Book Review - Hope Springs by Kim Cash Tate

Hope Springs is written by Kim Cash Tate and published by Thomas Nelson.

Hope Springs, North Carolina, is the setting for this story. It's a small southern town with all of the small town problems - and blessings. In this offering, continuing the saga of "Grandma Geri", Kim Cash Tate gives us a real story about real problems of race and religion. Yes, it is fiction, but the story reads as if it were more real than that.

Janelle Evans goes back to Hope Springs with her two children for what she thinks will be a simple Christmas celebration. Her friends, Becca and Todd, are there for a family funeral - that of Todd's preacher father. 

Other family and friends arrive, like Stephanie. She has been pondering what God wants from her. She knows it's to become more servant-like, but how's she going to get to that place of servitude when she has a selfish heart?

There are other characters in Hope Springs that "fill in the cracks" and meld with the others to make a solid, gritty story. The central character, in my opinion, is Grandma Geri, however. She's the reason everyone keeps coming together. She is the glue that has held the family together for so many years. Now she finds she has a terminal illness that will cut her life short. Not only does it change her life, but that of her gathering family.

I loved this story, as I have loved the other books that Kim Cash Tate has written. I think the underlying message is that we are all the same underneath the varying shades of skin. It's really time that we come to learn that people are people and those of us who call ourselves Christians have a greater calling - to live in unity as we share the love of Christ with those who are lost.

**I received a copy of Hope Springs in exchange for my honest opinion. The opinions expressed are my own.**