It’s another month of our challenge: Tackle Your TBR Pile. So go dig through that stack taller than you of books you’ve been meaning to read and start reading away. Since this year is based on your TBR pile, I will not have a recommendations page, but I’m leaving the link here so it’s easier for me to set up NEXT year’s blog posts.
Find recommendations at Reading Challenge Recommendations, Crystal Caudill’s Reading Friends Facebook group, Avid Readers of Christian Fiction, or Inspirational Historical Fiction Index.
Don’t forget to comment at the bottom of the post for your chance to win a book off my prize shelf. *The list of prizes from my shelf can be found here.*
Reading Challenge 2025: Tackle the TBR Pile
If you’re anything like me, you have a TBR pile that is bigger than you can hope to read in a lifetime. This is the year we’re going to try an tackle at least twelve of those books. Head to your shelves and find books that fit each month’s challenge.
This Month: June – Recommended by friend/family
Next Month: July – Book outside your normal genre
A Steadfast Heart
by Martha Hutchins
Review by: Crystal Caudill
Not only is Martha a friend, but her book was recommended by other friends who work with Sunrise Publishing. A Steadfast Heart is Martha’s debut novel, and it was a wonderful, unique working of a marriage of convenience/mail-order bride story. There wasn’t a focus on sexual tension at all, which was refreshing for this trope. There was a wonderful blend of adventure, romance, and characters who you could admire and root for. The children were adorable–and a bit of a handful for our heroine, Kaitlyn. This is probably my favorite mail-order bride story to read yet. I adored the characters, the struggles they had to overcome, and especially the blending of a family who had to learn to trust one another. I definitely recommend you check out A Steadfast Heart by Martha Hutchens.
Genre: Historical Romance, American Western
Plot Overview:
When his family legacy is on the line, rancher Drew McGraw becomes desperate for someone to tame and tutor his three children. Desperate enough to seek a mail-order bride. But when the wrong woman arrives on his doorstep, Drew balks.
Heiress Kaitlyn Montgomery runs straight from the scandal chasing her toward a fresh start on a secluded ranch. She strikes a bargain with Drew—a marriage convenient for both of them.
But the more Kaitlyn adapts to ranch life and forms a bond with Drew’s children and their enigmatic father, she realizes that this ranch is where she is meant to be. And then her past catches up with her…
This sweet historical romance is perfect for fans of the following tropes:
*ready-made family
*nanny/tutor
*single dad
*fish out of water
Purchase Links:
Amazon |  Barnes & Noble | Sunrise Publishing
Giveaway
For your chance to win a print copy, comment with what book YOU read for this month. Use the Rafflecopter below for extra entries and to mark that you left a comment. Entries end on the 7th of each month at midnight EST, and the winner will be drawn sometime that week and notified by email. The winner will be announced on the Rafflecopter widget. *Giveaway Policies can be found here.
A Steadfast Heart looks and sounds like a great looking forward to reading it in print format, I really look forward to reading your books Crystal in Print
Where are the list of books?
A list of my books? Those can be found here. Books
Martha’s book is part of a Sunrise Publishing Series, and I think the list is here:
If you’re meaning for the reading challenge, each month there is a theme and you pick a book from YOUR TBR pile to fit that category. It allows people the freedom to read what they have laying around.
I read The Codebreaker’s Daughter by Amy Lynn Green. It was her best yet. I love stories about spies and this one took pkace in part just 12 miles from where I grew up. But I never knew about it until I read the book! And I used to visit the town of Geneva, Illinois a lot. My mother even worked in an antique shop very near Riverbank Laboratories. Small world!
Wow!! That is really cool!!!
I read Mostly What God Does: Reflections on Seeking and Finding His Love Everywhere
By Savannah Guthrie. It was highly recommended by a reader friend. It was a great devotional, for the most part, and the audiobook was good, read by the author.
Wonderful! I love it when a recommendation works out!
I read Hearts in Flight by Patty Smith Hall. It’s a World War II novel that my sister thought sounded really good and got for me for Christmas one year. And it was good!
Yay! I’m so glad she recommended a good one!
I’m reading A Summer to Treasure by Leslea Wahl.
I read Making Waves by Lorna Seilstad. My mom recently read it and recommended it, and it was a good recommendation! I look forward to reading the rest of the series. 🙂
I read Beyond Ivy Walls by Rachel Fordham. My sister read it last year and recommended it to me. I’m honestly surprised it took me so long to finally get around to reading it! I definitely enjoyed this book!
I read The Summer of Yes by Courtney Walsh. My mom had read it first and recommended it to me. It was fabulous! Courtney is one of my favorite authors.
I read Ten Days in a Mad-House by Nellie Bly, which was recommended to me by my mom. I wanted to read it first before The Gray Chamber by Grace Hitchcock.