Carmen's Journey

About the Book

Book: Carmen’s Journey of Courage

Author: Susan K Beatty

Genre: Christian Women’s Fiction

Release date: September 14, 2021

Carmen's Journey of Courage lighter Truly the odd woman out, Army weapons expert Carmen belongs to a family where PhDs are almost a second surname.

Oh, and she’s also persona non grata since that one little incident back in her teens. The one that her Tia Graviella still hasn’t forgiven her for. The one her parents and siblings will never let her forget.

A trip to Mexico City, complete with a bit of groveling at Tia Graviella’s feet, might just be what it takes to gain forgiveness and a fresh start with her family. Not only that, her tia is ailing, and someone needs to check up on her. Carmen can solve two problems with one would-do-anything-to-avoid-it trip.

Something is off, however, and as Carmen investigates, she begins to wonder if there’s more to her aunt’s troubles than ill health.

When Carmen sets her course on making things right, will it repair more than the wreckage from a youthful miscalculation?

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About the Author

susy “Courage: The intersection of faith and Grit”

Susan K. Beatty is passionate about finding courage through faith and grit, particularly through the trials of breast cancer. Her daughter is a metastatic breast cancer “thriver” and has been an inspiration for her writing. Susan retired from a full-time job in 2017 and is now pursuing a novel-writing career. Her first novel, “Faces of Courage,” is in revision. Susan is the author of “An Introduction to Home Education” (AKA “California Homeschool Manual”), was the assistant director of the SoCal Christian Writers’ Conference and is the president of her local ACFW-OC Chapter. She is a professional writer/journalist. Susan is proof you can begin a fiction writing career after age seventy.

More from Susan

Have you ever known in your heart you needed to ask someone to forgive you, but the thought scared you so much you were convinced they would reject you? So scared you couldn’t bring yourself to ask?

Sometimes we are more fearful of man than God, conveniently ignoring the responsibility to be right with others and to live in peace. It’s hard to live in peace when that thing, that whatever it was we need to apologize for, is lying like a lump of toxic waste in our hearts.

In Carmen’s Journey of Courage, Carmen ignored her need to ask for forgiveness for years. Well, she didn’t really ignore it, she just kept burying it every time she thought of it. Which was often.

It took an outside force to get her positioned in such a way that she had to face the situation.

Carmen is the odd woman out in her family. Every one of her siblings possesses enough educational degrees to wallpaper a room. But not Carmen. Her two older sisters’ treatment of her pushed Carmen in the opposite direction and toward a desire to find her own way on her own terms. Instead of college, Carmen enlisted and excelled in the army.

As God sometimes does, He uses the exact person Carmen would prefer to avoid—her oldest sister—to get her to Mexico City and their great aunt. Circumstances are not what she expects. She needs to face more than her tía and solve a mystery with the aid of her army training.

It’s a journey of courage.

We all face tough decisions. I wrote Carmen’s Journey of Courage to inspire bravery when life is hard.

Find your courage at the intersection of faith and grit.

MY REVIEW

This is a quick read with a great message we all can learn from. I loved the setting of Mexico City and reading about the different foods served there. It did make me hungry and I could almost smell the wonderful aroma as they sat down to eat.

Carmen is asked to go check on her aunt which makes Carmen a little uneasy. She hasn’t been to Mexico City since she was a teenager. How sad it was to learn that Carmen has felt guilty all these years over an incident. Maybe this trip will be a time of healing for her and her aunt. I didn’t like how her sisters treated her and always seemed to think that Carmen was beneath them. I applaud Carmen’s service in the military and hoped that she would realize how courageous she is.

There is a good mystery in the story which consists of robbery and deceit. Tia is a force to be reckoned with and I think she wants to downplay what happened so her niece won’t become more involved. The dynamics between theses two are tension filled and Carmen isn’t sure she should be there. I loved watching Carmen begin to take charge and slowly begin to open up to others.

The ending is good and there is a definite lesson on forgiveness. Carmen learns that miscommunication can lead to division that can last if no one makes the first move to reconcile. We are left with a little cliff hanger so I’m anxious to read the next in this serious.

I received a copy of this book from Celebrate Lit. The review is my own opinion.