The Christmas Table - Book Review

 

The Christmas Table by Donna VanLiere

One table that ties two families together

As a table is being built in 1972 by John for his family, his wife Joan is learning to cook for their young family. She is using recipes that her mother wrote on cards that not only had ingredients, but also life lessons. When the family faces a serious challenge, faith, and the saying “Today’s the day” help get them through each day. With everything the family is facing, can John get the table built before Christmas to surprise his family?

In 2012, Lauren who is newly married and pregnant buys a repurposed table and finds a hidden drawer full of recipe cards written from a mother to a daughter. As Lauren starts cooking and baking using the recipes, she is determined to find the original owner of the table and the recipes. She does not have many clues, only what is written on the recipe cards. Can Lauren find the owner of those precious recipes?

Donna VanLiere did a beautiful job of writing this story, taking the reader on a precious Christmas journey. I loved how the story was told by two families in two moments in time. It was such an inspiring story of faith, family, and friendship. It was so nice to also reconnect with the supporting characters from the previous novels, but it also could be read as a stand a lone novel. I also loved that some of the recipes were also included in the book and I am excited to try them. Thank you so much to the author  Donna VanLiere, St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for an advanced copy of the book to review. It was fabulous! All opinions expressed for this review are unbiased and entirely my own.

To purchase Donna's books, click here 

A mom, a wife, an animal lover, and a closet comedian at home. She's passionate about cooking (...and eating), reading, movies and teaching, inspiring, challenging and encouraging dreamers! She doesn't like watching sports on TV but is a huge fan of athletes under five feet tall who call her Mom. Donna also loves to write books. As a New York Times and USA Today best-selling author, her 14 titles include The Christmas Shoes and The Christmas Blessing - both of which were adapted into movies starring Rob Lowe, Kimberly Williams-Paisley and Neil Patrick Harris. Both movies garnered stellar ratings for CBS, including the highest rated made-for-TV movie of the year.  The Christmas Hope starring Madeline Stowe was adapted by Lifetime Television, and her movies The Christmas Secret and The Christmas Note when aired were among the highest rated movies in the history of the Hallmark Movies and Mystery channel. Donna's non-seasonal novel's, The Good Dream, Angels of Morgan Hill and non-fiction works like Finding Grace and High Calling - the biography of Space Shuttle Columbia Commander Rick Husband - capture the same warmth and poignancy as her Christmas books.

Donna has won a Retailer's Choice Award for Fiction, a Dove Award, a Silver Angel Award, two Audie Awards (seven nominations) for best inspirational fiction, has been a nominee for a Gold Medallion Book of the Year and is an inductee in the Ohio Foundation of Independent Colleges Hall of Excellence joining such luminaries as Coretta Scott King, Hugh Downs, Dr. Norman Vincent Peale and Senator John Glenn. She also serves on the board of directors for National House of Hope, a residency program that is offered in several states for abused and at-risk teens. (By the way, if you're looking for a place to give or to serve, look no further than here... www.NationalHouseofHope.org)

Donna's mini-van is staring down 200,000 miles as she runs her kids to school, drama and tennis practices, Tae Kwon Do, church, and the grocery store all while promising her editor to meet her book deadlines (...which occasionally does happen). She loves to spend her summers with her family around the swimming pool or a campfire.

One of Donna's great loves is teaching and speaking. She has appeared at countless events around the country including keynote addresses at the prestigious Patricia Adams Lecture Series at Heidelberg University, Women of Faith, Among Friends Conferences and Extraordinary Women.

Thank you so much for stopping by the farmhouse. Lynn

 

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