SELAH AWARD WINNERHe’s looking for fortune. She’s looking for fame. Together, they find an adventure that spans centuries—and a love story for the ages. Spain, 1689The same evil that stole her mother’s life stalks Isabella Castellano. Afraid for her safety, Isabella disguises herself as a cabin boy and hires on to one of His Majesty’s treasure fleet vessels. But has her flight from a known threat … her flight from a known threat only led her to be ensnared in a sea of dangers?
Florida, Present Day
Marine photographer Summer Arnet will go anywhere to capture the perfect shot–even dive into waters haunted by great white sharks, if it will help get her work noticed. When a treasure hunter with a ladies-man reputation approaches her about a sunken ship, she’s all ears. This may be her best shot at launching her career…if his charming smile doesn’t derail her first.
A childhood tragedy has left a hole in Trent Carrington’s life—one he’s tried to fill with women, money, and adventure. When Summer doesn’t fall for his charms, he’s even more determined to win her over.
As the pair plunge into the mystery of the shipwreck, stakes escalate, and both wounded hearts become entangled in a romance they weren’t expecting. The hunt for treasure is no longer a game of fortune and fame.
It’s no longer a game at all.
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Finders Keepers deals with broken people. The kind of broken that holds grudges, deep-seated grudges, usually against God. I heard the best analogy the other day: running away from God because you are angry with Him is like having long, dirty hair that needs attention yet insisting it’s the barber’s fault for your hair’s condition. It’s kind of a silly analogy, but it makes a really great point. In Finders Keepers, our hero, Trent, blames God for a devastating loss. I 100% understand the hurt, anger, and sense of betrayal that Trent feels. When you lose a loved one, especially unexpectedly, it steals your very breath and it really feels like someone has punched through your chest and ripped your heart out. Those feelings, the feelings that consume Trent, are real and powerful, and they need to go somewhere. Unfortunately for most of us, we take these feelings out on God and we choose to run away from Him.
The only way to protect ourselves from being long-term angry and running away from God is to go to Him, ask Him to open our eyes to see a situation as He views it, and to talk to Him — sometimes really loudly — about our true feelings. God wants a relationship with us. Real relationships have happy, sad, angry, contented, and mundane moments. God wants a relationship in all those moments.
From June 2018 – January 2019 I unexpectedly lost a best friend who was like a big brother to me and my step-dad. These two men were two of the best men I knew. Honestly, for men, they were superheroes here on earth. At first, I was shocked and devastated, so much so I was sick to my stomach. I felt like I couldn’t breathe and my mind felt numb. I had crater-sized holes in my heart. I also became angry — so, so angry — but I didn’t want to be angry at God. God did not cause the accidents that took these men’s lives — humans did. So I prayed: “God, please help me to see these situations through Your eyes. Don’t leave me!”
Nothing magical happened. God didn’t send me a dream or send an angel-messenger to explain the tragedies to me. BUT, God did show me a truth. Both my brother-friend and my step-dad were community servers. They loved helping people and saving the day. Both were EMT/firefighter/medical people. If either one of them had survived their accidents they would have been laid up for the rest of their lives. That would have killed their very souls. Instead, God took them home (they are both BIG Jesus believers). This truth, coupled with the fact that wanting them with me is just purely selfish (would you tell someone who’s with Jesus right now to come back to earth? Yeah, me neither) helped me to see the situation from God’s perspective. It doesn’t make the loss easier, but I feel a peace I didn’t feel before God put these thoughts in my brain. And, this revelation from God made me realize, as Trent realizes in Finders Keepers, that God fills my hurting, empty places. It taught me that running from God is just plain stupid. God is the balm to our souls. When we are hurting He wants to fix us!
Finders Keepers is an excellent novel. I barely touched the surface with this review. With captivating and highly relatable characters, a plot that makes you want to stay up well past bedtime to keep reading, and timely themes, Finders Keepers by Sarah Monzon is a story not to be missed!
I purchased an eBook copy of this book from Amazon.com on September 3, 2017, in order to review. In no way has this influenced my review. The opinions expressed in this review are my own.
Sarah Monzon is a good author.
Finders Keepers is a wonderfully descriptive book filled with beautifully real and flawed characters that call out to the brokenness in each of us. There’s hurt, pain, and bitterness to be overcome, and they are—by that still, small voice that is just waiting to speak truth to hearts in the moment when our brokenness overtakes us and we can’t run any longer. Sarah Monzon clearly conveys that God, our heavenly Father, is waiting to redeem and heal our hurts with open arms full of love and peace for the empty space in us.
The book is really two stories, one set long ago and one in present day, being told along side each other. Mrs. Monzon does a fantastic job of weaving the stories together, keeping you interested in both, and not leaving one story hanging for too long before going back. There were moments when I expected the book to take a certain turn, but it did not; she does well at keeping you wondering just what’s going to happen next.
**Possible spoilers in the following paragraph.**
The chemistry between the main characters in both stories will have you swooning as well as some of the wonderfully heart melting words shared. I loved the strong man of integrity and character that Captain Montoya was and how wonderfully he filled the role of protector. I also loved the unexpected and blossoming love Isabella’s part of the story ended with (I really would have loved it if there had been more to read about it!). And watching Trent get to the place where he could let Jesus in and begin to become a man of faith and a man that could fiercely and wholly love Summer was such a beautiful part of this story.
I loved Mrs. Monzon’s descriptions of the many different scenes in the books. As the characters walked on the beach, I could imagine the breeze they felt, smell the salty sea air, see the colorful sunset, and feel the wet sand they felt beneath their toes. Not to mention the scenes on the ship where I felt as though I was there with the characters, experiencing their surroundings with them.
I thoroughly enjoyed Finders Keepers and believe it has a fantastic message of the Father’s deep and abiding love for us, His children.
*I received an Advance Reader Copy of this book from the author. I have chosen to review it. My opinions are my own.*
Can I just say first and foremost that I absolutely LOVE this novel, from the very beginning until the sad ending?! I don’t say “sad ending” meaning that this story had a disheartening ending, but rather than I was not ready for the story to end for I was so wrapped up in the novel.
This author was very well articulated and painted a beautiful picture in the mind’s of her readers. I felt like I was in the water with both stories, the one from 300 years in the past and the one that was set in present day tense. My only complaint was that each story was so well written that I would have preferred them to be their own novels that way they could have been longer.
Through the twists and turns that were taken along the years, I have learned that some stories can cross centuries to tell their stories. You never know what you will be able to find if only you knew where too look.