Season of Blessing

It is not my habit to get overly emotional as I read a book. But, I actually struggled to read the final words of this book through my tears, it is that good...I highly reccomend the whole series. It is touching, rewarding, engaging and very readable. These people could really live in your neighborhood. I wish I lived on this cul-de-sac. The plots are believable and the character developement is engaging. Blackstock and LaHaye make a great colaberative team. Get all 4 books in the series so you won't have to wait in between them!

I am not much of a fiction reader anymore. A co-worker loaned me the book as her husband picked up a copy at the store. I didn't start to read it right away and after starting it, I'd wished I'd picked it up earlier. You don't have to have read the other three books to become thoroughly engrossed in this one. I haven't read them- yet. I plan to after reading Season of Blessing. Unless you are one to hide your emotions, expect to shed some tears through the book. You'll also chuckle at some things that happen. The chuckles were appreciated and needed in a book of this nature. Anyone who has lost a loved one to cancer knows what it's like and will be able to relate; thus it will pull on your emotions moreso than others who have not gone through this. While the basic story is about Sylvia and her battle with cancer, we also get to follow the lives of her three best friends and their families. One is in a second marriage of a blended family and they start to have a great strain placed upon their marriage. Another has a son who had a heart transplant and needs to be on medication the rest of his life. But her husband is self employed and their insurance isn't good, so the expense places a great strain on their finances and she tries to find a job with benefits to ease this. The third is a woman who starts working at the center she takes her child to who has Down's Syndrome. We see her struggles with wondering what her child will or won't be able to do. While I found there is a book on each of these other families that was written prior to Season of Blessing, you can still very much enjoy this book without having read it. But I am pretty sure you'd enjoy it even more if you'd read the others previously. The first day I started to read I made it about halfway through the book. It was hard to make myself put it down and go to bed. Had work not been an issue, I probably would have attempted to read it straight through. The next night I read another quarter of the book. I had to take breaks reading the last quarter as it pulled on my emotions strongly. The ending wraps up many things and brings answers to each of Sylvia's friends. You'll find that despite Sylvia's battle, she has a great impact on the lives of those around her. It is amazing how God can take bad things that happen to His people and use them to do many things. One thing I did not like about the book was the couple mentions that made it appear God brought this on Sylvia. While I know there are times God may afflict people with something, I am one who believes that much of our sickness and disease comes simply from living in this present world. We live in a fallen world and some things happen just because of this. Despite this, I absolutely loved the book- yes, even though it brought many tears and brought back many memories from years past. It causes you to laugh and cry and inspires you at the same time. A well written book.

I read all the books in this series! Each was excellent and I really did feel like I was drawn into the circle of friendship with these women. Read the books in order! This last one though-I cried so much and learned many things from these authors. They are not only writing believable fiction but teaching life lessons to all women out there. One of my favorite series ever! Highly recommend! Warning: you may have difficulty getting your work done while reading this series!

I read all 4 of the books, in approx. 2 weeks. They were WONDERFUL! They were so real - the issues we encounter every day. I strongly suggest reading this - and I will probably re-read the entire series. I hope there is a new series soon!

Having read the other 3 books in this series, I was interested from the start. By the end of the book, I could not put it down and I was so emotionally involved I was in tears.