Nourish & Strengthen by Maria Hoagland

After Chloe Taylor is called as the Primary president, she discovers that managing the highs and lows of the chronic illness of diabetes may be easier than the ups and downs associated with family, friends, and church callings.

The next time Chloe went walking with her friends instead of running ahead as usual she chose to walk with them. Instead of dwelling on her own problems, she listened to what her friends were saying about their own trials as well as what they were saying to lift one another. Before then, Chloe had failed to recognize the issues that her friends were facing. She was ashamed when she realized how selfish and judgmental she had been over the past year. Chloe realized that she was only thinking of herself and how much she had to get done.

It was enjoyable to realize that other people have as much difficulty as I did in trying to run a ward church organization. It must be a common thing to have people not show up to teach, or to fall short on some of the assignments given to them. That can certainly be a difficult position to be in when you are a president.

This is definitely a good book for anyone that is struggling with diabetes. For those of us that don’t have that problem it seemed a little too much of the book was focused on that one issue. Maria, however, is a great writer. The story line was good and most of the time it kept my attention. Every reader takes something different away from each book they read. I think the lesson I most enjoyed in this book is that the outer appearances are far less important than inner peace and spiritual strength.

There were a couple of things I was glad Maria included in her book. One thing that is excellent for book clubs is the Discussion Questions. The other thing is the Glossary of LDS Terms. Both of these are helpful to those reading the book.

I am sure that many of you would love this book, so I am going to give you all a chance to own and read one of your own. I am going to hold a contest. I have not done this for a long time, but am hoping that this will get me back to writing on my blog regularly. To win this great book all you have to do is become my friend on my blog or post a comment saying you are already my friend. Next you need to become a friend to Maria Hoagland on her blog. If you do both of these things it will give you two chances to win the book. You just need to leave me a comment telling me what you have done. I guess we need to have a deadline. Since my birthday is part way through the month, December 15, I will have that be the deadline for the book give away. GOOD LUCK! I am sure you’ll love the book.


Follow these links -

blog: http://mariahoagland.blogspot.com/
Createspace for paperback: https://www.createspace.com/3647471
Smashwords for all eBook: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/93675
Amazon for Kindle and paperback: http://www.amazon.com/Nourish-Strengthen-Novel-Maria-Hoagland/dp/0615535615/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1322271517&sr=8-1