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A Taste of Fame by Linda Shepherd and Eva Marie Everson

ABOUT THE BOOK

Authors Linda Evans Shepherd and Eva Marie Everson
love dishing up the stories of the six friends featured in their latest series The Potluck Catering Club—much to the delight of readers. “This is the way Christian fiction should be written,” one reader says. “No cardboard Christian cut-outs of sweet angelic women none of us can relate to. These women are real, just the kind of women I find in my own community.”

A Taste of Fame is the latest book in The Potluck Catering Club series and serves up more of what readers have come to love from these feisty characters and the hilarious antics they find themselves in—which takes them this time to the Big Apple for their first taste of fame:

The Potluck Catering Club that these six friends started is already a growing business when a budding filmmaker decides to cast them for a class project. For fun, they agree. That is, until they realize that he has entered his documentary in a new reality show “Great Party Showdown”—and they actually get picked for the show, taking the ladies of Summit View, Colorado, to the Big Apple for the unexpected adventure of their lives. Between navigating New York City, dealing with other cutthroat contestants, and trying to maintain their close friendship in the high-stress world of reality TV, the Potluck women must keep their eyes on the prize—a cool million dollars—and work together if they’re going to make it back to Colorado in one piece.

A Taste of Fame serves up the perfect blend of humor, misadventure, and mouth-watering recipes. Fans new and old will love this exciting trip into the wild world of competitive cooking!

Linda Evans Shepherd and Eva Marie Everson are award-winning authors, successful speakers, radio personalities, and avid readers of fiction. They are the popular authors of The Potluck Club, The Potluck Club—Trouble’s Brewing, The Potluck Club—Takes the Cake, and The Secret’s in the Sauce. They’ve also led numerous Bible studies and women’s retreats and still find time to be wives and mothers. Linda lives in Colorado and Eva lives in Florida.

Revell, a division of Baker Publishing Group, offers practical books that bring the Christian faith to everyday life. They publish resources from a variety of well-known brands and authors, including their partnership with MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) and Hungry Planet.
For more information, visit www.RevellBooks.com.


Here is my review of this novel:

First of all, I would like to extend a heartfelt “Thank you” to Linda Shepherd and Eva Marie Everson and their publisher for sending me a copy of "A Taste of Fame" to review for them. I have always been grateful for this generosity, and I am trying to improve at being consistent in taking the time to thank these wonderfully giving individuals in a public forum. I really appreciate your time, effort and expense in making a reviewer copy available to me.

I wish I could call this novel delicious because that would be a catchy review title, but "A Taste of Fame" by Linda Shepherd and Eva Marie Everson lost me in the first few pages when I read the line: "Sure, we still had our famous potluck meetings, complete with prayer and gossip." Maybe it's just me...maybe I was too tired when I was reading to get into the "spirit" of the book...but I don't think so. Plain and simple: prayer and gossip do not go together. The Bible has a lot to say about the words we use whether spoken or in writing, and I believe that we, as Christians, need to be responsible for the words we use. And when we have a platform to touch many lives, we need to not gloss over what the Bible calls sin.

Christian entertainment should be a venue where you can trust the wholesomeness of the content to which you're exposing your mind. Seeing gossip, a sin, mentioned so non-chalantly in conjunction with prayer tells me that I would have to work too hard guarding my heart and mind while reading this book that it's not worth the effort. So, I'll simply put the book down, not recommend it - in fact, recommend that others NOT read it, and not seek out any other titles in this series.


"For I fear that perhaps when I come I may find you not as I wish, and that you may find me not as you wish--that perhaps there may be quarreling, jealousy, anger, hostility, slander, gossip, conceit, and disorder." 2 Corinthians 12:20

Comments

Anonymous said…
Stacey,
I am so grateful that we have found your blog. As one of the authors, I would like to comment on your review.

I wish that you would read the other books in the series or, in fact, read the whole of this book and see how these women are -- as you say YOU are -- warped -- and that as time moves on, they come to realize just how precious their friendship is, how vital prayer is (in fact), and that when they gossip (as we all do, even as you have here in this review) and when they fall short of God's glory (as we all do), that it is God and God alone who can pull them back up and help to correct the mistakes they have made. Throughout this series the girls have fallen on their knees to pray for each other and for those in their community. Sometimes they fall into the "gossip prayer" (which -- as someone in ministry -- I hear all the time). But God quickly disciplines them and they learn.

You speak of our responsibility as Christian authors. If we only wrote about cookie-cutter Christians, then we will not reach the masses. Why? Because there are no cookie-cutter Christians walking the earth today. We are all flawed. We like to use our stories to gently show Christian women (most notably) those flaws and how God can correct them and raise them up to be great women of God.

When Jesus gave his parables, he did not speak of perfect people to perfect people. Some of the characters in his stories were godly and others were the kind who slept with pigs and hid talents. In pointing out these flawed characters, Jesus gently pointed out the flaws in those who were within the sound of his voice.

Linda and I, through the blood, sweat, and tears of our labors (for not once have we taken this commission lightly) have attempted to do the same.

My prayer now is that those who read your words (which, by the way are hurtful and slanderous) will give our work and our ministry to hurting women (who we are constantly in contact with) a chance. If you had said we simply can't write -- which we know not to be true -- that would be one thing. But you have attacked our credibility as Christian writers, specifically.

Thank you so much.

Warmly,
Eva Marie Everson
Coauthor: The Potluck Club books
The Potluck Catering Club books

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