Good Books for Gift Ideas

A woman named Damaris by Janette Oke. A rich story of forming a family of pioneering to a Western ranch. A young man who grew up in an orphanage, a young woman who fled an abusive home, and three small children who lost their parents. Even an adopting grandmother. Through faith, love, hard work, and joy, they join together as a family.

 

Revelation for the rest of us: a prophetic call to follow Jesus as a dissident disciple by Scot McKnight and Cody Matchett. The authors mentioned at the beginning that many people are hesitant to read the book of Revelation. There are many views on the meaning of the book. I’ve never hesitated to read it. In my church at college, one leader said that one of the great things about Revelation is its worship. I’ve always enjoyed that, though I cannot claim to understand all of it.

 

In this book, the authors say that the book was written to the Seven Churches as they dealt with the Roman government, as well as Christians throughout all times and how we deal with the world around us and our own governments. They say that Revelation gives instructions for Christians to worship God and spread the gospel, through our words and actions, transforming the world as dissident disciples.

 

What the River Keeps by Cheryl Grey Bostrom. A breathtaking story of healing and forgiveness, nested in the beautiful natural settings and native people of Northwest United States.

 

Five days: the fiery reckoning of an American city

Authors: Moore, Wes, Green, Erica. Wes Moore is the current governor of the state of Maryland. I have read another book by him and appreciated it. This book discusses five tragic days in the city of Baltimore in 2015. A fight erupted between young protestors and the police after the death of a young Black man from an injury during his arrest. This story is told from the point of view of a handful of people, including protesters, a public defender, a businessman, a policeman, and the owner of the Baltimore Orioles. It talks about what some individuals and groups did to try to help this situation, and what still needs to be done.

 

In the Company of Others, A Father Tim Novel by Jan Karon. This is one of a number of books I come back to again and again, and it feels like coming home. Tim and Cynthia are not in Mitford this time, but on a vacation to Ireland. Such beautiful pictures of the land, of relationships struggling and coming together, of the grace of God.

 

Millie’s Christmas by Kathy McKinsey. Ruthie says Millie will love Christmas. Ruthie is Millie’s best friend, so she’s sure Ruthie’s right, but why does Millie keep finding Ruthie and her brother Jake crying?

A precious gift from God to the author, and I pray, to the reader. 

Guest Author, Ruth Whong

 

I learned about Ruth from a friend’s blog. Her stories sound exciting. Thank you, Ruth, for sharing with us.

 

God’s son—one claim, two cultures

Every one of my books touches upon the Christian faith. That thread continues in Fire Between Two Skies ($3.99 at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0G2YZZ8LG; watch the teaser video at https://youtu.be/UE9egV5VlUs). Set against the fiery upheaval of the Taiping movement, the story explores a question that has long gripped me: how can the same claim—“I am the Son of God”—ignite such different responses in different cultures?

In first-century Judea, monotheism was the heartbeat of Jewish identity. For a Jew to claim to be the Son of God was to tread on sacred ground with fire. Such a claim was against the social order and also against God Himself. The consequence was predictable: rejection, and ultimately, death.

Now set that alongside nineteenth-century China. Traditional Chinese society, with its richly layered spiritual landscape, offered a different frame. When Hong Xiuquan announced he was God’s son and Jesus’ brother, his message found ready ears. The result was not isolation but the mobilization of multitudes to follow his vision.

That divergence fascinates me. Culture shapes plausibility. What sounds impossible in one context can appear inevitable in another. Yet even acknowledging that, I can’t stop thinking about Jesus’ claim and authority.

When I first read the Bible, I was stunned by how unapologetically Jesus spoke. As a Jew, He knew His words that identified Himself with the very name of God would collide head-on with the traditions of His people. Was He crazy? Only someone unhinged would insist on such things—unless, of course, His claim was true.

I’m a PhD scientist and always keep an open mind. If someone can point me to ancient texts that foretold his coming, and if that person fulfilled those prophecies—particularly through a death in accordance with those texts—then I have to take the claim seriously.

This is where the Dead Sea Scrolls, one of archaeology’s greatest finds, enter my vision. Among the original seven scrolls discovered at Qumran is the Book of Isaiah, dated to around 125 BCE. Nearly complete, remarkably preserved, and consistent with later manuscripts, it stands as a witness to the integrity of the text across centuries. Within Isaiah are passages about Jesus from birth to death. For me, the existence of the Old Testament, centuries older than Jesus’ earthly life, adds weight to the belief that history is not random, that God speaks and then brings His word to fruition.

Fire Between Two Skies is not a theological treatise, but a story that stares at the juncture between faith and culture. Jesus’ claim was not aimed at regime change but at heart change. He refused the sword, embraced the cross, and fulfilled words spoken long before He walked the Galilean hills.

As a writer, I’m drawn to the tension between earth and heaven. As a scientist, I’m compelled by evidence that endures scrutiny. As a believer, I surrender to a story that is bigger than me, yet personal enough to answer my search.

If those themes resonate with you, I invite you to explore them with me in Fire Between Two Skies. And whether you come to the book as a skeptic, a seeker, or a fellow traveler in faith, I pray you’ll find, between the two skies of culture and conviction, a fire that illuminates more than it consumes.

 

Author bio:

 

Dr. Ruth Wuwong (PhD in biochemistry, MBA in finance) has published 120+ scientific books and papers (under her legal name) and a few Christian fiction books under R. F. Whong. She lives in the Midwest with her husband, a retired pastor. They served together at three churches from 1987 to 2020. Her grown son works in a nearby city.

She currently runs a small biotech company (www.vidasym.com) and has raised more than twenty million US dollars during the past few years for Vidasym.

In addition to her weekly newsletter and the platform (www.ruthforchrist.com), she’s active in several writers’ groups, including ACFW, Word Weavers, Facebook, and Goodreads. Through these connections, she plans newsletter/promotion swaps with others and has writers endorse her books, write forewords, and host her on guest blogs.

Ruth was chosen as a featured author by the Minnesota Anoka County Library in 2025 and by the Suffolk Virginia Authors Festival in 2026.

One of her books, Echoes over Stormy Sea, won several awards, including being chosen by readers as a winner in the 2025 HOLT Medallion Contest.

 

Allure of Elegance (Book #3 in the Paradise PA mystery series) earned a 5-star review from the Reader Views Literary Awards and was a finalist in the 2026 Carolyn Reader’s Choice Awards.

 

Eclipsed System won the 2026 Christian Book Excellence Award.

 

New release.

Genre: Christian sci-fi.

Eclipsed System: new release in July 2026; $3.99 at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GX32N1MX.

 

Social Media Links:

Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/ruth.wuwong

Twitter: https://twitter.com/RWuwong

Website: www.ruthforchrist.com

www.linkedin.com/in/ruth-wu-wong

https://www.instagram.com/ruthwuwong/

https://www.amazon.com/author/love.respect.grace

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/42632055.R_F_Whong

https://bookhip.com/FPJVSZZ

https://www.bookbub.com/authors/r-f-whong

 

FEATURED BOOK: Eclipsed System

AUTHOR: R. F. Whong

PUBLISHER: Vidasym Publishing

GENRE: Christian sci-fi

SERIES OR STAND ALONE: Stand alone

TARGET AGE: 18+

Blurb:

When the Sun is wounded, the future shatters.

In the distant future, Travis Young, an astrophysicist, investigates a hypothetical space-time window from a lunar station when something dense plunges into the Sun.

Back on Earth, the Assembly moves to smother the truth. Intelligence Officer Lucas Sato demands silence. When Travis refuses, his access vanishes, and his technician disappears into a controlled facility. He turns to Laura Rhode, his childhood confidante and a biochemist, whose stubborn faith in God unnerves him as much as he loves her. While Travis sees a distinct danger about Earth’s habitability, Sato shadows him, convinced the space-time window could open a bridge to an unseen realm—one where he may reach his deceased wife. Driven underground, Travis allies with Flood, an exile district, and St. Jude’s, a faith community that holds a fragile truce between rival powers.

Will Laura return Travis’s love? Can he and his friends outwit the Assembly before the Sun’s injury erases Earth’s future for good?

Part science thriller, part spiritual reckoning, this is the story about human nature, sin, and redemption in a world under a wounded star.

 

Diamond From Isaiah, Chapter 4

In that day seven women

    will take hold of one man

and say, “We will eat our own food

    and provide our own clothes;

only let us be called by your name.

    Take away our disgrace!”

In that day the Branch of the Lord will be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the land will be the pride and glory of the survivors in Israel. Those who are left in Zion, who remain in Jerusalem, will be called holy, all who are recorded among the living in Jerusalem. The Lord will wash away the filth of the women of Zion; he will cleanse the bloodstains from Jerusalem by a spirit of judgment and a spirit of fire. Then the Lord will create over all of Mount Zion and over those who assemble there a cloud of smoke by day and a glow of flaming fire by night; over everything the glory will be a canopy. It will be a shelter and shade from the heat of the day, and a refuge and hiding place from the storm and rain.

 

Father, I pray for you to wash me clean. Thank you for the glory of your protection. 

Back-to-Back Trip Highlights

In the last month, Ping-Hwei, Murray and I took two trips over 18 days, five days to Missouri and four days to Omaha. Just writing that sentence makes me tired, but I am so grateful for the chance to visit.

 

First, we were able to visit with one sister, three brothers, four aunts, and other family members between us, and we drove to four different places in Missouri.

 

Murray’s 50^th high school reunion was on September 19, outside, 96 degrees. Always good to be reminded why I usually don’t visit Missouri in summer time.

 

Murray only went to this school for a year and a half, so he doesn’t know a lot of people from there, but he said he recognized a lot of names.

 

Before we left home, Murray found a sack of fifty cent pieces under a pile of something in the bedroom, so we took these with us. He’d shake hands with a person, hand them a coin, and say, “Fitty for our fiftieth.” Everyone laughed. One lady said she’d keep it for the rest of her life.

 

There was a man there who wasn’t from Murray’s class—we know that because he wasn’t wearing a button with a senior picture on it—who looked at Murray and said, “Did you used to work at Spielberg?” This was a purse factory that Murray once worked at.

 

Murray said, “Well, forty-eight years ago I did.” This guy worked there at the same time Murray did, and he recognized Murray. So, altogether, Murray got to talk to a lot of people, and I think he had a good time.

 

While we stayed at Murray’s brother Myles’s and his family’s house, Ping-Hwei slept on an air mattress in the living room. At one point, one of their cute small dogs crawled up on top of Ping-Hwei, and he called to Murray to take their picture. I know that was a highlight for Ping-Hwei.

 

After we had lunch with my brothers, Rodney gave me some banana peppers and cherry tomatoes from his garden. I ate probably way too many of them that night in the hotel room with my hamburger instead of French fries.

 

Murray’s Aunt Melody took Ping-Hwei and Murray down to the lake to watch the evening sunset with a group of friends who gather there. Melody often shares these lovely sunset pictures on FaceBook.

 

The second trip to Omaha was to visit our daughter Rebecca and her husband Steve. They’ve moved into a new house this year, so it was fun to get to see that. Rebecca showed me all around the house and yard, and was able to find five ripe cherry tomatoes for me from her garden.

 

They’re working a lot this summer and fall on setting up their yard the way they want, planting healthy plants for the local creatures and environment. Besides a bird feeder, they have a squirrel feeder, a tiny picnic table with a nail which will hold an ear of corn.

 

We had a lovely time with them, sharing good food, watching movies, and playing spades.

 

Before we started the spades afternoon, Rebecca informed us that she would be the winner. Although I led for most of the time, with Steve as a close second, Rebecca did indeed end up with the winning score. She said, “I told you I would.”

 

Murray came down with a bad cold the last day we were there, and their internet went out for most of that day, but those are the kinds of things families share. 

From Kathy's Kitchen: 4-Ingredient Slow Cooker Pork Roast and Gravy

Murray and I put this together in Kathy’s kitchen, and it has definite potential. I think I’d like to add some more and make it a stew.

 

Ingredients

2–3 lb pork roast

1 packet dry onion soup mix

1 can cream of mushroom soup

1 cup beef broth

Directions

1. Place pork roast in the slow cooker.

2. Sprinkle dry onion soup mix over the roast.

3. Add cream of mushroom soup and beef broth.

4. Cover and cook on LOW for 6–8 hours, until the pork is tender.

5. Remove pork and slice or shred.

6. Stir the gravy in the slow cooker until smooth.

7. Serve pork warm with gravy spooned over the top.

  

Only 39 Years

Murray and I have only been married for 39 years, but already, we have so many memories that we aren’t sure about, that we can’t agree on.

 

Murray’s friend at work just got married, and they’re going to Hershey, Pennsylvania.

 

“I think Rebecca and I went there,” Murray said. “We toured a place about how they make chocolate.”

 

“I toured there with you,” I said.

 

“I don’t think so.”

 

“I think so.”

 

“I think you’re wrong.”

 

“You always think I’m wrong.”

 

Murray said I was wearing the shirt from the braille challenge in 2008. “Did Caleb go that year too?”

 

“Maybe. Wasn’t that the year he went to Pittsburgh in the summer, then met you in LA?”

 

“Yes, because the summer before that he went to New Jersey to get a guide dog.”

 

“Did I go to LA that year too? I can’t remember. But when we went a few years earlier, we all couldn’t come back on the same plane. You and Benjamin had to go back on one flight, and Caleb and I on another. And they tried to make Caleb ride in a wheelchair, but I said no.”

 

Murray: “What!”

 

Sarah has a good memory though. “One time Ping-Hwei added cheese to the cooked meat for tacos. Dad didn’t know, and heated it all up. I couldn’t eat tacos that night, because there was stringy cheese.” 

Guest Author, Sherry Shindelar

Sherry is a critique partner, prayer partner, and friend. You will be touched and encouraged by her books.

 

The Story that Held my Heart Captive

The story of Cynthia Anne Parker captured my heart a couple decades ago, and she still haunts my imagination. Her story inspired my novel, Texas Forsaken, and my newly released prequel, Wichita Path Sacrifice, which is part of the Freed by the Frontier novella collection.

Cynthia was taken captive by the Comanche at age nine during an attack on her family’s fort on the Texas frontier in 1836. Her father and several other extended family members were killed, and her brother John, her cousin Rachel, and a couple other family members were captured along with her.

Her Aunt Elizabeth was rescued a couple months after the attack. Her cousin Rachel, who had been badly abused by the tribe, was returned a couple of years later and died within a year of her return. John adopted the Comanche lifestyle and lived with the tribe for years before eventually leaving the tribe to farm in Mexico. But Cynthia became Comanche and became an integral part of the tribe for over twenty-four years.

She married an influential war chief, Peta Nocona, and had three children with him, including Quanah Parker, a powerful Comanche chief. Several times over the years, Indian agents and traders attempted to ransom her, but she refused to go, and the tribe refused to trade her.

In December 1860, Texas Rangers attacked her village and captured her and her baby girl, Prairie Flower (Topsanah), killing everyone else in the village. Eventually, one of Cynthia’s relatives claimed her and took her to live with his family, but she refused to accept this new life that was being forced upon her. Several times, she tried to run away to the open plains, desperate to find her husband and her sons. Her uncle eventually agreed to help her look for her people, but they’d have to wait until the Civil War ended.

Prairie Flower died, word came that Cynthia’s son Pecos had passed away, as well, and the Civil War dragged on. Cynthia lost hope of ever being reunited with two remaining members of her beloved family, Nocona and Quanah.  Overcome by sadness and longing, she sank into a deep depression and died of a broken heart. 

Cynthia Ann’s story, the story of a woman torn between cultures, has perplexed, intrigued, and haunted me since I read it. My heart aches for her loss, and questions flood my mind. Some stories are like that. They stay with you, and this one was all the more indelible because it was true and filled with unknowns.

The Lord placed the idea on my heart to write a story about forgiveness, healing from trauma, and love overcoming all odds.

In Texas Forsaken, Book One of my Lone Star Redemption series, I developed a character inspired by Cynthia Ann, started at the moment of crisis, and wrote a different trajectory. I couldn’t give Cynthia Ann a happy resolution, but I could give my character Eyes-Like-Sky a muted happy-ever-after. Eyes-Like-Sky has a second chance at life and love.

Wichita Path Sacrifice, my novella, which is included in Freed by the Frontier, is the prequel and is inspired by the captive stories of Cynthia Ann Parker and her cousin, Rachel Plummer. Eyes-Like-Sky must choose between fighting to escape back to the world she once knew, or daring to hope for a life with the warrior who has captured her heart.

In both of these stories, I wanted the reader to see that the Lord can bring good and blessings, even out of the direst of circumstances when we turn our hearts to Him.

“Weeping may tarry for the night,
    but joy comes with the morning.”  Psalm 30: 5b

 

 Buy link:

https://www.amazon.com/Freed-Frontier-Lone-Star-Redemption-ebook/dp/B0GX2WN3ZB/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0

 

Social Media Links:

Instagram: sherryshindelarauthor  https://www.instagram.com/sherryshindelarauthor/ 

FB Author: https://www.facebook.com/historylitgirl/   Sherry Shindelar Author 

Goodreads author page:  https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/134972322-sherry-shindelar  

Bookbub author page: https://www.bookbub.com/profile/527022753