Hi everyone. This is catch-up time after most of the week spent camping. We have had a bit of everything from very hot to nearly blown away with severe rain and thunder storms. It has been fun though, a special time with family. Something we don’t get to do very often so we treasure every minute.
There were lots of suggestion emails waiting for me and it will be an adventure to see how many good books come out of them.
This first one is a BookRunes suggestion, It’s an author I’ve never heard of and reading the first two chapters I want to give it a try. Searching to see what this author is all about I found there are three other bargain books all with a supernatural aspect. I’m going for all four.
First Cause : An Amari Johnston Novel, Volume 4
In 1990, while carefully reviewing data received from NASA’s newly launched Hubble Telescope, Dr. Benjamin Zeller, Science Advisor to President Bush, makes a shocking discovery that will bridge the gap between science and religion.
Just as Dr. Zeller is about to reveal his findings to the world, he goes missing, narrowly avoiding an assassin’s bullet. Evidence leads authorities to believe he has drowned in the Potomac River. In reality, he is in hiding, fearing a government conspiracy to keep his discovery a secret. Rather than contact the FBI, he reaches out to a trusted friend in Tucson, Arizona.
Dr. Kevin Brenner is a brilliant experimental physicist who is about to marry Amari Johnston, a feisty private investigator known for thinking outside the box. Just before the wedding, Kevin receives a coded message on his computer from Dr. Zeller. Kevin and Amari realize the message is a veiled cry for help giving only cryptic clues as to Dr. Zeller’s location. They hastily change their honeymoon plans and travel to Washington, D.C., desperate to locate Dr. Zeller and protect him from the determined assassin.
Will they find Dr. Zeller before it’s too late? And what is this astonishing discovery that some would stop at nothing to keep hidden? Or is Dr. Zeller in danger for an entirely different reason?
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This is the next book I found.
The Near-Death Experience of Justin Parks
This novel, written from a Christian worldview, was inspired byImagine Heaven, The New York Times Best Seller, by Pastor John Burke.
Every year, thousands of people cheat death and come back to life. Many people have near-death experiences that offer a glimpse of Heaven. But none of these can compare to the remarkable near-death experience of Justin Parks.
The past three years haven’t been easy for Justin, causing him to lose faith in a loving, personal God. His fiancée gets killed by a drunk driver a week before their wedding. A year later, after enrolling in the police academy in a misguided effort to avenge his fiancée’s death, he mistakes a Black church pastor for an armed robber, shoots him in the chest, and nearly kills him. In the following months, he struggles with the backlash from the public outrage caused by negative media attention. And just when his life has seemingly returned to normal, a blow to the head sends him to a watery death, only for him to be revived by paramedics a few minutes later.
When Justin awakes from a coma in the hospital, he remembers nothing about the moments leading up to his death or the time between his death and resuscitation. He learns from his doctor that as his traumatic brain injury heals, fragments of memory from the moments before and after his death will eventually return. And return they do, in astonishing ways. Not only does he experience ultra-realistic visions of heavenly realms, but he also remembers portions of a judgment day-style life review that includes not only events from his past but terrifying events in his future.
Fearing he may be losing his mind, he looks for answers by attending a near-death research conference held at a local convention center. During one of the lectures, he meets Lydia Theodoropoulos, a quirky, young freelance reporter with a funny last name—and his life will never be the same.
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Two more. . . both stand-alone novels
Carbon-14: The Shroud of Turin (An Amari Johnston Novel Book 1)
More than 99 percent of the evidence proves the Shroud of Turin is the authentic burial cloth of Jesus Christ. Only one test says otherwise—the carbon date performed in 1988.
A serial killer with a fetish for fire targets the faithful of Tucson, Arizona. Homicide detective, Pete Johnston, works to catch the killer before more clergy are killed, before more churches are burned.
His daughter, Amari, is a criminal justice major at the University of Arizona. When the Shroud is carbon dated at her university, the results reveal that the relic is a medieval forgery. Amari investigates this ancient cold case file for a class project and makes a shocking discovery that could alter the fate of Christianity.
She teams up with Dr. Kevin Brenner, a brilliant young experimental physicist, and together they gather evidence so they can plead their case to the Vatican—unless the killer can stop them first. Her father desperately tries to protect her and catch the killer before she becomes his next victim.
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Sixty-Five Roses: An Amari Johnston Novel, Volume 3
Cystic fibrosis is a progressive disease with no cure. And for one dying little girl with this illness, there is only one hope—an ancient Christian relic with an astonishing power to heal.
Amari Johnston is a feisty private investigator fresh out of college. Her father is a retired homicide detective. Together, they work as a team for a wealthy philanthropist named Ernesto Galliano. While staying at Ernesto’s estate, Amari befriends an endearing four-year-old foster child named Kathleen. But Kathleen isn’t like the other foster children staying at the estate. She has a severe case of cystic fibrosis, and Amari is desperate to find a cure. She researches the latest medical advances, but after learning that effective treatment is decades away, she nearly gives up hope.
Meanwhile, inside the restoration laboratory of the Royal Ontario Museum, a conservator discovers a relic with miraculous healing powers: a woolen scrap of fabric from the cloak of Jesus Christ.
When the museum conservator gets fired, and the miracle cloth goes missing, Ernesto sends Amari and her father to investigate the case. As Kathleen lies dying in the intensive care unit, Amari puts her own life on the line in a desperate attempt to find the miracle cloth before it’s too late.
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These four should keep us going for awhile but I will still check to see if we have any more.
Be back soon.
Happy Reading.