Showing results by author "Janette Oke" in All Categories

When it was first published in 1979, this novel introduced inspirational fiction to people hungry for well-told stories based on Christian values. Since then, over a million copies have been sold, and it has been made into a popular Hallmark movie. Janette Oke has won the Christy Award, the Gold Medallion, and scores of other awards.

One of the original founders of the Christian fiction genre, Janette Oke has authored more than 75 books and has recieved such accolades as the Christy and Gold Medallion Awards. This story of a frontier family begins where Love Comes Softly left off, telling the heart-warming tale of a marriage that began in tragedy but has flourished due to Marty and Clark's devotion to one another and to God.

With the closing of the Calder Springs' timber mill, most of the town's residents are left unemployed. Several families, realizing the lack of a future in the small mountain town, soon decide to relocate. Although John Harrigan has lost his job at the mill, he and his wife, Julia, make the decision to stay in their beautiful home with their twin daughters. Julia searches for a way to bring business and people back to Calder Springs - a task she feels God leading her to accomplish.

An excerpt from the book: "Sure, it's unusual to have an 18-year-old mother when you're 12. But when you're an orphan and she's your aunt and the only mother you've ever had well, as I explained, it had worked out real well..."

The fledgling church is being scattered by persecution. It is spearheaded by a fanatical young Pharisee who does not realize he is unwittingly aiding a divine mandate to spread the truth “unto the ends of the earth …”Young Julia has everything money can buy —except for acceptance by either Gentiles or Judeans in Tiberias. When she discovers the secret her beloved Greek father has kept all these years, she is devastated. Julia and her Hebrew mother are indeed less than second-class citizens.

Twenty years have passed since youngest daughter Belinda's story in Love Finds a Home. Marty and Clark's spiritual heritage has been lovingly passed on to their children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren. And now, beloved granddaughter Virginia faces the test of her young life. Caught in that difficult period between childhood and adulthood, feeling that she really doesn't fit anywhere, Virginia struggles against what she considers to be unreasonable restrictions and expectations.

Beth Thatcher returns home from her first year as a schoolteacher in the mining town of Coal Valley and steps into a whole different world. Her life back among her wealthy Eastern family is a stark contrast to her primitive life in the West, and Beth isn't sure where she belongs anymore. She barely has time to settle in before her mother announces plans for a family holiday - a luxurious steamship tour along the eastern coast of Canada and the U.S.

Years ago, Wynn and Elizabeth Delancy adopted Christine and Henry. Now Christine has moved to a nearby city. Working as a secretary in a prosperous company, she is drawn to her employer's handsome son. Henry has joined the Canadian Mounties, where one of his first duties is to help a young widow and her infant. In their new lives, as new relationships grow, can Christine and Henry still draw on the faith they have learned from their parents?

Newlyweds Missie and Willie share a dream. However, it means that Missie must leave her parents, family and friends behind to join a wagon train and claim land in the West with her new husband. Overcoming incredible hardships on the journey, she grows into a mature wife and mother. Her faith in God and love for her husband give Missie the strength to make a new life and home in an unknown territory.

After years of schooling, Beth Thatcher has graduated and is determined to become a teacher. But when she's assigned the position no one else wants - in the tiny mining town of Coal Valley, located in the rugged foothills of western Canada - she worries she doesn't have the courage to accept. Inspired by the diary of her aunt Elizabeth, who went west to teach school several years earlier, as well as her father's encouragement, Beth eventually decides to put her trust in God and leave behind all she's ever known.

Best-selling author of Too Long a Stranger and Julia's Last Hope, Janette Oke is loved for her inspirational novels. In Once Upon a Summer, Oke weaves the tender tale of 12-year-old, Joshua, who has been raised by his 18-year-old aunt and their grandparents. He has grown accustomed to their close-knit family, but that is all about to change when Joshua's aunt considers marriage. Johnny Heller touchingly narrates the trials of faith this family must face.

Happily married with four children, Virginia Lewis is perfectly content with her peaceful existence on the family farm. But change looms on the horizon. Grandma Marty and Grandpa Clark have always been a source of emotional strength, but their health is failing. And Virginia's adopted daughter, who has long been a blessing, may be torn from the family when her absentee birth mother resurfaces and pursues custody. Virginia may fear the unknown, but her unshakable convictions will help her embrace it.

Anne and Nicole are together again at the Harrow estate in England, but they find themselves facing divergent futures. While Anne comfortably settles into British life, Nicole once again searches the far horizon. Despite the raging War of Independence, she sets sail for the American colonies to manage her uncle's landholdings. The gallant Captain Goodwind captures Nicole's attention, but not yet her heart. In the midst of revolution, her loyalties and faith are tested beyond what she could have ever imagined.

Three-time Christy Award winner Davis Bunn collaborates with Janette Oke to evoke the tumult of first-century Judea in the wake of Christ’s crucifixion. Although she prefers service in Pontius Pilate’s palace to a loveless marriage, Leah is betrothed to a Roman centurion. Before he can have Leah, however, he must go on a secret mission. But when a rabbi’s missing body sends Leah and Alban after the same answers, what they discover could change all they hold dear.

Christine and her older brother, Henry, grew up in the Delaney family as loved and nurtured as if they had been born to Elizabeth and Wynn. Now adults, they are ready to make new lives for themselves. Henry has found love and is planning a wedding. Christine is delighted for her brother, but she is still carrying scars from a broken relationship. And the war in Europe causes uncertainties at every turn, while the Northland still calls to her heart.

When her husband dies, leaving Sarah Perry and her infant daughter destitute and alone in the rough frontier town, the determined widow takes over his freight-hauling business. As her baby grows into a young girl, Sarah sends her to the safety and refinement of a boarding school. But when they are reunited, Sarah realizes that they now live in two different, incompatible worlds. Too Long a Stranger follows this courageous widow as she tries to regain a loving relationship with her estranged daughter.

So much has been accomplished. Lillian Walsh has stepped out courageously beyond what she'd ever dreamed of being able to achieve. Two years ago, she was an only child, living in a big house with her adoptive parents. Now, she shares the large home with her newly rediscovered sister, Grace, and the orphaned children to whom Grace has devoted her life. But then the letter arrives - an official complaint revoking the sisters' permission to manage their little children's home.

Twenty years have passed since youngest daughter Belinda's story in Love Finds a Home. Marty and Clark's spiritual heritage has been lovingly passed on to their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. And now beloved granddaughter Virginia faces the test of her young life. Caught in that difficult period between childhood and adulthood, feeling that she doesn't really fit anywhere, Virginia struggles against what she considers to be unreasonable restrictions and expectations.

Virginia thought she would feel different - like an adult, with an inner knowledge that she was on the edge of the nest, ready to try her own wings. And then circumstances began swirling around her, making her rethink her plans and reevaluate her priorities. If she only knew what the future held....

Anne's sorrow over her husband's death has been eased by the unexpected discovery of his heritage in the Harrow family and by her marriage to a brilliant young theologian. The American colonies are in revolt against England, and Uncle Charles asks Nicole to go to Massachusetts to oversee his extensive landholdings. The attentions of the ship's captain during the crossing touch a yearning deep within her, but she also realizes all her loyalties are about to be tested.