GEMS Book of the Month: November 2010

The Memory Quilt
by: T.D. Jakes

Selected by:
Cathy Roberts

Synopsis

A perfect Christmas for Lela Edwards this year would include the presence of her husband, her three daughters, and her favorite granddaughter, Darcie. They would each be happy, healthy, and properly married. But life doesn't always unfold in a perfect way, even for God-loving, churchgoing people like these. Lela's husband of fifty years, Walter, has recently passed, and the daughters now live in towns and states far from the Chicago neighborhood where they were raised.

Darcie is traveling to Missouri City, Texas, to be with her mother, not to Chicago to be with her grandmother, whom she expects to come down hard on her for deciding to divorce her husband and the father of her unborn child. Lela is upset and annoyed with Darcie and herself for breaking her own time-honored tradition of making a quilt to celebrate each family wedding. The quilt is still in separate pieces, and apparently so is the marriage of Doug and Darcie.

The Christmas season is about celebrating the birth and meaning of Christ; about the hope and inspiration that the story we revisit each year offers. So, as the days of the season progress, Lela participates in a Bible study group that focuses on the Virgin Mary. This is the cold season in Chicago and rough weather, literally and figuratively, is ahead for Lela, her family, neighbors, and fellow church members, but in the Scriptures are messages and guidance. If they heed the lessons of the Virgin Mary, they will learn from their mistakes and misjudgments of each other and find favor with God.

GEMS BOOK OF THE MONTH: October 2010

Selling My Soul
by: Sherri Lewis

Selected by:
Amy Staton

Synopsis

Returning from a two-year missions trip in Mozambique, Trina Michaels plans to ignore the sensational headline that screams from the front page of the Washington Times. Her heart is still in Africa, the place that feels more like home than anywhere she's ever lived-and the place where the love of her life still is.

Her dream of a quick return to Mozambique fades within hours when Trina discovers that her mother has been diagnosed with cancer. The cost of treatment is expensive, and Trina is forced to return to her career in public relations to pay for it.

She is assigned a damage control client-the bishop whose church made headline news when an associate pastor and deacon were accused of sexually abusing young boys. To complicate matters, the young boys are now men, and one of them is married to Trina's best friend. Representing Bishop Walker could cost Trina her most valued friendship, her reputation, and a future with her new love. As she plows deeper into the scandal and the bishop blackmails her to cover the church's secrets and lies, Trina realizes it could cost her soul. More about the author

GEMS BOOK OF THE MONTH: September 2010

The Screwtape Letters
by C.S. Lewis

Selected by: Ty Davis

Synopsis:

In this humorous and perceptive exchange between two devils, C. S. Lewis delves into moral questions about good vs. evil, temptation, repentance, and grace. Through this wonderful tale, the reader emerges with a better understanding of what it means to live a faithful life.

About the Author:

C. S. Lewis was famous both as a fiction writer and as a Christian thinker, and scholars sometimes divide his personality in two. Yet a large part of Lewis's appeal, for both his audiences, lay in his ability to fuse imagination with instruction. "Let the pictures tell you their own moral," he once advised writers of children's stories. "But if they don't show you any moral, don't put one in." More About the Author

GEM'S BOOK OF THE MONTH: July 2010

WHAT YOU OWE ME
by: Bebe Moore Campbell

Selected by: Rondica Brown

Publisher's Weekly Review: The friendship between a black woman and a new immigrant in 1940s California sets in motion events that span two generations in Campbell's (Singing in the Comeback Choir) densely plotted novel.

Hosanna Clark, a maid at an elegant Los Angeles hotel, befriends her new white co-worker Gilda Rosenstein, a Holocaust survivor whose family had owned a cosmetics factory. When Hosanna tries a special lotion Gilda has made, she persuades Gilda to produce it for Hosanna to sell to local black women.

They are very successful, and at Gilda's suggestion they open a joint bank account. Not long after, Gilda and her new husband disappear with all their profits. Daughter Matriece, a witness to Hosanna's struggle to survive on her own, resolves to achieve the success her mother never had; she eventually becomes a division president in Gilda's cosmetics empire. Ignorant of Matriece's identity, Gilda mentors the young woman, with whom she feels an unexplained bond. Gilda's reaction, when she finally learns the truth, is unexpected, and she startles everyone with a surprising proposal that brings the story to a neat conclusion.

Numerous subplots crowd the novel, covering issues from reparations and education to romance and betrayal. Campbell's detailed treatment of each accounts for the book's length, but all are credibly tied to the central tale. Character portraits are sometimes shallow, and the story's length tests the reader's stamina, but those with the patience to follow its intricate, entwined relationships will find the novel rewarding.

About the Author: Bebe Moore Campbell (1950–2006) authored three New York Times bestsellers, Brothers and Sisters, Singing in the Comeback Choir, and What You Owe Me, which was also a LA Times "Best Book of 2001." Her other works include the novel, Your Blues Ain't Like Mine, which was a New York Times notable book of the year and the winner of the NAACP Image Award for Literature, her memoir, Sweet Summer, Growing Up With and Without My Dad, and her first nonfiction book, Successful Women, Angry Men: Backlash in the Two-Career Marriage. Her essays, articles and excerpts appear in many anthologies.

Find out more at: www.bebemoorecampbell.com

GEMS BOOK OF THE MONTH: June 2010

Farther than I Meant to Go, Longer than I Meant to Stay
By: Tiffany L. Warren

Selected by: Gwen Barnes

Synopsis: As President of Grace Savings and Loans, Charmayne Ellis is an established, polished professional. Although she has reached great success, her ridiculing mother and wise cracking younger sister won't let her forget that she is a 36-year-old, overweight, unmarried woman.

In an attempt to help, Charmayne's best friend, Lynette, is obsessed with setting her up on a series of pity-driven blind dates. When a drop-dead gorgeous man, Travis Moon, shows interest, Charmayne's caution light blinks like crazy. But out of loneliness and pressure from her family Charmayne ignores her gut feeling and gets married.

Yet instead of marital bliss, Charmayne begins to discover new things about her husband that force her to question her marriage and her faith in God.

Biography

Tiffany L. Warren, is an author, playwright, songwriter, mother and wife. Her debut novel What a Sista Should Do, was released in June of 2005 and has ministered to over 50,000 readers. Her second book, Farther than I Meant to Go, Longer than I Meant to Stay was a national bestseller. In 2006, Tiffany and her husband, Brent, founded Warren Productions and released their first gospel musical. What a Sista Should Do - The Stage Play debuted in Cleveland, OH at the famed Allen Theatre.

Tiffany is also the visionary behind the Faith and Fiction Fellowship tour. Presently, the authors have visited groups in Atlanta, Houston, New York, Baltimore, Washington D.C. and Charlotte.

Tiffany's third novel, The Bishop's Daughter was released in January 2009. Tiffany resides in northern Texas with her husband Brent and their five children.

http://www.tiffanylwarren.com/

Book of the Month: May 2010

Synopsis

With one flash of a camera, Demi's private life becomes public news. She doesn't know it yet, but her healing has just begun.

Biography

Nancy Rue is the best-selling author of books for teens and adults, including the Christian Heritage series and the Lily series. Nancy has been an English teacher, a public speaker, as well as a contributor to several publications, and her books have sold more than a million copies. She and her husband, Jim, live in Tennessee. Stephen Arterburn is the founder and chairman of New Life Ministries, the nation’s largest faith-based broadcast, counseling, and treatment ministry, and the host of the nationally syndicated “New Life Live!” daily radio program heard on more than 140 radio stations nationwide—including SIRIUS and XM satellite radio. Steve is also the founder of the Women of Faith® conferences and has written over 70 books, including the best-selling Every Man’s series.