I’m addicted to Amy Harmon’s books as surely as I’m addicted to chocolate. Several things I love about Harmon’s books are:
- they put across a simple, yet profound moral
- her language is as rich and smooth as frosting over brownies, and
- the characters always become my best friends.
Amy’s writing journey has been kind of like the Cinderella story. She started out unknown, but worked her fingers off to get her stories out there. Her humble beginnings of symbolically “scrubbing the floor” have been transformed into “glitzy balls and handsome princes” now. Her last book, A Different Blue, made it to the NY Times Bestseller list several weeks in a row. And Making Faces is following suit and making it’s FACE known to the world as well. Go Amy!
Synopsis:
Ambrose Young was beautiful. He was tall and muscular, with hair that touched his shoulders and eyes that burned right through you. The kind of beautiful that graced the covers of romance novels, and Fern Taylor would know. She’d been reading them since she was thirteen. But maybe because he was so beautiful he was never someone Fern thought she could have…until he wasn’t beautiful anymore.
Making Faces is the story of a small town where five young men go off to war, and only one comes back. It is the story of loss. Collective loss, individual loss, loss of beauty, loss of life, loss of identity. It is the tale of one girl’s love for a broken boy, and a wounded warrior’s love for an unremarkable girl. This is a story of friendship that overcomes heartache, heroism that defies the common definitions, and a modern tale of Beauty and the Beast, where we discover that there is a little beauty and a little beast in all of us.
My Review
Making Faces put me in an emotional upheaval as I got to know diverse characters:
- Fern, who is mediocre and overlooked, yet yearns for the wrestling star at school to notice her
- Ambrose Young, who is never overlooked and feels pressure from every angle of his life to succeed and do Herculean feats
- Rita, a girl who never seems to discover who she is behind her beautiful face, and
- Bailey, a cripple with Multiple Sclerosis who has a heart of gold.
I came to love each of these people as if they were part of my circle of friends…or even family. Making Faces took tragedy and weaved a message of hope. It inspired me to look beyond what I see on the outside, and look within each person I meet to discover their true beauty. I love all of Amy’s books, and this one was no different. Here are some of my favorite quotes:
Ambrose Young had a voice fitting of the package it was encased in. It was smooth and deep and impossibly rich. If dark chocolate could sing it would sound like Ambrose Young.
(How can you not melt and know exactly how he sings after reading that? Bravo, Amy! That is the best description ever.)
I’ve often thought that beauty can be a deterrent to love….Because sometimes we fall in love with a face and not what’s behind it. (Fern’s father)
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Purchase at: Amazon / Amazon UK / Barnes & Noble / Smashwords / iTunes: COMING SOON
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About Amy Harmon
Amy Harmon knew at an early age that writing was something she wanted to do, and she divided her time between writing songs and stories as she grew. Having grown up in the middle of wheat fields without a television, with only her books and her siblings to entertain her, she developed a strong sense of what made a good story. Amy Harmon has been a motivational speaker, a grade school teacher, a junior high teacher, a home school mom, and a member of the Grammy Award winning Saints Unified Voices Choir, directed by Gladys Knight. She released a Christian Blues CD in 2007 called “What I Know” – also available on Amazon and wherever digital music is sold. She has written five novels, Running Barefoot, Slow Dance in Purgatory, Prom Night in Purgatory, the New York Times Bestseller, A Different Blue and now, Making Faces.
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This book really was better than chocolate; I am still savoring the aftertaste of Making Faces and craving more great books from Amy Harmon in the future. Hope you get the chance to enjoy it as much as I did.
Joy in the Moments 
Now I really need to make a pan of brownies with chocolate frosting.
Or read a book that is written so well it makes you forget about brownies and frosting.
That’s right!
I still have to check out her books and read one – Great Post – thanks for sharing! Happy Tuesday:)
They’re super good! Amy is a talented writer who knows how to jab you right in the heart (in a good way)
If dark chocolate could sing? Amy Harmon sure knows how to write for her female audience, I love it!
Hee hee! Yes! Isn’t that a divine description? Dark chocolate could only sing one way–amazing!
The books sound good, the chocolate sounds good, the giveaway is good. All is good! 🙂
Yea!!! Good is good. You know these books are good when I say they’re better than chocolate.
This book sounds excellent. I went and grabbed a copy for myself right away. Thanks for sharing, Charissa. I hadn’t heard of this author before.
Glad to have introduced her to you, Taylor. Amy is amazing! I’ve loved all her books (like yours). My favorite of hers is still A Different Blue. That one just touched me deep, deep down. I reread it and still adore it. My daughter loves it best too.
Hmm, that’s quite the lovely cover, isn’t it? Between that and the chocolate, what are you trying to do to us, Char? 😉
By the way, I love Ms. Harmon’s author pic. Gorgeous! And so much more natural than anything I could pull off.
I know! Amy looks like a Hollywood star. She doesn’t look old enough to have kids out of high school.
Better than chocolate is quite the recommendation coming from you! It sounds like a great story that everyone could learn from.
It is a great story! Amy has a gift.
Better than chocolate? Well, you definitely got my attention 🙂
It’s one of those books that you’re sad to finish because you’ve had such a good time reading it.
It’s hard to believe anything is better than chocolate so I’ll have to check it out. I still have to read A Different Blue. First though, I’m going to have to find some chocolate for lunch.
Are you feeling better now? I’m assuming you found your chocolate stash. I hope you get to read A Different Blue or Making Faces. Blue was my favorite, but Making Faces was still extremely well written and had an amazing message. I just loved Blue’s character best. But Bailey in Making Faces was the coolest character ever (but in a different way). Are you confused yet?
It sounds like I’ll have to read both of them! I never did find chocolate but I’ll have to find some tonight. All this looking forward to Halloween is going to make me eat way too much of it. I guess I should save some for the trick-or-treaters though. 🙂
Ha ha! Or maybe you should dress up and go out with the trick or treaters.
If dark chocolate could sing, then I’d really be in trouble! Sounds like a great book (and the cover isn’t too shabby, either).
No kidding. I’d be in trouble too.
Great review Char! Not sure which I want more to eat chocolate or the read the book…or maybe I’ll just do both 🙂
Both is kind of like mixing peanut butter with chocolate to get a Reeses–Delicious!
Yum and I just happen to have some Reeses left over from Halloween. I think I’ll go have some now! 🙂
Lucky. The Reeses disappeared first here. It was gone within seconds of turning off the porch lights.