The Sunday Book Review: Simply Salsa by Janet Perez Eckles

Posted by Elaine Marie Cooper

I read Janet Perez Eckles’ book Simply Salsa: Dancing Without Fear at God’s Fiesta on a flight to see family for Christmas. But it was a spiritual journey that I wish I had taken months ago when I first ordered this book.

And though my Irish-heritage skin is so incredibly pale that it’s unlikely the beautiful Latina author shares any close ancestral connection with me, we are definitely close sisters in spirit. That I can tell through her poignant, honest, and heartfelt writing.

Eckles has an amazing testimony of strong faith amidst sorrow. As a young mother with three small boys, she found her eyesight fading from a genetic condition. It was inevitable, her doctor said—she was going completely blind. Within eighteen months, her world’s light was gone forever.

Struggling to adapt to this sudden darkness and with the discouragement of some who said she could not mother her family as a blind woman, Janet shook her fist at God, only to find His loving hand taking hers. He spoke to her heart that He would oversee her needs if she would turn to Him in trust.

“There it was,” Eckles writes, “a brilliant light of truth, of revelation and of freedom, shining through the darkness in my life.”

Her poetic and uplifting prose draws you in to her subsequent battles with a betrayal, a financial crisis, and a cancer scare. But her ultimate challenge was thrust into her life when her youngest son was brutally murdered. To add insult to injury, the murderer was set free.

Eckles does not spout Christian platitudes like, “God does not give us more than we can handle.” While that statement is true, she shares honestly from her heart the intense pain, the arguments with God, and the gut-wrenching moments of tears that followed these trials. But she also allows us to journey with her as God continues to draw her close, reminding her of His comfort and commitment to loving her and never leaving or forsaking her.

She likens her spiritual journey to a dance where the gladness of the Lord shines its spotlight on her. And readers will truly experience that spiritual delight that flows from her words. Her beautiful Latin culture intersperses her text in such a way that you feel she is sitting right in front of you, bubbling with the joy of the journey.

It is a literary and Christ-filled road that I highly recommend.

I give Simply Salsa: 5 out of 5 Reflections

“This is a lighthearted, yet profound book that speaks to women at every level—whether wallowing in the mire of self-pity, slogging through never-ending guilt, trying to outrun fear, or just plain missing out on the ecstasy of a dance-filled life. It doesn’t have to be that way—and Simply Salsa was written to help you understand that.”

— Kathy Macias, Award winning author of more than 30 books

Cover Blurb:

What keeps women from dancing in the freedom God offers? With passion and boldness, Simply Salsa exposes the lies and misconceptions that imprison women with unfounded insecurities and feelings of inadequacy. No matter the degree of adversity or pain, Janet Eckles has discovered an alternative to gloom—through the security found only in God’s love.

With her own life experiences as testimony, Eckles will have you dancing!

Author Bio:

Bolivian immigrant Janet Perez Eckles might be the last woman you would expect to dance for joy. She lost her eyesight at age 31, suffered financial devastation, endured infidelity, and faced the incomprehensible anguish of her nineteen-year-old son’s murder and the acquittal of the man responsible. Yet with God’s grace, Eckles has learned to triumph and dance. Her healing journey has enriched her passion to inspire and serve as a teacher, ministry leader, public speaker and writer. Visit her a www.janetperezeckles.com.

Simply Salsa: Dancing Without Fear at God's Fiesta