Serah and the First Christmas by Tama Fortner

 Experience the story of the first Christmas through the eyes of a little shepherd girl who meets the newborn Jesus and learns that even the least of those who come to the Christmas manger are loved and have a place in His kingdom.

No one pays attention to Serah. She wants nothing more than to help her father tend their family’s sheep and be a shepherdess like Rachel and Rebekah in the stories of her Israelite ancestors, but her brothers tease her for being too little and her mother keeps her busy with errands and chores in the kitchen. When her father finally gives her one lamb to tend to, Serah sneaks out to the fields at night to care for it. There, she witnesses the sky illuminated with heavenly light and hears the message about a newborn baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.

In Serah and the First Christmas, award-winning author Tama Fortner places a young child in the center of the Christmas story and allows your children to come along as Serah walks to the manger to experience the baby Jesus. The lesson is one of profound love, with a call to spread that love to others.

Serah and the First Christmas is:

• A beautiful and intimate book that will become an important part of family libraries and a special holiday tradition.
• perfect for Sunday school and homeschool lessons about the first Christmas.
• written for children 4-8, with wisdom and wonder for children of all ages.
• gorgeously illustrated by Silvia Provantini, who brings the story to life.

• a wonderful gift for the Christmas season.

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Serah and the First Christmas - Zonderkidz

TAMA FORTNER is an ECPA award-winning and bestselling author with more than sixty titles to her credit, including her latest releases Serah and the First Christmas; Everyday Joys Devotional; God, I Feel Sad; and God, I Feel Scared. She is the writer behind the million-selling Indescribable for Kids series with Louie Giglio, as well as a number of books in the Jesus Calling children’s line, including the wildly successful Jesus Calling: 365 Devotions for Kids. Tama has collaborated with such well-known authors as Max Lucado, Levi Lusko, and Sadie Robertson Huff to create inspirational books for all ages.

Tama and her husband have two children who have grown up much too fast for their mama’s liking. She lives on the outskirts of Nashville, Tennessee, with her family and a feisty little pup who is convinced she is people too.

Hope for the Heart Broken by Karen Ehman and Amber Smith

 Find hope and healing as you walk through grief and navigate life after loss. This yearlong devotional journal offers Scripture-based comfort in a lonely and difficult season.

If you've experienced loss, then you've had days when sorrow overshadows every step, nights when the pain seems all-consuming, and moments when you feel utterly alone in your grief. What if, in the midst of your sorrow, you found something sacred? Hope for the Heartbroken reaches into those often-unseen moments. It is your companion for those vulnerable spaces, offering gentle reminders that God is present in the heartbreak and is grieving alongside you.

Whether you're mourning the death of a loved one, grieving the loss of a relationship or season of life, walking through a painful divorce, or simply struggling to name the sorrow you carry, Hope for the Heartbroken offers a gentle, biblical path forward.

Each week follows a simple, healing rhythm designed to walk readers through layers of processing grief:

• Day 1—Ponder: Read a heartfelt devotion grounded in Scripture
• Day 2—Pen: Answer guided reflection questions that invite honest self-evaluation
• Day 3—Pray: Write a prayer, expressing sorrow and hope before God
• Day 4—Pause: Process your feelings to position you best for spiritual growth
• Day 5—Pathway: Take an intentional step toward healing or self-care

Authors Karen Ehman, Ruth Schwenk, and Amber Emily Smith—friends whose hearts have been knit together by the gruesome yet grace-filled threads of grief—have personally endured profound heartache, including miscarriages; the death of a spouse, a child, and multiple family members in a short timeframe; physical and emotional abuse; broken friendships; job losses; and much more. They know that grief and healing do not follow a linear path, that many people are well-meaning but often say the wrong thing, and that some days the ache feels just as sharp as it did in the beginning. With honesty, compassion, and deep faith, they've created a resource to gently walk with others through the ongoing, sacred work of grieving.

This devotional is a meaningful guide for your own experience with grief or a thoughtful way to support someone you love during times of loss, holidays, or difficult anniversaries. Hope for the Heartbroken is a reminder that you are not alone and that healing, though gradual, is possible.

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Hope for the Heartbroken

Karen Ehman is a New York Times bestselling author who has written 22 books and Bible studies including the 2020 ECPA Devotional of the Year Settle My Soul: 100 Quiet Moments to Meet with Jesus and Keep It Shut: What to Say, How to Say It, and When to Say Nothing at All, which has sold over 300,000 copies. Married to her college sweetheart, Todd, she is a mom of three and “Grandma Kit” to two. She enjoys collecting vintage Pyrex kitchenware, strolling area farm markets, and spending her days feeding the many people who gather around her mid-century dining table to process life and enjoy her county fair blue-ribbon winning cooking. She resides in rural Central Michigan.

Amber Emily Smith is a Christ follower, wife, and mother of four. In 2019, her family suffered a devastating loss when their three-year-old son, River, drowned. Since then, she has been on a mission to share hope through suffering with a lost and broken world. She is the author of The Girl on the Bathroom Floor and coauthor of the children’s book Where the Dinosaurs Roar. Amber is also a speaker, host of the Arise with Amber podcast, and founder of the River Kelly Fund. Her aim is to know Jesus and make Him known. She’s passionate about studying Scripture and walking with others through the painful parts of life. Amber and her husband, Granger, live on a little farm in central Texas with their children, London, Lincoln, and Maverick.

Manufacturing a Duchess by Tracy Wise

 She understood industry.

He understood duty.
Neither expected love.

When Alec Raeburn, Duke of Selkirk, leaves his faltering estate to seek an heiress on the Marriage Mart, he has no intention of falling in love. What he needs is a mother for his young daughter, Marjorie, and a partner with security to manage affairs at home. He’s accompanied by Finn, his wealthier cousin and the Duke of Galloway, a friend who lends support but also presents competition.

As the London Season begins, Aurora Hardcastle also arrives with a friend, Millicent Wentworth. The sole inheritor of an industrial fortune, Aurora has resigned herself to the process of finding a husband, but her heart remains in the world of her father’s factory, where she learned the business under his guiding hand.

An outing to the Tower of London brings the four together, and Aurora befriends Marjorie. But Millicent’s beauty and charm make her the Season’s Incomparable, and all eyes are on her—including Alec’s and Finn’s.

At a concert event for the Ton, Alec and Aurora begin to see each other in a new light, with Marjorie as the connecting force. As they grow closer and contemplate a match, a devastating discovery threatens everything. Both are forced to reassess their past and especially, the future they envisioned—if they’re to have any chance at happiness together.

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Amazon.com: Manufacturing a Duchess: A Novel of the Regency Era: 9798993351902: Wise, Tracy: Books

After an international childhood lived throughout Asia because of her father’s non-profit aid work, Tracy Wise has spent her career in theatre, opera, and then higher education administration. She currently writes university presidential speeches, campus communications, and news stories in California’s Inland Empire. She has a BA in Theatre and Spanish from Washington University in St. Louis (which includes a year at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, UK) and an MA in Cultural Studies (a historiography degree) from the University of East London in the UK. A life-long passionate reader, she designs social media for the Friends of her local Redlands, California A.K. Smiley Public Library in her free time.

The Sisterhood of Unlikely Friends by Sara Brunsvold

She's spent a lifetime keeping her heart under lock and key. Now others are reaching out. But is she ready to receive them?

At forty-two, fiercely independent Jess Becker is starting over in Kansas City with minimal furniture, two houseplants, and a newfound faith. After a lifetime of poor choices, she's determined to finally get it right.

When she befriends her fourteen-year-old neighbor and agrees to drive her to church, she's swept into a caring community where she meets Reva, a wise mentor figure, and Austie, a troubled young woman. Jess reluctantly opens her home to pizza nights with her new friends, unwittingly opening her heart to a sisterhood of faith.

Just as these relationships begin reshaping her carefully controlled life, Jess receives news that changes everything. Now she must decide whether to accept the very help she's been trying to give others or risk losing everything she's worked so hard to build.

Pick up your copy here....

 Amazon.com: The Sisterhood of Unlikely Friends: Contemporary Women’s Fiction for Book Clubs Set in a Small Town about Multi-Generational Female Friendship and Community: 9780800746131: Sara Brunsvold: Books

Sara Brunsvold creates stories that speak hope, truth, and life. Influenced by humble women of God who find his fingerprints in the everyday, she does the same in her life and her storytelling. Sara’s recognitions include the 2020 ACFW Genesis Award for Contemporary Fiction. She lives with her family near Kansas City, Missouri, where she can often be spotted writing at a park or library. Learn more at www.sarabrunsvold.com.

I highly recommend this book. 5 stars from me.

Do you Like my Pants? By Carrie Shryock

 This funny picture book about a fashionable cheetah and a cranky tiger celebrates personal style.

Have you heard the latest?
It’s a well-known fact…spots are the greatest!

Cheetah has the world’s finest pair of pants—spotted, sleek, and just his style! At least, that’s what the enthusiastic pants salesman said. Cheetah can’t wait to dance around and show off his perfect spotted pants…until he meets a tiger who insists stripes are superior. Both felines are confused: whose pants are really the cat’s meow? Could it be that the world’s finest pair of pants is…whatever suits you best?

With an energetic text and bright, dynamic art, author-illustrator Carrie Shryock has crafted the perfect picture book debut for celebrating differences and embracing what makes you feel like your fiercest self.

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Do You Like My Pants?: Shryock, Carrie: 9798217110520: Amazon.com: Books

Carrie Shryock is an illustrator and author working in publishing, stationery, and surface design. Do You Like My Pants? is her author-illustrator debut. Carrie grew up on a farm in central Missouri, where she spent her childhood picking bouquets of wildflowers, watching thunderstorms roll across the prairie, and making so many drawings. When she’s not making art, she’s reading a book, going on long walks, and dreaming about building a cabin in the woods.

The Stories We Tell by Savannah Carlisle

 Two corporate pros. One high-stakes documentary. A coastal love story where ambition and heart collide.

Piper Presley has spent years chasing her dreams of stardom, and she’s this close to making it big. When she returns to charming Big Dune Island to oversee a documentary about her superstar client, she sees it as the perfect launchpad, until local marketing director Wyatt Mason turns every plan upside down.

Wyatt’s easygoing style and deep roots on the island clash with Piper’s polished, big-city strategy. But their chemistry is impossible to ignore.

As they navigate behind-the-scenes drama, a buried scandal threatens everything they’re working toward, including their growing connection. With career-defining choices on the horizon and a hurricane brewing offshore, Piper and Wyatt must decide what really matters…and where home truly is.

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Amazon.com: The Stories We Tell: A Touching, Warmhearted Contemporary Romance (Big Dune Island Book 4) eBook : Carlisle, Savannah: Kindle Store

Savannah Carlisle writes heartwarming romance novels with idyllic beach settings. Her stories transport readers to fun and quirky small towns where friends feel like family. So, if you’re ready for a mental vacation, you’ve come to the right place!⁠

Savannah jokes that she's living her own Hallmark movie because she's a former big city corporate attorney who now lives in the small beach town of Fernandina Beach writing romance novels.

When she isn't busy at her laptop writing her next book, Savannah enjoys putting her feet in the sand with a good book in hand. She lives on Amelia Island in Florida with her husband, German Shepherd, and three cats.

All I need is Flights by Jen Ruiz

 A major life transformation starting on your thirtieth birthday, leading to an entirely different and exciting new career? Jen Ruiz (aka @jenonajetplane) has been there and done just that ... and shared that first adventure with readers in 12 Trips in 12 Months.

Getting dumped and having to restart your life completely (again!) just before your thirty-fifth birthday? Definitely not on the agenda.

Abruptly single, Jen made a wish on an Egyptian statue, which became the catalyst for another year of adventure and personal growth.

In All You Need Is Flights, readers are whisked away again for a year of exploration and growth as Jen regains her solo travel magic and learns to love herself. Whether she is eating pizza on a volcano in Guatemala, mending ceramics with gold in Japan, marveling at the Moai on Easter Island (Rapa Nui), or walking among the giant sequoia trees in Yosemite National Park, this intrepid travel writer faces health scares and mountain climbs with curiosity and her signature wit--all while discovering what truly matters and how setbacks can make you stronger.

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All You Need Is Flights: How Kintsugi, Moai, and Volcano Pizza Helped Me Make More Solo Travel Magic: Jen Ruiz: 9798228482272: Amazon.com: Books

Jen Ruiz is a lawyer turned travel blogger and author. She is a 3-time TEDx speaker and 2-time Readers' Favorite Award winner.

Jen has been featured as a budget and solo travel expert by The Washington Post, Huffington Post, ABC News, Matador Network and Elite Daily. She was named "Top 40 Under 40" by the Naples Herald and aims help people fly for less and experience more.

Follow along on the journey by visiting Jen's website, www.jenonajetplane.com.