Through The Deep Waters by Kim Vogel Sawyer is a good book of hope, forgiveness, and redemption, mixed with love. Kim Vogel Sawyer once again, with this book, reminds us that God loves us and wants to forgive and redeem us.

Dinah has as past that she wants to forget and tries to run away from. She believes she is unlovable even from God. She thinks of herself as broken. She is very courageous to start out on her own to try to make something of herself but is looking for redemption in the wrong place. We can relate to Dinah in that sometimes we let our past sins become our present stumbling blocks which keep us from God and living the abundant life He has for us. Amos on the other hand has physical limitations and his family thinks of him as broken because of his bad leg that limits him physically. He has a big heart and is a strong willed man of faith who steps out in faith to make his own way. I find that I can relate to both of them easily while reading this book and watching them overcome and grow which reminds me that we can all learn and grow and are only limited by what we let limit us.

This is a very good book that is not only a good read but is a good book of encouragement and a reminder to the reader that God can heal the broken and loves each and every one of us just the way we are. We don’t have to change us, or be good enough, like Dinah thinks, for God to love us. He loves us and wants to give us forgiveness for our sins and to help us move on from our past mistakes.

This book is a story that shows us how God wants to Forgive, Erase, Redeem us from our past, walk with us in the present, and give us a wonderful fantastic future through Him. I would highly recommend this book and give it 4 ½ stars.

If you want more info on this book and author check out these site:

www.kimvogelsawyer.com

http://waterbrookmultnomah.com/catalog.php?work=221541

I received this book free for my honest review. ( )

Dinah Hubley is starting to attract unwanted attention and pressure from the after-dark visitors to her home, a Chicago bawdy house called the Yellow Parrot run by Miss Flo. That pressure ramps up a hundred-fold when, on her 17th birthday, Miss Flo tells her that her beautiful lady-of-the-night mother, Untamable Tori, is ill. Miss Flo threatens to throw both of them out unless Dinah can come up with $25 to pay for their keep—a huge sum in 1883.

Dinah is still too young to be a Harvey Girl, something she dreams about. She needs to be 18 to work as a server in one of the Harvey Eating Houses. So it seems there is only one way she can come up with the $25 and it is by giving in to Miss Flo's suggestion. Author Kim Vogel Sawyer has Dinah pay a life-changing price to make her mother’s last days as comfortable as possible, in her novel Through the Deep Waters.

Dinah leaves Chicago after her mother dies to follow the Harvey Girl dream. But starting a new life isn’t as simple as moving away from Chicago. For though she finds a job in Kansas City, has a warm and caring roommate, even a young man whose kind ways give her hope for a secure future, everything is overshadowed by the dark secret she must keep.

The story is told through the viewpoints of Dinah, Ruthie her Kansas City roommate, and Amos Ackerman the idealistic and lonely chicken farmer who falls in love with Dinah’s innocent beauty and shy ways. Though I sometimes felt like shaking Dinah for her paranoid secrecy, the fallout when her past is revealed shows that her behavior is grounded in her savvy of the moral climate of her times. My favorite character was warm, bubbly Ruthie especially when Dinah’s unpredictable behavior tests what she professes to believe.

Dinah’s predicament drew me into the story from the start. The love triangle that develops is compelling. Though there were parts of the book where things went along too smoothly and I felt my interest lag, on the whole, strong characterization together with plot complications kept me engrossed.

Sawyer undergirds her themes of the possibility of a new beginning, the value of honesty, and the need for forgiveness with Scripture. This book is unabashedly Christian. Discussion questions at the end guide readers to work through the issues the book introduces.

Lovers of Americana and historical Christian romance will enjoy this book. I received Through the Deep Waters as a gift from the publisher WaterBrook Press via the Blogging for Books program for the purpose of writing a review.
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Where I got the book: review copy provided by publisher.

My feature article on this and another novel appears on the Historical Novel Society website.

The story begins in Chicago in 1883, where Dinah Hubley is growing to adulthood in the brothel where she was born. Her mother, a notorious prostitute known as Untameable Tori, is dying and the only way Dinah can afford both the care her mother needs and her own escape from a world she hates is to sell her virginity. She changes her mind when she sees the customer, but it’s too late—and Dinah earns her money.

Dinah’s escape plan is to go to Florence, Kansas, to work in a Harvey Hotel as a chambermaid. There she meets Ruthie, a preacher’s daughter who tries to befriend her, and chicken farmer Amos Ackerman, who has his own problems—a childhood accident has left him lame and unable to participate in his family’s tradition of wheat farming.

Ruthie and Amos are both longing for love and to start a family, and a love triangle emerges as Ruthie sets her cap at Amos who sets his cap at Dinah—who doesn’t believe any decent man will ever marry her if he knew her secret. A growing interest in God is the only thing that can pull Dinah out of her spiral of shame and fear and help her face her past and future.

So here are all the elements of a full-on Christian novel: characters with histories or issues that pull them away from God, characters who move them in the direction of God, and some issues that will only get resolved if everyone decides to stop trying to make it happen by themselves and rely on God instead. From which you will deduce that the spiritual story takes the forefront, and indeed I found myself wondering if a non-believer would be able to get past the strong evangelical tone. I came to the conclusion that Sawyer must inevitably be preaching to the converted or the willing-to-be-converted, not a bad thing in itself but problematical if you’d like to see inspirational fiction break out of its bubble and attract more mainstream readers.

Such considerations aside, I found myself enjoying the story. So many near misses pop up in inspirational fiction that I was expecting Dinah to escape her john and run off to pursue a virtuous life, but no! she’s ruined first and THEN runs off to show a falsely virtuous front to the world, with consequences. And Amos carries corresponding burdens of resentment and bitterness about a physical disability that, in a farming community, would make life difficult and cause him to be far less attractive to single women and their parents. I liked learning about the Harvey Hotels that served passengers on the railroad leading to the frontier destinations out west, and even relished the details of the perils that surrounded chicken farming in an untamed country. Another character, the boy Cale, displayed a different facet of the hardships of life in the western states, while Ruthie’s family showed the contrasting happy unity of a hardworking Christian family. Life on the frontier was tough, the message goes, and you needed faith and togetherness to get through it all.

Of course, the whole story is covered with that slightly glossy Hallmark feel that you get when you’re unwilling to delve deeply into the gritty nastiness of the real world. The plot, with the exception of the unlikely coincidence that betrayed Dinah’s secret, is strong enough to support a bigger, tougher, heartbreaker of a novel but alas, the readers of inspirational fiction want the Hallmark version and that’s what they generally get. And there’s that ornate language again—why, for example, do characters in inspirational novels “offer a smile” and “release a laugh” rather than just smile or laugh?

Still, if you’re in the mood for an unreservedly evangelical read and like interesting plots and historical backgrounds, Through The Deep Waters is very satisfying. I felt pulled through the book by that feeling you always want to arouse in the reader’s mind, the craving to know what happens next, and was left with some spiritual points to ponder. For the right audience, this is an uplifting and engaging story. ( )

Kim Vogel Sawyer's historical fiction asks a penetrating question of her readers, "How can a person born with overwhelming disadvantages ever hope to live a normal life, in peace with herself or himself and with God?" The book, Through the Deep Waters , explores the tentativeness of new relationships, budding friendships, family ties, and personal fulfillment, all wrapped up in the history of the early years of business dependence on the expansion of travel by railroad.

Dinah Hubly's childhood was less than ideal. By the time she was sixteen, she was considered a pariah in her community, deprived of a father's provision and care, without a mother's tender love, unfamiliar with family life, and without a friend in the world, except possibly for Reuben, the house cook. She wasn't even allowed to call Tori "mother" or "ma" in public because business would suffer if it were known that Tori had a child. At school, no one was allowed to be her friend because they all believed she was one of "Flo's girls." She was born and had grown up in a brothel. Desperately, Dinah wanted to escape the "gilded cage" if only she knew how. One day, Reuben showed her an ad in a newspaper. Fred Harvey was looking for hard-working girls to be servers in his famous eating houses interspersed along the Santa Fe line out West. From that moment on, Dinah dreamed of becoming one of "Harvey's girls"--a new life where no one knew who she was. But at what price was she willing to pay for that freedom?

Amos Ackerman, on the other hand, knew what a family's love was like. He knew the security felt when you are loved by your parents and siblings. But when he was only eleven, a wagon ran over him and broke his hip. It hadn't healed properly, so now he walked with a marked limp. It was chronically painful, especially in cold weather. When it came time to choose a life career, he broke family tradition by becoming a chicken farmer. He was not able to walk a farm large enough to grow wheat as his father and brothers were doing. He purchased a small farm with just enough to start a tiny flock of Leghorns. He delivered eggs door to door in the nearby town of Florence, Kansas. It was a good beginning.

I enjoy reading character-driven stories. This one touched my heart in so many ways. The three main characters, Dinah, Amos and Ruthie, became a triangle of entanglement, misdirected impressions, and internal struggles as the three young adults attempted to cope with life's challenges, twists and even U-turns. No one could fight their battles for them, and where close friendship could have guided them through the labyrinth of trials together, they avoided being forthright with each other. Instead of helping, they hurt each other. The reader is left to wonder if the trio would ever discover how valuable good friendship is. If relationship drama draws you in, then be sure to have some tissues on hand while reading this book.

Another good impression I derived from reading this book is how beautifully the author portrayed the spiritual awakening for Dinah, who grappled with the concept of a loving God; for Ruthie whose offer of friendship had never been rebuffed before, leaving her baffled and filled with wrong impressions and insecurity for the first time in her life; for Amos who had to confront his reluctance to place complete trust for his future in God's capable hands. The author skillfully entwines these trials together, using them as the catalyst for the trio's life lessons. This was so compelling to read that I had a difficult time putting the book down. For me, this book was a real page turner.

Thirdly, this adventurous read is placed in the true-to-life historical background of the Santa Fe railroad, the roadhouses which sprang up along the line, and the superior service and reputation of Harvey's Girls--servers who had to meet stringent qualifications and restrictions to gain the position. I enjoyed the research the author did for this story. She writes all this with flare. I highly recommend this book for anyone who enjoys Christian romance and historical fiction books.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this ebook from Blogging for Books on behalf of Waterbrook Press. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.” ( )

Title: Through the Deep Waters
Author: Kim Vogel Sawyer
Pages: 340
Year: 2014
Publisher: WaterBrook Press
Amos Ackerman wants to be a prosperous chicken farmer. He has left his family of wheat farmers to strike out on his own in this new venture. Due to an accident when he was a boy, he has a bad hip and walks with a pronounced limp so crop growing isn’t an option. He meets Dinah and is instantly smitten. He begins to court her through exchanging letters, even though they live in the same city, and meeting twice a week for lunch at the hotel where Dinah works. He thinks his plans are working well and his life on the right track when he discovers something about Dinah that causes him to break off their relationship. He is angry with her, himself and God. He feels compassion for her stirring, but ruthlessly stomps it out. He wants to hold on to his bitterness. Can he realize his dreams of prosperity in the midst of his upside down life?
Dinah Hubley is a young woman born to a prostitute, unable to attend school regularly so has only an 8th-grade education and another secret that haunts her. She is initially nervous around Amos and other people, being afraid they might learn her secret. She also knows nothing about God until her roommate Ruthie invites her to church. Dinah wants so much to have someone love her unconditionally, but fears the discovery of her secret will banish her to a life of loneliness. As she gets to know Amos better, she imagines a permanent future with him. Then, a chance encounter with a hotel guest has a disastrous outcome for her Cinderella future she has imagined for herself.
This is a heart-warming romance that depicts the all too human consequences of trusting ourselves and avoiding God. God’s love for us knows no limit and His forgiveness is complete, which is aptly demonstrated in this story. Dinah had endured such an awful life. I could feel how very painful her past was to her thanks to the character development and skilled writing from the author. I also could identify with Amos’ sense of betrayal and anger over what he thought he had lost. These very realistic human emotions are deftly penned. Dinah’s healing transformation once she accepts God into her life was just wonderful to read, and her newfound strength, poise and confidence supplied by God very satisfying. I look forward to reading more of these novels of hope and God-centered lives.
My rating is 5 stars.
Note: I received a complimentary copy for an honest review of this book. The opinions shared in this review are solely my responsibility. Other reviews can be read at http://seekingwithallyurheart.blogspot.com/. Also follow me on Twitter @lcjohnson1988, FaceBook at https://www.facebook.com/lisa.johnson.75457 ( )