CFBA: It Happens Every Spring by Dr. Gary Chapman and Catherine Palmer

Song Stuck on the Brain: It's the Time of the Season by Blake Lewis. He did a fantastic job on Idol last night and now this song is stuck in my head. Jordin was fantabulous as well.

This week, the Christian Fiction Blog Alliance is introducing IT HAPPENS EVERY SPRING(Tyndale Fiction, 2007) by Gary Chapman and Catherine Palmer.

ABOUT THE BOOK:

IT HAPPENS EVERY SPRING is the first of The Four Seasons fiction series, based on the ever-changing cycles of relationships detailed in Gary Chapman's nonfiction book The Four Seasons of Marriage. The novels will focus on four couples, each moving in and out of a different season.

Word travels fast at the Just As I Am beauty shop.

So when a simple homeless man appears on Steve and Brenda Hansen's doorstep, the entire shop is set abuzz, especially when Brenda lets him sleep on their porch.

That's not all the neighbors are talking about. Spring may be blooming outdoors, but an icy chill has settled over the Hansens' marriage. Steve is keeping late hours with clients, and the usually upbeat Brenda is feeling the absence of her husband and her college-age kids.

Add to that the unsavory business moving in next to the beauty shop and the entire community gets turned upside down. Now Brenda's friends must unite to pull her out of her rut and keep the unwanted sort out of town. But can Steve and Brenda learn to thaw their chilly marriage and enjoy the hope spring offers?

ABOUT THE AUTHORS:

GARY CHAPMAN is the author of the New York Times best seller The Five Love Languages and numerous other books. He's the director of Marriage & Family Life Consultants, Inc., and host of A Growing Marriage, a syndicated radio program heard on over 100 stations across North America. He and his wife, Karolyn, live in North Carolina.

CATHERINE PALMER is the Christy Award-winning, CBA best-selling author of more than forty novels--including The Bachelor's Bargain--which have more than 2 million copies in print. She lives in Missouri with her husband, Tim, and two sons.

MY TAKE:

Yes! A book that puts Dr. Chapman's wisdom into a highly reachable format! I read the Five Love Languages probably 8 years ago and it changed my life. I've lost count of how many copies I've given away. When I saw this book come up on the review schedule, it really piqued my interest, but I wondered if it was possible to make the story really compelling in and of itself without feeling like the concept was overpowering the plot. Well, it's not. It's not overpowering at all. In fact it's more EM-powering. Having read about the love languages, I didn't have any trouble identifying each characters primary love language, nor did I have trouble identifying the seasons for each couples relationship. The really cool part though, was how it didn't take away from the story in the least. On the contrary, I felt like I knew each one of the people in Tranquility, MO personally. Cody, the town vagrant, was an especially inspired character. It was also fun to read about a locale I was familiar with. With so much family living in southern Missouri, trips to the Ozarks and the lakes were common for us. So in a way, I felt very 'at home' with the book.

Overall, it was a feel good read with warmth and humor along with a really good dose of wisdom. When I turned the final page I realized that it had encouraged me to think in ways I hadn't really considered before. And any book that can do that is very well written.

A.