Gosh, it’s been a long time since I shared some new book recommendations with all of you. I was going through my archives trying to find my last post sharing some of my favorite Christian and inspirational books, and I have not updated on that front in awhile. I’ve only wrote two posts on books I love: this one and this one. It is definitely time for an update!!

What probably led to this huge gap in me recapping my favorite books is that the last post was written shortly after I was in middle school, and after that point, we didn’t have time carved out in school to “free read” any more. It just led to an overall decrease in the amount of time I spend reading, which is a shame, but in some ways that might be okay because I read prolifically and I run out of things to read, honestly. There are only so many good Christian books out there, or sometimes I think books at all, for that matter. I’ve been really digging through my Goodreads recommendations, though, and I’m discovering some hidden gems that don’t get as much publicity as others.

Without further ado, let’s get into this updated list of my favorite books. Anymore, I do primarily like reading books in the Christian market or ones that have similar encouraging themes. I will read some YA from time to time but talk about redundant and boring that genre can be. I intend on bringing new life to it, eventually. 😉

Fiction

Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers: I don’t know how I missed Francine Rivers and specifically this book of hers for so long. She doesn’t have as many books as Karen Kingsbury, but they have the same reputation in the Christian fiction world. I actually was inspired to look up this book a couple years ago when I saw Karen mention it in her testimony on her website. I looked it up and started reading an excerpt of it, and I really liked what I read and was intrigued, so I knew I had to read the whole thing.

Other than the Bible, this is my favorite book of all time. I’ve read it like at least over five times and can find it entertaining and take away something new and important from it every time. Is it flawless? No, there are elements I’m not as fond of, but overall, it’s an excellent story with many poignant themes and lessons. I plan to do a whole post on this book and what I love about it, and that one will include spoilers. It’s funny because the first time I read this book, it was when I was struggling emotionally over the pandemic, and I cried and was so mad at God after I read it. That’s a weird thing to say for what is now my favorite book, I know, but it’s because I missed the point.

Seeing as this is a love story, I focused more on the romantic aspects of it, so when this wounded, lost, rebellious main character got this dream guy (this book is supposed to be an allegory for God’s relationship with us) who protected her and loved her pretty dang near perfectly, all I could think about was how bad I wanted that in my life, and I was mad at God for not giving it to me. I had a lot of issues going on at this time, which are going to be many blog posts in and of themselves since it was a big turning point in my life, but I say this because you have to read the book in light of what it represents.

There’s a movie that just released this fall based on it, andddd if you ask me whether you should see it, I’d say that’s up to you. I was super excited for it initially, then dreaded it for awhile, but I was thrilled to see it, and when I saw it, it landed about where I expected. There are some nice points it made, but mostly, in my opinion, it’s a very simplified, water-down version of the book. If you fall in love with the book for its Christian themes, you probably will be disappointed by the movie. Supposedly the author had a lot of control over it, but it was very much created for the general market, which was a turn-off for me.

Back to the book, though: it does an excellent job addressing healing, true love, forgiveness, and the redeeming power of God. The characters are mostly relatable, or at least I could find good things about all of them that resonated, and they are realistic. I could say more but I’m going to save it for its own post because I’ve already talked about this for five paragraphs now.

A Voice in the Wind series by Francine Rivers: Yeah, so now I’ve been on a big Francine Rivers kick; I wish she did have as many books as Karen Kingsbury because she’s an outstanding storyteller who knows how to expertly weave biblical themes into them. I read this series shortly after Redeeming Love, and I loved it, overall. These are LONG books, and my only complaint would be that sometimes they can drag, but she does an outstanding job providing realistic, historical detail that brings the stories to life and makes them so engaging and hard to put down. This story has a sweet romance, does a phenomenal job detailing ancient Rome (and the parallels it has to society now…making all the themes even more relevant), and the biblical themes are realistically and wonderfully developed.

The Water Keeper series by Charles Martin: These books are a little bit out of what I normally read, as I would classify them as more adventure/action stories, but I still really enjoyed them because they’re deep, poignant, suspenseful, and riveting. It deals with the issue of human trafficking, relational healing, and more, and while these books aren’t as overtly Christian as others, those themes are still weaved throughout them. I believe the third book just came out, and I need to read it because I haven’t finished the series yet and it always leaves on a cliff-hanger. I’m also interested in reading more from Charles Martin in the future.

Montana Rose and The Husband Tree by Mary Connealy: I LOVE Mary Connealy’s writing. I’d never heard of her before finding her in my Goodreads recommendations, but her stories are delightful yet don’t skimp on deeper, relevant subject matter, and they’re also developed with great historical depth and care. These are both romances but I love how the themes extend beyond the romance. Mary reminds me a lot of Jenny B. Jones, except I like Mary a lot better because her stories aren’t as cheesy as I feel Jenny’s could sometimes be, and the Christian themes are a lot more consistent throughout the stories. I still have to read the last book in this series, but I know I’ll love it because the characters are in these two books.

The Lady’s Mine by Francine Rivers: Alright, one more Francine book. This is her newest release, which I was SO excited for, and it did live up to my expectations. Only thing I will say is it takes awhile to wrap things up, BUT this one of hers ended up with very satisfying depth once it finally did. Some of her books tend to leave you hanging once things wrap up, and I don’t like when authors do that. She said this book was going to be more reminiscent of her older romances because she used to be a romance author for the general market, but that was before she got saved. Obviously, this book didn’t go completely back to that in abandoning its Christian values, but it wasn’t quite as heavy as her others because she wrote it during the pandemic as more of a light-hearted story.

However, I was still impressed with the Christian themes it held, even if they weren’t quite as prevalent as in her other books, and I loved the romance of it. She does such a good job with it, and it’s so nice being able to just enjoy it without worrying about it getting raunchy since she does write with her faith in mind. She also doesn’t shy away from the intimate and passionate aspects of romance, though, which I like, and actually, all of these books are like that, which is why they’re favorites of mine.

The Wives of King David series by Jill Eileen Smith: I have to say, a new genre I am getting hooked on is biblical fiction. It helps me learn and study the Word so much more, not because these series are substitutes for God’s Word, but because they help me gain perspective around it and make it more relatable for me by writing it as an extended story. Francine Rivers also had a great series on the women of the Bible that captivated and moved me, and I’m actually reading this series of Jill’s right now. I LOVE it. It is so interesting and entertaining, and I love that it is based right on God’s Word and actual events that happened. I learn so much about my own life and God through these that are so well done. Even though I’m only on the first book and have skimmed the other two so far, I know these will be favorites of mine because of that, and I definitely recommend them. She also has a series called The Loves of Solomon that I will be reading, too.

Nonfiction

Uninvited: Living Loved When You Feel Less Than, Left Out, and Lonely by Lysa TerKeurst: I read this back in 2019, and it inspired this post on me learning to surrender and trust God. This book was very eye-opening and reassuring for me. It was one of the first main times I felt like I finally had permission to let go and realize that me not obtaining what I wanted wasn’t my fault or the worst thing that could happen to me. Its themes and messages have still stuck with me, and it’s just a great book about knowing your worth in Him, trusting Him, and healing from painful experiences. Plus, Lysa knows and shares many personal experiences to help it hit home, which is all the more reassuring. I feel like this is a book everyone should read, especially women.

Love and Respect: The Love She Most Desires; The Respect He Desperately Needs by Emerson Eggerichs: If you’ve been immersed in the Christian…well, I don’t know what word fits here; I guess I’ll go with community, you might have heard of this book. It’s becoming very well-known for its marriage insight, and it may even be gaining traction outside of the Christian community, too. There’s a lot I want to say about this book, but I’ll first start by saying, since some of you may be wondering why I read this book and consider it one of my favorites seeing as I’m as single as it gets, I really enjoy reading about things I don’t have. Kidding, kind of, but really, marriage is a huge thing, and it’s become such a casual, dysfunctional relationship in our culture anymore. People don’t even know what marriage means anymore, much less the dynamics and understanding needed to have a good one.

Well, I’ve longed for an extraordinary marriage since I was practically out of the womb, so it’s very important to me that I know as much as I can about how God intends for it to be, from both a husband and wife. This book does an incredible job of not only giving a lot of solid, practical marriage advice, but also really explaining the psychology behind the genders and how God created them, which is why I think it’s perfectly applicable for singles. If you’re a woman aware of your own primary needs God created you with and how He desires for a husband to fulfill them and you’re also aware of what his God-given needs will be and how God expects you to meet them, more power to you and vice versa.

What I love about this book, and I have read lots of marriage and intimacy books (I won’t lie, it’s an area of passion and interest for me, whether you think that’s right or wrong given my present relationship status, haha) where I don’t feel this as much, is that it equally emphasizes BOTH husband and wife’s responsibility in meeting the other’s needs. It examines both the unhealthy and healthy psychological cycles of a marriage, including what leads to one or the other and how to achieve a healthy cycle. It breaks down every primary need of women and men, which isn’t to say (and he acknowledges this) that those are the ONLY needs of each gender, or that if men have a primary need for sex, as an example, doesn’t mean that women don’t at all, but that on average, each gender tends to have the same primary needs that can differ in priority from the other gender.

He does an amazing job explaining the difference between love and respect to the genders, which was SO eye-opening for me as a typical female who couldn’t imagine a man wanting respect more than love from his wife. PLUS, as a very important PLUS, I realize that typical of a lot of self-help books, sometimes advice on subjects like these can rub salt in a wound. For instance, what do you do in a marriage where one partner genuinely desires to change and mature and meet the needs of their partner and grow in understanding of them, while the receiving partner has no such desire and does not respond with the love/respect the other partner needs? Well, this book has an amazing, encouraging section on that. And I don’t say that lightly! I know people whose marriages have been very hard and difficult who found encouragement in it, and as someone who’s been a witness of that at times, I also found encouragement in it. I am pretty skeptical about those types of “sermons” because usually I feel like authors just add them as an afterthought and try to just wish their best, so to speak, to people who are struggling. But no, this author gets it, and he really hit the nail on the head in providing genuine, lasting, GODLY encouragement to people who struggle in their marriages, who give and don’t get a lot back. I appreciate that a ton.

I think I’ve read this book twice, the second time not too long ago, and it resonated with me even more the second time around. I love psychology and learning about how to be a healthy, godly person and have healthy relationships as God desires them to be, and this book provides a great overview of both genders and marriage, so if you’re looking to get into these sorts of books, this one is a staple. I’ve learned so much just about myself and why I am the way I am through this book; it’s very insightful.

So, that covers it for now! I have to say, I thought this list would be a little bit longer; it just shows I haven’t had much time to read, but that’s okay if the post stays on the shorter end because I need to learn to cut things off, haha. There will be more to come because when I bought a new laptop for school this year, Apple gave me a generous gift card, which I still have a lot of money left on, and with that, I will be buying more books on my list! By the way, you can follow me on Goodreads if you want. Mom already has several nonfiction books I want to read in our Kindle library, too.

Thanks for reading; I hope you enjoy some of these books and let me know which ones you like!