The Buick Eight (Joshua's Pawn Shop Book 1) By Frank B. Luke

The Buick Eight (Joshua's Pawn Shop Book 1)

Joshua's Pawn Shop. If you find Joshua's Pawn Shop, you need Joshua's. Usually, you don't even know what you've lost, but at Joshua's you get a second chance. 

Years ago, Simon Johnson made a choice that changed his life for the worse. He's looking to start over. After he sells some old jewelry tonight, he'll send the divorce papers tomorrow. That's the plan, anyway. At Joshua's Pawn Shop, he'll be given a different way to start over. The cost: he'll have to not only let a tragedy happen, he'll have to witness it.

The Guru's Review: 

This is the second book I have read by Frank B. Luke and I am really enjoying his writing. This short story (22 pages) is very different to Crazy Moon (Lou's Bar & Grill Book 1). It is one feel-good story with a message for all concerned about keeping our word, honouring our parents and making decisions that we won't regret tomorrow. 

It is not hard to realize who Joshua is due to the revelations and challenge that he gives Simon. Just like everything in this life, there are choices to be made and Simon, I believe, chooses wisely and it is here that he learns from a mistake in his teenage years what he should have chosen and chooses it when given a second chance as an adult. The final outcome is still the same as explained by Joshua, but the effects of such is where it differs and where Simon learns his lesson and becomes wiser, enabling him to right some wrongs in his present. 

If the next short in this series is anything like this one, then the reader is going to be in for a short uplifting and edifying read. Despite the message in this current short being simple, this by no means detracts from the importance of its meaning and significance to our lives. I look forward to similar messages in future shorts having the same effect. Christian fiction can be very successful in uplifting, entertaining and edifying the Christian reader and Luke is very successful at doing this in both books I have read so far. 

Just like the aforementioned book, Luke's writing is smooth, the plot flows at a consistent pace and for a short of this length, it is engaging, leaving you wanting to see what happens next and what Joshua wants to teach Simon. 

I am very impressed with Luke's 'qualifications' that enable him to create such entertaining, inspirational and edgy speculative fiction: 

(composing)....sermons, church lessons, and answers at (hermeneutics.se), he writes fantasy and science fiction to explore God’s truth in fantastic ways. He finds such story-theology connects with readers on both cognitive and emotional levels. Besides writing and programming, he enjoys Bible study, Hebrew, theology, church history, and doctrine. (from frankluke.com). 

I am looking forward to future shorts in all his series. 

Highly Recommended.

God Inside The Fire: An Amazing True Story by Greg Stelley

Joni is no stranger to miracles. Her prayers and even her dreams have a habit of coming true. Her husband is regularly amazed by her strong faith and her premonitions: "I had a dream, Greg. There's going to be a fire. I saw Kathy and Frank in the middle of it." Frank Scalari is a physicist. Frank, Kathy, and their four children, along with their horses, goats, and chickens, have just moved onto their new five acre ranch high in the Cuyamaca Mountains, 60 miles northeast of San Diego. On October 25th, 2003, the ravenous Cedar Fire sweeps down into San Diego on strong Santa Ana winds. Two days later the monstrous thirty-mile-long firestorm reverses course and heads back to the Cuyamaca Mountains.

Joni assures Kathy, her ever-skeptical best friend, that she is praying for her property and that: "Nothing is too hard for God! Not even this terrible firestorm!" But neither Kathy nor Frank believes in the supernatural. GOD INSIDE THE FIRE is a true life page-turner of epic proportions. As the 427-square-mile Cedar Fire takes direct aim at the Scalari family's ranch, Joni, and Danielle, her 9-year-old daughter, each pray for a miracle. They're praying for more than just a horse ranch—they're praying to open their friends' hearts and minds to the reality of God. The impossibilities within this amazing true story will astound you. If you look, you just may find...GOD INSIDE THE FIRE.

Review: 

When a book, whether fiction of non fiction, impacts your life on one level or many levels, then you are blessed and made a better person. This is what the author, Greg Stelley has achieved in this true account of one of America's most devastating fires and the impact it had on the community, and the miracle that followed. 

This has impacted me greatly and challenged my attitude towards my relationship with God and my family.

As a first time writer, Stelley writes well and describes the fire, its pace, ferocity and devastation just as well. From this angle, this books reads like a novel. I love fiction so I was in my element here. He has done every reader, himself and his family and the family, Frank and Kathy, at the centre of this true account justice by portraying them as they are, real people and as true to how they are as real people and not as two dimensional as some characters are portrayed in fictional stories. This adds so much credibility to himself as an author but also to the main characters and the true account of this devastating fire and miracle that occurred as a result of the faith expressed by the Stelley family. 

I agree with the author that this story needed to be told. What happened to Frank and Kathy's property defies logical, scientific and rational explanation. Everything points to the supernatural. When you read the specifics of the prayer that Danielle, Juliette and Joni prayed and then to see that in reality, after the fire, this evidenced exactly as prayed, is truly wonderful. For Christians, this is not surprising as to the Author of this miracle. To those who do not know God in a personal way, it will be used by God as a great witness and example of who He is, what He is capable of in a wonderful and benevolent way and to lead those seeking purpose and meaning to why they exist, to Him. 

I applaud Greg Stelley in writing this to honour and give God the glory for what He has done for Frank and Kathy. I can say this also for any Christian to be challenged in their faith and to take God out of the boxes we enclose Him in due to our own failings, fallen and sinful nature and use what God has done in this account to challenge us to see Him in a deeper way with a deeper faith. 

I was very scared at reading the fire account and the experiences the victims went through. I got anxious, frustrated, angry and cried at those accounts. I also cried, but with tears of joy, at the miracle that unfolded after the fire. I was rejoicing in this wonderful God I love and follow! It is really hard being on a train commuting to work and trying to conceal the fact that you are crying!! I got some very strange looks for fellow commuters!! 

This is a wonderful blessing of a true story, a great message from a wonderful God. Faith, hope, redemption, supernatural power from a supernatural God who will do anything to show who He is, no matter where you are, even in the most devastating and horrible circumstance anyone could be in. 

Highly Recommended.