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5th out of 280 books
—
394 voters
Even Now (Lost Love #1)
Sometimes hope for the future is found in the ashes of yesterday.
Shane Galantera man ready to put down roots after years of searching. But is he making the right choice? Or is there a woman somewhere who even now remembers as does he those long-ago days . . . and a love that hasn't faded with time?
Lauren Gibbs a successful international war correspondent who gave up on ha...more
Shane Galantera man ready to put down roots after years of searching. But is he making the right choice? Or is there a woman somewhere who even now remembers as does he those long-ago days . . . and a love that hasn't faded with time?
Lauren Gibbs a successful international war correspondent who gave up on ha...more
Paperback, 333 pages
Published
December 9th 2005
by Zondervan Publishing Company
(first published January 1st 2005)
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A+; Emotions ranging from heartbreaking to triumphant in this lovely novel. If you've ever doubted the power of one moment, you won't after reading this. Ms. Kingsbury is without question the best in Christian fiction, delivering a powerful message that does not come across as preachy or ignore the realities in life. No goody-two-shoes characters cripple her prose. Real people struggle with their faith issues and come out closer to God and each other because of it.
Emily Anderson was born to teenage parents who were separated by their own parents as a result of her coming into the world. Emily is raised by her grandparents who have been searching for her mother, Lauren, who has been missing since Emily was just weeks old. Once Emily is old enough, she begins searching, too, only her search expands to find her father, Shane, as well, whose parents moved to California to keep him away from her mother. It is a story of lost love, but one I found rather predic...more
It is a good thing that this is not the first Kingsbury book that I have read, because if it had been, I would not have read another and that would have been a loss. The constant emotional pain that the characters in "Even Now" endure (most of it brought on by themselves) for a solid eighteen years and 333 pages left me wrung out and exhausted. Even when the happy ending came, I couldn't feel the joy.
The experiences shared by the seven main characters were told and retold endlessly through ea...more
The experiences shared by the seven main characters were told and retold endlessly through ea...more
I've been putting off writing my review on this book because I'm not sure what to say. Generally, I don't especially like Christian fiction. This book is an example of why I don't like it. The story felt contrived and forced, like the author tried to imagine everything that could possibly go wrong and made it happen. I just kept feeling frustrated that the characters weren't using common sense to prevent these horrible things from happening. But worse was that I felt like the author was trying t...more
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Oct 10, 2009
Maria
marked it as to-read
Lost Love Series
EVEN NOW
The first book, Even Now, is the story of a young woman seeking answers to her heart's deep questions. A man and woman separated by lies and long years. . . yet who have never forgotten each other. With hallmark tenderness and power, Karen Kingsbury weaves a tapestry of lives, losses, love, and faith and the miracle of resurrection
EVER AFTER
In Ever After, the moving sequel to Even Now, Emily Anderson, now twenty, is attending college on a soccer scholarship when she meets...more
EVEN NOW
The first book, Even Now, is the story of a young woman seeking answers to her heart's deep questions. A man and woman separated by lies and long years. . . yet who have never forgotten each other. With hallmark tenderness and power, Karen Kingsbury weaves a tapestry of lives, losses, love, and faith and the miracle of resurrection
EVER AFTER
In Ever After, the moving sequel to Even Now, Emily Anderson, now twenty, is attending college on a soccer scholarship when she meets...more
It wasn't outstandingly beautiful prose, or a praise-worthy plot line, but this book made me cry. And for that, I give it 5 stars. There have been around, maybe 6, 7, books in my life that have had me sobbing (it's not easy to get my tears going in books) and this one had me wailing into the book in the middle of the night. Even Now had me smiling and laughing and making some sort of sound in my throat that sounded like sobbing and choking all at once... When Lauren and Shane were finally reunit...more
Even Now is part of the many stories about second chances and lost loves in which I've found myself reading lately. Nonetheless, it was a wonderful read that stood out in my mind.
Despite having a pretty good idea of the events that would follow and feeling prepared for the emotional journey, the story was still engrossing and compelling. After several chapters, it became evident that the focus wasn't going to be on lost love as much as it was on forgiveness and redemption.
Lauren Anderson and Sh...more
Despite having a pretty good idea of the events that would follow and feeling prepared for the emotional journey, the story was still engrossing and compelling. After several chapters, it became evident that the focus wasn't going to be on lost love as much as it was on forgiveness and redemption.
Lauren Anderson and Sh...more
Lauren and Shane are teenagers in love. They met because their parents were business partners who owned a bank. It became physical and Lauren ends up pregnant. This pits family against family and parents who feel they can tell their children what to do in this situation. Yes, you should counsel your children if this happen. but they lied and deceived them. Pressure to give up the baby and Shane's family moving from the Chicago area to LA breaks apart the couple just before the baby is born. When...more
EVEN NOW .....
THE STORY REVOLVES AROUND TWO KIDS LAUREN AND SHANE BOTH SEVENTEEN YEARS OLD DEEPLY AND MADLY IN LOVE HAVING PARENTS WHO ARE BEST OF FRIENDS. BUT THE MOST UNFORTUNATE EVENT HAPPENING TO THEM IS LAUREN GETTING PREGNANT AT 17 .THE STORY MOVES FORWARD WHEN PARENTS DECIDE TO KEEP THEIR KIDS APART RESULTING INTO NEXT EIGHTEEN YEARS WHERE LAUREN SHANE AND THEIR DAUGHTER LIVING APART MISSING EACH OTHER FOR SO MANY DEAR YEARS AND THE GRANT PARENTS LIVING IN GUILT AND REMORSE FOR NOT KNOWIN...more
THE STORY REVOLVES AROUND TWO KIDS LAUREN AND SHANE BOTH SEVENTEEN YEARS OLD DEEPLY AND MADLY IN LOVE HAVING PARENTS WHO ARE BEST OF FRIENDS. BUT THE MOST UNFORTUNATE EVENT HAPPENING TO THEM IS LAUREN GETTING PREGNANT AT 17 .THE STORY MOVES FORWARD WHEN PARENTS DECIDE TO KEEP THEIR KIDS APART RESULTING INTO NEXT EIGHTEEN YEARS WHERE LAUREN SHANE AND THEIR DAUGHTER LIVING APART MISSING EACH OTHER FOR SO MANY DEAR YEARS AND THE GRANT PARENTS LIVING IN GUILT AND REMORSE FOR NOT KNOWIN...more
It was a wonderful romantic novel with a "happily ever after" ending. I liked this story for its moral aspects and its references to the need for forgiveness and the importance of letting the Lord lead your life!!! However, some asects of the story were too far-fetched and too fictional. I just wondered how some of the actions by the characters where too worst case scenraio. It seems that the author wanted to tie everything up in a neat little package at the end. All the situations worked out. I...more
Shane Galanter is getting married---to the wrong woman. Can he forget the girl he loved years ago? Lauren Gibbs's dreams of happiness walked out the door with Shane and the daughter she gave up. Emily Baker searches for the mother she never met. Will three hurting people find hope in the ashes of yesterday?
A very touching book about lost love and forgiveness, finding out who you are and being able to move past mistakes made by yourself and others.
The book brings you to tears and makes you reflec...more
A very touching book about lost love and forgiveness, finding out who you are and being able to move past mistakes made by yourself and others.
The book brings you to tears and makes you reflec...more
This book is mediocre at best which is a shame because this could have been a good story with some decent editing. The first third of the book wasn't too bad, but then it looked like she got in a hurry to finish and got careless. It became contrived, contradictory, full of holes, and desperately needed someone to correct a lot of blatant errors. Clearly no proof-reading was done by Mrs. Kingsbury or the publisher. I guess if you are a rabid Kingsbury fan you just learn to shut your eyes to the m...more
In this book, a boy and girl, who have known and loved each other for a very long time, make a bad decision and their life changes forever. Shane and Lauren find out that they are pregnant and they decide that they will do anything they can to stay together and to keep the baby. Their parents however have a different idea. Shane's parents decide that they are going to move him out to California to stay away from this girl and keep up appearances and Lauren's parents agree and go right on along w...more
First off, let me say that Karen Kingsbury is my 2nd favorite author (Francine Rivers is #1)! This book, I could not put down! The characters were so real, you thought they were your friends and you wanted to rush home from work and chat with them and see what happens next. I have never read a book where the characters were SO well developed. I was very impressed (and when it comes to books, I am not impressed easily)! What a tale of love, lost love and the power of God. I know it is elementary...more
Jan 13, 2009
Ajoque
rated it
5 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
christians or anyone opened to reading a christian fiction
Shelves:
collection-karen-kingsbury,
2009
A true page turner! I could not put this book down and when I had to I couldn't focus properly on the task that called me away. My mind was too occupied with figuring out the quickest possible time I could return to the book.
She writes with such easy prose that this novel read like scenes from a movie. Usually I read and enjoy a book so much, and then get excited at it's prospects of being turned into a film. This one was different, she writes in a way that (both emotionally and visually stimula...more
She writes with such easy prose that this novel read like scenes from a movie. Usually I read and enjoy a book so much, and then get excited at it's prospects of being turned into a film. This one was different, she writes in a way that (both emotionally and visually stimula...more
This is a story about two teenagers that turned away from God and how life changes things. The girl ends up pregnant and the parents are very upset. Both parents decide that they will move and that the two teens will get over each other. Both families move and their friendship ends. Neither family contacts each other the girl ends up having the baby without her boyfriend "baby's dad" with her. They never make contact and they try to move on. One phone called everything for the girl and led her t...more
Mar 28, 2012
Alexis
rated it
5 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
Christians, Romance Fans
Recommended to Alexis by:
Jessica Ripley (a friend)
I read this book a couple years ago and I really liked it. I usually don't read christian fiction books (because I'm more into the fantasy genre) but a friend of mine reccomended it to me and it became one of my favortie books. I love the way Karen Kingsbury writes her stories. She uses all different type of perspectives so everyone can relate. I love how all the events tie in nicely to each other in this book. It really gets your emotions envolved and its hard not to get teary-eyed reading this...more
I just started to read this book this week. It’s very interesting how parents react when their teenage girl and her boyfriend tell them the news that she is pregnant. Have you ever wondered why teenagers make wrong decisions? Well in this book Lauren's parents were surprised by the news. They never thought this would happen to her. Even though they knew that she is not ready to be a mother, they supported her decision to keep her baby.On the other hand Shane's parent didn’t what her to keep the...more
Great Karen Kingsbury Story! It starts out about two teenagers who fall in love and Lauren (the main girl) gets pregnant. She decides to keep her baby instead of giving it up for adoption much to the dismay of her parents and her boyfriends parents. Her boyfriend Shane's parents are trying everything they can to get them to change their mind. They want to get married and raise the baby together because they are in love. The come up with a plan and it keeps them apart. Lauren has her baby and som...more
This is not the type of book I would usually read: I don't read much fiction, and certainly not "love stories." But a friend recommended Karen Kingsbury to me, and I had an opportunity to borrow the audio book of Even Now. I found it to be a well-told and compelling story. As a person to whom faith is important, I tend to find stories (whether fiction or non-fiction) more meaningful and complete when the faith lives of the characters are included and explored. This is true whether the book is ab...more
Read this book last summer. It holds a special place in my heart because I've been through something like this. Not for as long as these two people were apart but I was apart from the one I loved for a year and I have to say, it was the absolute hardest thing of my life. I cannot imagine being away from someone I was absolutely bound to for that long. The woman definitely made me angry multiple times in the book, I see her as very week but again as very strong I hope things really do work out fo...more
I am wavering between 2 and 3 stars. I listened to it as an audiobook and didn't like it's production so maybe that gives me a dim view of it. The woman reading the book read painfully slow, would mess up the meaning of sentences through her inflection and used annoying baby talk at times for an apparently smart college student.
About the book though, it was ok. I found it predictable and frustrating when people who were said to be smart were so slow to do obvious things.
I do appreciate the fact...more
About the book though, it was ok. I found it predictable and frustrating when people who were said to be smart were so slow to do obvious things.
I do appreciate the fact...more
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This book came highly recommended from a friend of mine. I jumped into it right away but it seemed to progress a little slow.. The story line was good with lots of twists and turns and yes it may have made me shed a tear or two... But all in all I didn't find myself dying to read more. Never really connected with the characters and found myself skimming through a lot of the religious parts to get back to the story..
It all came together in the end with a few unanswered questions of the future but...more
It all came together in the end with a few unanswered questions of the future but...more
"Even Now" is a fictional story that weaves a complex plot of lost love, teenage pregnancy, the immense pain of thinking you have lost your child, and the sweetness but difficulty of being reunited with the person you loved, but were separated from twenty years ago. I love this book partly because it is written from a different point of view every chapter, which is helpful when you have characters whose story is tied together but separated, and the other main reason I loved this book is because...more
I really enjoyed reading this book. The events that took place in this novel are almost impossible to believe that such things could happen. Yet it was an endearing tale of love and forgiveness. This was the first book that I have read by this author. She writes much in the same style as the books that have been written by Nickolas Sparks. Nevertheless, as I read the book I thought that a book such as this could only have been written by a woman. In my opinion, women have more compassion and are...more
Let me start by saying that had I known this was Christian fiction I may not have picked it up to begin with. I sometimes find the religious writing a little too over-the-top for my liking. I had a couple of issues with this story line:
1.The parents of these two teenagers conspire against them by taking deliberate steps to separate them from each other. One family moves across the country and the other into the suburbs and neither leaves a forwarding address. My issue ... the author implies that...more
1.The parents of these two teenagers conspire against them by taking deliberate steps to separate them from each other. One family moves across the country and the other into the suburbs and neither leaves a forwarding address. My issue ... the author implies that...more
Even Now is a gorgeous book.
Karen Kingsbury crafted this in an amazing way, and was very carefully worded. It was one of the first books that had me bawling [not really, just tears], and up late - really late to finish it.
Let me tell you, Kingsbury is very well known for her inspiring, and heart-wrenching Christian romances, and she makes her talent known through this book. It was also very sweet, the relationship between Shane and Lauren, and how he gave her a ring, with 'Even Now' engraved on...more
Karen Kingsbury crafted this in an amazing way, and was very carefully worded. It was one of the first books that had me bawling [not really, just tears], and up late - really late to finish it.
Let me tell you, Kingsbury is very well known for her inspiring, and heart-wrenching Christian romances, and she makes her talent known through this book. It was also very sweet, the relationship between Shane and Lauren, and how he gave her a ring, with 'Even Now' engraved on...more
A touching story that little did I know would soon resonate loudly in my own life. The lessons learned by the characters led me in gracefully handling my daughter's own unexpected pregnancy that was revealed just weeks after finishing this book. Thank you Karen for a well thought out storyline that exemplified God's grace in times of trial. I do believe that God placed this in my life at just the right time. Easily read and yet greatly inspired. Stories must touch my heart and this truly did in...more
Another great book for discuss at book club.
Even now has a lot of layers, a lot of stories, and questions religion, faith and peace.
Even now tells the story of Emily, who has been raised by her grandparents, and has never known her parents, but has always wanted to know what happened to them.
It also tells the story of Lauren and Shane, teenagers, who are in love, but whose parents don't think they know what love is. When Lauren gets pregnant, their parents do what they can to stop it.
Lives a...more
Even now has a lot of layers, a lot of stories, and questions religion, faith and peace.
Even now tells the story of Emily, who has been raised by her grandparents, and has never known her parents, but has always wanted to know what happened to them.
It also tells the story of Lauren and Shane, teenagers, who are in love, but whose parents don't think they know what love is. When Lauren gets pregnant, their parents do what they can to stop it.
Lives a...more
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FROM AUTHOR'S WEBSITE:
USA Today and New York Times bestselling author Karen Kingsbury is America’s #1 inspirational novelist. There are more than 15 million copies of her award-winning books in print, including several million copies sold in the past year. Karen has written more than 40 novels, ten of which have hit #1 on national lists.
Karen has a true love for her readers, and she has nearly 1...more
More about Karen Kingsbury...
USA Today and New York Times bestselling author Karen Kingsbury is America’s #1 inspirational novelist. There are more than 15 million copies of her award-winning books in print, including several million copies sold in the past year. Karen has written more than 40 novels, ten of which have hit #1 on national lists.
Karen has a true love for her readers, and she has nearly 1...more
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