Biographies & Memoirs

That’s How It Was by Hazel Pacheco

October 28, 2023 By Book Review Matchmaker Leave a Comment

That’s How It Was by Hazel Pacheco

A slyly funny and heart-warming tribute to childhood before technology. . . .

Childhood adventures on the family farm come alive in That’s How It Was.

On the last day of a family trip to grandma’s house, Sarah discovers a bit of family treasure – her dad’s letter diaries from many years ago. Through his musings on animals, faith, and career choices, readers join ten-year-old Randy Ray on a journey of exploration and discovery as he contemplates whimsical and not-so-whimsical career choices.

That’s How It Was by Hazel Pacheco

May 23, 2023 By Book Review Matchmaker Leave a Comment

That’s How It Was by Hazel Pacheco

A slyly funny and heart-warming tribute to childhood before technology. . . The last day of the family’s annual visit to the farm is filled with intrigue. Grandma is questioned, a long-forgotten book of letters is revealed, and Operation Finders-Keeper is set into motion. Still, it takes the trip home to finally uncover the answers Randy Ray’s daughter is seeking.

Return to Vienna by Peter Dixon

April 6, 2023 By Book Review Matchmaker Leave a Comment

Return to Vienna by Peter Dixon

‘Captain Charles Kennedy’ parachuted into a moonlit Austrian forest and searched frantically for his lost radio set. His real name was Leo Hillman and he was a Jewish refugee from Vienna. He was going home.
Men and women of Churchill’s secret Special Operations Executive worked to free Austria from Hitler’s grip. Many were themselves Austrians who had fled Nazi persecution. Trained and equipped by SOE, they courageously returned to their homeland. Some died in the attempt.
Their moving stories are part of the history of how Austria recovered her sovereignty.
‘An extraordinary and compelling account of the little-known operations of SOE and Austria in World War Two … shines a light on the bravery of the agents, in a narrative told with colour and vivacity, yet great sensitivity and meticulous research’, Dr Helen Fry, author of Spymaster.
Order your copy now!

My Demon, My Jesus by Blue Tapp

April 1, 2023 By Book Review Matchmaker Leave a Comment

My Demon, My Jesus by Blue Tapp

A near-death experience, a botched suicide that worked… then didn’t.

God had another plan.

“My Demon, My Jesus” is a Christian memoir about the author’s struggle with suicidal depression and how she destroyed her demons.

At 30 years old, Blue attempted suicide by swallowing a handful of sleeping pills. Her spirit left her body before she was brought back to life in the hospital. Blue is alive today because God miraculously saved her life. Four angels appeared and helped her call for help before she died.

However Blue’s battle with depression was far from over. She spent the next three years addicted to prescription medication under the care of a psychiatrist. But pills cannot cure depression.

Today Blue is completely free of depression and medication. She has learned the keys to living an amazing life of joy and victory. ”My Demon, My Jesus” describes her healing process through meditative prayer. Others who suffer from depression can follow these same steps to reach true lasting healing.

Blue’s healing was miraculous. But it was not instantaneous. It was a process of learning how to think in a healthy way, how to shift thought patterns and spirit life from defeat to victory. Blue’s journey will help others climb their way out of the trap of poisonous thought patterns and prescribed drug addictions. There are so many people fighting this battle…

Blue’s story took another extraordinary twist in 2019. She began experiencing astonishing visions where her soul was taken to heaven to pray for the world with millions of other saints. Today the visions continue weekly with messages from heaven. God wants us to know that He loves and cares deeply about each one of us. He wants us to know Him intimately. All believers are being called to join with the saints in praying for our world, for a great awakening that will draw multitudes of people to the heart of God.

One of God’s charges was to write everything down, every vision in detail. As she did this, a connection became apparent between the visions and her own life journey, from her early experiences of demonic oppression and suicidal depression to eventual miraculous healing. The visions about God’s love were a message of hope to everyone battling depression.

So she’s told it all… from a demonically oppressed disturbed child who also fell in love with Jesus and prayed to become a Christian at six years old…to a suicidally depressed young adult who overdosed on sleeping pills and was brought back from death in the hospital…to years addicted to prescription drugs…to miraculous healing, victorious life, and divine visions. Don’t miss this incredible true story!

That’s How It Was by Hazel Pacheco

September 26, 2022 By Book Review Matchmaker Leave a Comment

That’s How It Was by Hazel Pacheco

Best described as slyly funny and heart-warming, That’s How It Was: Operation Finders Keepers is uniquely written in letter format. Written from a ten-year-old boy’s perspective, Randy Ray’s letters prove to be captured moments in time just waiting to be discovered by his daughters thirty-seven years later. These treasured memories allow his daughters to get to know the boy who became their father.

That’s How It Was by Hazel Pacheco

May 26, 2022 By Book Review Matchmaker Leave a Comment

That’s How It Was by Hazel Pacheco

Mayhem 337: Memoir of a Combat Advisor in Afghanistan by Chad Rickard

February 4, 2022 By Book Review Matchmaker Leave a Comment

Mayhem 337: Memoir of a Combat Advisor in Afghanistan by Chad Rickard

In 2008, Senior U.S. Army Infantry Sergeant Chad Rickard embedded within the Afghan Army as a Combat Advisor. During a yearlong deployment, he slugged it out with Haqqani Taliban on Afghanistan’s eastern border, along Pakistan’s Northwest Frontier. Follow Rickard as he engages in mountain warfare against numerically superior enemy forces. See urban combat through the eyes of a Soldier that was there. Follow along as his team directs airstrikes and artillery fire. From hostage situations, to IEDs, and air assaults, this memoir leaves nothing to the imagination. Don’t miss this award-winning book and author.

Wheels of Injustice by Susan Louise Gabriel

January 21, 2022 By Book Review Matchmaker Leave a Comment

Wheels of Injustice by Susan Louise Gabriel

It began with one woman’s fight to save her child and ended in a national movement—
Six weeks into a blissful honeymoon, life turns into a nightmare when Susan’s 9-year-old daughter is taken away and her husband is falsely accused of child sexual abuse.
A simple misunderstanding is reshaped by the powerful, out-of-control child protection machine of the 1980s into something sinister, and Susan is dragged under its churning wheels. She is given the choice to cooperate in prosecuting her innocent husband or lose her daughter.
It’s the decade of unfounded abuse accusations, hysterical claims of orgies at daycare centers, families controlled by courts, and a child protection system that has become the very thing it was created to eradicate.
No one wants to hear the facts.
No one wants to know the truth.
When the couple doesn’t cave to the pressure, Susan loses custody of her daughter, and her husband is charged with a felony that carries a 16-year prison sentence.
Wheels of Injustice is a curtains-pulled-back, true account of the child protection system of the ’80s and its victims, who risked everything to expose its egregiously unjust acts and reform it.
“We are not to simply bandage the wounds of victims beneath the wheels of injustice, we are to drive a spoke into the wheel itself.” ― Dietrich Bonhoeffer
This memoir is a tribute to God’s faithfulness and a message of hope and inspiration to others who struggle to overcome adversity, fight injustice, or turn an upended life the right way around again.

All Is Not LOST by Shannon Kenny Carbonell

August 6, 2021 By Book Review Matchmaker Leave a Comment

All Is Not LOST by Shannon Kenny Carbonell

All Is Not LOST is the story of what happened when one woman set aside a lifelong dream in favor of her kids, only to find herself battling her own ego and unfulfilled ambition. Shannon Kenny Carbonell — wife of actor Nestor Carbonell of LOST, Bates Motel, and The Morning Show fame — knew she was making the better choice for her, no matter how painful, when she decided on full-time motherhood over career. Little did Shannon know she would soon find herself desperate to feed the part of her that was suddenly starved of creativity and accomplishment.

When she found out her family would be relocating to Oahu, Hawaii, while Nestor shot LOST, Shannon helped uproot their lives with as much true love and support as she could muster, thinking, ”I’ll just have to be lost in the midst of LOST.” But not long after the move, a torturous family fight revealed the burden of her loss was also weighing upon those closest to her. Just like the LOST survivors, she had crashed on an island that would test her, heal her, and surround her with the people who would eventually show her the way home.

With a no-holds-barred honesty that is raw, sometimes heartbreaking, and often hysterical, former working actress Shannon Kenny Carbonell tells her tale of attempting to reconcile her growing feelings of failure and sudden loss of her identity. This is her journey.

Finding Heaven In The Dark by William L. Ingram

March 29, 2021 By Book Review Matchmaker Leave a Comment

Finding Heaven In The Dark by William L. Ingram

FINDING HEAVEN IN THE DARK – A MEMOIR ABOUT LIFE’S MEANING
The Story of a Boy’s Journey from Rebellion To Redemption.