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A Christmas Journey Home Virtual Book Tour

Join Kathi Macias, author of the Christian contemporary seasonal novel, A Christmas Journey Home (New Hope Publishers, October 5, 2011), as she virtually tours the blogosphere in October 2011 on her ninth virtual book tour with Pump Up Your Book!
About Kathi Macias
Kathi Macias is a multi-award winning writer who has authored more than 30 books and ghostwritten several others. A former newspaper columnist and string reporter, Kathi has taught creative and business writing in various venues and has been a guest on many radio and television programs. Kathi is a popular speaker at churches, women’s clubs and retreats, and writers’ conferences, and won the 2008 Member of the Year award from AWSA (Advanced Writers and Speakers Association). Kathi “Easy Writer” Macias lives in Homeland, CA, with her husband, Al, where the two of them spend their free time buzzing around in their new ride: Al’s 2005 sunburst orange Corvette. Here latest releases are Deliver Me From Evil and A Christmas Journey Home.
You can find out more about Kathi’s writing and speaking at www.kathimacias.com
About A Christmas Journey Home
During Isabella Alcantara’s seventh month of pregnancy, her parents and siblings are murdered in gang- and drug-related violence, simply because their home was targeted by mistake. Isabella knows she was spared only because she now lives in a different location, but she knows too that the same thing could easily happen to her and her husband, Francisco. When her grandfather offers to hire a “coyote” to bring them across the border to America, she agrees. But Francisco and Isabella are abandoned by the coyote and left to die. Francisco then valiantly sacrifices himself to get Isabella to safety. Homeless, nearly penniless, pregnant, and alone, Isabella determines to find a way to honor her promise to her beloved husband.
Living on one of the smaller spreads along the Arizona border, Miriam Nelson becomes furious with God and turns from her faith when her border patrol agent husband, David, is killed in a skirmish with drug smugglers. Though her mother and young son do their best to woo her back from the anger and bitterness that have overtaken her, they make little headway.
Two widows—one driven by fear and a promise, the other by bitterness and revenge—must make their journeys along different pathways, but with the same destination: a barn full
of animals that stands waiting for them on Christmas Eve. Forced to face their personal demons, Isabella and Miriam soon discover a common yearning that will bind them together in a most miraculous way.
Read an excerpt!
PROLOGUE
Isabella shivered, her teeth chattering as she huddled against the frigid night air, doing her best to burrow her backside into Francisco’s embrace. How could her esposo sleep in such harsh conditions? She and her husband had not eaten in nearly three days, they were almost out of water, and now she felt as if they would surely freeze to death before morning. And yet his even breathing, blowing warm against the back of her neck, assured her that her beloved had indeed escaped their dilemma for at least a few hours.
Isabella wished she could do the same. During the daylight hours, when her feet burned with each tortuous step, she imagined that she could fall asleep in an instant if given half the chance. But when the desert sun, still hot in mid-autumn, finally sank below the flat, dismal horizon and the night winds blew mercilessly upon them, sleep eluded her. True, Francisco did everything he could to protect her from the elements, even using his body to shield her as they sought meager shelter under a small rock overhang or behind a sand dune, but it was never enough. They were going to die; she was sure of it. She and her husband of eleven months would perish in the middle of the Arizona desert, with only the scavengers to dispose of their remains.
A slight flutter in her stomach reminded her that death would come to three of them, not just two. The baby that had been growing in her stomach for seven months and that less than a week earlier had kicked with strength and determination now grew weaker by the day.
Perhaps it is best, she told herself. It was a foolish dream to think we could escape the violence and poverty of our home country and find a new life here, north of the border. My abuelo meant well, but we should never have listened to him…should never have taken his money and given it to the coyote….
The ominous glare of the coyote, the man who had promised to take them safely to the United States but who instead had stolen their money and left them to die in the desert, danced through her memory, but she pushed it aside. Instead she focused on the beloved face of her grandfather, her abuelo, and fought the hot tears that stung her eyes as she wished yet again that she and Francisco were back in Don Alfredo’s casita, sharing a simple meal of tortillas and frijoles with the leathery-skinned old man Isabella had adored since she was a tiny girl.
Despite her discomfort, the memory of her abuelo’s face brought a smile to her lips, as she snuggled closer into her esposo’s embrace. But then another memory, the horror of what had driven Don Alfredo to the point of pleading with them to flee across the border, wiped away her smile and once again brought tears to Isabella’s weary eyes.
My Thoughts

A Christmas Journey Home….by Kathi Macias
First of all, this is not the usual type of Christmas story you would expect to read around Christmas Time. But leave it to Kathi Macias to create a cast of characters and weave a story so realistic and believable it’s almost like reading the headlines in the paper. That is, until the end of the story.
At the instance of Isabella’s grandfather, she and her husband Francisco go across the border into America because most of her family was murdered in a drive by killing. Expecting to find safety, the journey was anything but what they were expecting.
Miriam Nelson loses her husband to murder by a drug smuggler trying to cross the border, and doesn’t want anything to do with God, and especially any illegal immigrants trying to cross the border. But circumstances in life chances her attitude about how she feels.
God has a different plan for both of these ladies that either of them ever imagined. The journey they both encountered was so sad and horrific both thought their lives were doomed forever. Isabella and Miriam’s story is of one of violence and pain, destruction and loss, hate and bitterness, but one that turns to mercy and grace, love and forgiveness.
If you are looking for an easy read Christmas story, you may not like this book. But if you’re looking for a story of love and redemption, the real reason Jesus was born on that Christmas so long ago, then you will love Miriam and Isabella’s story. It is not an easy read, but one that will stay with you for a long time. One that will cause you to remember the real meaning of Christmas. As always, I love that Kathi writes the Christian life into her stories. Showing us as readers that it is not always a fun happy life, but one of peace and joy when we have the Lord carry us through our difficulties.
This book was provided by PUYB blog tours. I was not expected to give a positive review, only an honest one. The opinions in this review are mine only.


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