Church Women

Loveday Cardew prefers books to people. If you look carefully, you might glimpse the first lines of the novels she loves most tattooed on her skin. But there are some things Loveday will never, ever show you. Into her hiding place - the bookstore where she works - come a poet, a lover, and three suspicious deliveries. Someone has found out about her mysterious past. Will Loveday survive her own heartbreaking secrets?

Most women in the church don't aspire to "lord" it over men, nor do they want to scramble for position. Instead, they want to be accepted as full participants in God's work, sharing in kingdom tasks in ways that use their gifts appropriately. In Gender Roles and the People of God, author, radio host, and professor at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary Alice Mathews surveys the roles women have played in the Bible and throughout church history, demonstrating both the inspiring contributions of women and the many hurdles that have been placed in their path.

Librarian Martha Storm has always found it easier to connect with books than people—though not for lack of trying. She keeps careful lists of how to help others in her superhero-themed notebook. And yet, sometimes it feels like she’s invisible. All of that changes when a book of fairy tales arrives on her doorstep. Inside, Martha finds a dedication written by her best friend—her grandmother Zelda—who died under mysterious circumstances years ago. When Martha discovers a clue within the book that her grandmother may still be alive, she becomes determined to discover the truth.

When three little girls—Anna, Bernie, and Elica—make a pact to be blood sisters for life, they believe nothing can come between them. Anna is from an affluent Jewish family, while Bernie and Elica are from poor Austrian families who barely make ends meet. As they get older, their social differences become all too real. With infectious Jew-hate-laden rhetoric from Nazi Germany spreading into Austria, it is only a matter of time before their bond of friendship gets severely tested.

Modern readers of the New Testament often notice its varying ideas about women. Some passages encouraged women to be submissive and remain silent. Yet in others, women characters owned property, headed households, or spoke with approval. Women in the New Testament World helps listeners understand this conflicting evidence. It argues that social norms of the time encouraged traditional feminine virtues. However, as Susan Hylen argues, women in the culture enacted these virtues in a variety of ways, including active leadership in households, associations, and cities.

London, 1754. Six years after leaving her illegitimate newborn at the Foundling Hospital, Bess Bright returns to reclaim the daughter she has never known. Dreading the worst, that she has died in care, she is astonished to discover someone pretending to be Bess has already claimed her. Her life is turned upside-down as she tries to find out who has taken her little girl - and why.

Carl Weber is the New York Times best-selling author of such fan favorites as So You Call Yourself a Man. The First Lady is the tale of a preacher's wife who learns she's dying and vows to find her husband another woman. There is no shortage of ladies who want her man, but will she be able to find a suitable replacement among the conniving church women?

Cooper Lee is on top of the world thanks to her great friends at Hope Street Church and the satisfaction of having solved two perplexing mysteries. And with Valentine's Day just around the corner, she's hoping that love is in the air for her and her new boyfriend, Nathan. But Cooper's faith is about to be tested when her sister, Ashley, discovers a corpse and is implicated in the gruesome murder. And, just as troubling, a darkly handsome and exciting man has come into Cooper's life and just might tempt her to stray.

Amy Orr-Ewing has learned a lot of lessons the hard way. As an internationally known speaker, theologian, and apologist, she has navigated through many challenges: battling abuse, finding and using her voice, building a lasting ministry, leading with confidence, thriving in friendship, relying on God in hard times, and more. Now, she's sharing the wisdom she has gained over twenty-five years with other women so they, too, can grow in Christian leadership.

Tor, Cress and Kate have been best friends for as long as they can remember. Through all the challenges of marriage, raising children and maintaining their high-flying careers, they have stuck together as a powerful and loyal force to be reckoned with - living proof that 21st-century women can have it all, and do. It is only when the captivating Harry comes into their lives that things begin to get complicated, as Tor, Cress and Kate are drawn into Harry's dangerous games....

The girls of St John the Divine, an elite English boarding school, were notorious for flipping their hair, harassing teachers, chasing boys, and chain-smoking cigarettes. They were fiercely loyal, sharp-tongued, and cuttingly humorous in the way that only teenage girls can be. For Josephine, now in her 30s, the years at St John were a lifetime ago. She hasn’t spoken to another Divine in 15 years, not since the day the school shuttered its doors in disgrace. Yet now Josephine inexplicably finds herself returning to her old stomping grounds.

In Jezebel Unhinged Tamura Lomax traces the use of the jezebel trope in the Black church and in Black popular culture, showing how it is pivotal to reinforcing men's cultural and institutional power to discipline and define Black girlhood and womanhood. Drawing on writing by medieval thinkers and travelers, Enlightenment theories of race, the commodification of women's bodies under slavery, and the work of Tyler Perry and Bishop T. D. Jakes, Lomax shows how Black women are written into religious and cultural history as sites of sexual deviation.

In Women of Hope, Terry Polakovic introduces these amazing women and describes the troubled times in which they lived and persevered. These women remind us that God can work through anyone to bring about his purpose. They prove to us that, as Christians, we can live in confident hope, no matter the circumstances in which we find ourselves.

China, December 1941. Having left an unhappy life in England for a teaching post at a missionary school in northern China, Elspeth Kent is now anxious to return home to help the war effort. But as she prepares to leave China, a terrible twist of fate determines a different path for Elspeth, and those in her charge. Ten-year-old Nancy Plummer has always felt safe at Chefoo School, protected by her British status.

This Christian wisdom literature contains more than 400 thoughtful quotes of wisdom across over 30 topics (spanning from education and friendship to humility and happiness) from King Solomon's Old Testament Biblical book of Proverbs that can be great for anyone interested in living wisely.

New York Times best-selling author Carl Weber is a master at portraying unforgettable characters and complex, passionate relationships. Voluptuous Loraine Farrow is as successful as she is curvy, but life is never easy when you want to have your cake and eat it too. With her husband Leon confronting issues from his past, trouble arises on the homefront - and more drama is on the way in the form of Michael, an ex-lover desperate to rekindle his and Loraine’s once torrid flame.

Cooper Lee and her friends in the Hope Street Bible Study Group are enjoying a glorious summer day in the park, complete with a picnic, hiking, swimming, and a local bluegrass band. But Cooper knows that no good day goes unpunished, and when a man turns up dead in the nearby woods - and the sister of Cooper's fiancé is named as the prime suspect - the group may have to trade in their prayers of thanks for pleas of divine intervention.

Desperate to be reunited with her husband, Daniel, Elica walks into the dreaded den of the ruthless Gestapo. She's ready to sacrifice anything for their love. Anna and her family find themselves at the mercy of Anna's heart-throb, Ulf. Ulf's obsession with Anna puts him in a quandary—between his loyalty to the Fuhrer and his burning desire for the forbidden fruit.

Anna has found solace and love in the colorful Romany camp. How long will this last under the watchful eye of a spurned and obsessed Nazi? In the unrelenting grimness of Ravensbrück, Moriah is caught in the web of Dagna's deadly ambition and schemes. Her chances for survival diminish with every passing moment. Shunned by society for the telling scar on her face, Elica struggles to live with the consequences of her selfish choices. Will she ever find love, redemption, or her son Theo, again?

The Isle of Jersey was once a warm and neighborly community, but in 1943, German soldiers patrol the cobbled streets, imposing a harsh rule. Nazis have ordered Grace La Mottée, the island's only librarian, to destroy books that threaten the new regime. Instead, she hides the stories away in secret. Along with her headstrong best friend, she wants to fight back. So she forms the Wartime Book Club: a lifeline, offering fearful islanders the joy and escapism of reading.