Reviewed by Helen Dean

It's not unusual these days for authors to tell you the music they were listening to whilst they wrote and even to allow a record company to produce a CD of such music. Karen Kingsbury has an extremely successful career writing inspirational novels trademarked as Life Changing Fiction and she also speaks extensively at women's conferences. This CD combines her favourite songs by CCM artists and also showcases the talents of newcomers, including Karen's son Ty Russell and daughter Kelsey Marie. Karen has co-written two of the songs and was the executive producer with Chris Thomason, previously of Integrity Music. There are no great surprises here - the songs are upbeat, positive, life affirming - maybe too sweet for some tastes but I felt the benefit of adding this sweetness into my possibly-a-tad-bitter musical diet. I think that Jeremy Camp's "There Will Be A Day", Matthew West's "The Motions" are Mandisa singing "He Is With You" are most worthy of mention. Karen also adds her personal reflections in the sleeve notes which will no doubt be of interest to her readers. My hunch is that if you like Christian inspirational novels and movies you will probably enjoy this polished, high quality CD.

The opinions expressed in this article are not necessarily those held by Cross Rhythms. Any expressed views were accurate at the time of publishing but may or may not reflect the views of the individuals concerned at a later date.

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Songs that Inspire Karen Kingsbury is a beautifully crafted musical experience with songs handpicked by USA Today and New York Times bestselling author, Karen Kingsbury.

Songs from Mandisa, Matthew West, Britt Nicole, Mark Schultz, and more are all individually reflected upon by Karen in short writings and memoirs found inside the CD.