmobile because we didn’t have a car. I was four or maybe five when we did that. At the time, for someone who couldn’t leave her yard, the trip there was exciting. We had to walk along the side of the road and cross a bridge!

The way back was harder. I was hot, tired, thirsty and couldn’t wait to read my books. How long was that walk? Round trip about a mile. That used to impress me until I had kids and realized just how far they will walk if they are having fun.

Mom loves reading true crime, mysteries, and things that make me want to hide under the covers. Stories were people do terrible things to each other. She says it’s human nature. I think in a different time she might have been a forensic psychologist.

I love the puppies and rainbow kind of books. Happy endings give me great joy, books with endings that end with possible good in the character’s future are my second favorites.

We have found a few places where we connect. The books aren’t true (for me) and the story is well-written and could have happened in real life.

When I finished reading Kristin Hannah’s book The Great Alone I knew it was one of those books mom and I could connect over. I ordered a paperback for mom. She’s reading it now and we are having our own little book club moment discussing it every day.

It’s set in the 1970s so that decade is a familiar one to me as I was in high school then. The angst of being a teenager and moving to another state and not having the right clothes is universal but what follows in this book I pray isn’t a normal life for anyone.

While the relationship between Leni and Cora is unhealthy it brought me back to living with my own mom. The closeness that grows between a mother and daughter when there is sadness and problems they can’t control is what kept me reading page after page. Peas in a pod is her mother’s favorite saying.

If stories of abuse are a trigger for you then please give this book a pass. If not, it’s a book full of relationships, the beauty, and roughness of Alaska, and the possibilities of hope.

Alaska, 1974. Ernt Allbright came home from the Vietnam War a changed and volatile man. When he loses yet another job, he makes the impulsive decision to move his wife and daughter north where they will live off the grid in America’s last true frontier.

Cora will do anything for the man she loves, even if means following him into the unknown. Thirteen-year-old Leni, caught in the riptide of her parents’ passionate, stormy relationship, has little choice but to go along, daring to hope this new land promises her family a better future.

In a wild, remote corner of Alaska, the Allbrights find a fiercely independent community of strong men and even stronger women. The long, sunlit days and the generosity of the locals make up for the newcomers’ lack of preparation and dwindling resources.

But as winter approaches and darkness descends, Ernt’s fragile mental state deteriorates. Soon the perils outside pale in comparison to threats from within. In their small cabin, covered in snow, blanketed in eighteen hours of night, Leni and her mother learn the terrible truth: they are on their own.

The book is $9.99 for ebook or paperback but it is also in KindleUnlimted if you have a subscription this book almost pays for your month, read one more and you’ve saved money. 🙂

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