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An Ornaments' Tale is a beautifully illustrated tale, written by Chet Spiewak (and published by CWS Studios). It is the tale of the ornaments stored in the attic and their unlikely travels downstairs to the Christmas tree.
This book is unique in that it is illustrated with computer graphics, much like "Toy Story" or "Veggie Tales" videos are. The illustrations are truly 3D. They have depth and warmth to them.
If you'd like to see a sample, visit the publisher's page here.
And now, a few questions for the author, Chet Spiewak:
What was the inspiration behind the story in An Ornaments' Tale?
The inspiration came from my childhood memories. Every year during the holidays, my family would purchase a real Christmas tree for our home. it was up to my brother, sister and me to decorate the Christmas tree. On some holidays there would be a box of ornaments that couldn't fit on the tree and they would be banished back into the attic until the following year. I always felt sorry for these ornaments and wondered if they someday would come to life to find a place on the holiday tree.
For whom did you write An Ornaments' Tale?
I wrote this holiday adventure to capture the imaginations of children and parents alike> The book features stunning graphics which bring the characters to life within the book's pages. The storyline has plenty of adventure and even keeps the interest of parents reading a bedtime story late into the night.
What does your family think of your writing?
My family enjoys my books and they always offer encouragement and support. Everyone seems to have questions and comments about a certain character or a particular storyline. The younger children insist on having me sketch out a cartoon character or two for coloring purposes.
Thank you, Chet Spiewak!
If you are looking for a good holiday story for the children in your life, please consider this book. It's delightful!
It's available for purchase on Amazon .
For ages 3-10.
Thanks to Spotlight Publicity for this book and the opportunity to review it!
In between reading other books and starting my new job, I've been reading the Harry Potter books with my daughter. I've finished books 3 and 4 (Prisoner of Azkaban and Goblet of Fire), and will be getting books 5 and 6 from the library in the coming weeks.
As each book gets a bit darker and scarier, each book also deepens the story and continues to surprise and delight.
For older children and teens, these books would make an ideal gift for the holidays.
I finished the second book in the Harry Potter series the other day, just a bit ahead of my 11-year-old daughter. I enjoyed it, perhaps not as much as the first one, but I did like it. J.K. Rowling surprised me with a plot twist I wasn't expecting, and I like that. I read a LOT of fiction, and while I'd like to think I'm smart enough to predict a book written for children, the fact is that this one caught me by surprise.
And that's a good thing!
I must apologize for letting time get away from me. I got started on National Novel Writing Month, then that got away from me when I started looking for a part-time job. Now, I'm working at my Curves as a trainer! I'm training right now, so while I've been reading of course, I haven't taken time to write reviews for this or any of my other sites!
I apologize, and I hope to get some reviews up soon, particularly one holiday children's book that is really cute!
Picture Perfect by Jodi Picoult
Synopsis from her website:
As Picture Perfect begins, it is daybreak in downtown L.A. A woman suffering from amnesia is taken in by an officer new to the L.A. police force, after he finds her wandering aimlessly near a graveyard. Days later, when her husband comes to claim her at the police station, no one is more stunned than Cassie Barrett to learn that not only is she a renowned anthropologist, but she is married to Hollywood's leading man, Alex Rivers.
As Alex helps Cassie become reaccustomed to her fairy-tale existence, fragments of memory return: the whirlwind romance on location in Africa, her major anthropological discovery, the trajectory of Alex's career. Yet as Cassie settles into her glamour-filled life, uneasiness nags at her. She senses there is something troubling and wild that would alter the picture of her perfect marriage.
Pattie's comments:
This is my third Picoult read, and it will not be the last. This book kept me up till this morning at 1:00, so I could finish it. It is very, very good. It is not what I expected it to be, exactly. I mean, I suspected things were not all as they seemed, but the way the story unfolded, I had sympathy for each character, and each is flawed. Even the worst villain in the story garners more than a bit of my sympathy, in spite of his evil actions.
I don't know how Jodi Picoult does it, but she has a way of making sure each of her characters is good AND bad, very real, and sympathetic.
My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult
This was a reread for me, and even though I knew the outcome and dreaded it, it was a good exercise in looking for foreshadowing and clues and hints this time around.
I highly recommend this novel. It has a lot to say about family, about sisters, and about genetics and modern medicine.
Synopsis from the author's website:
Anna is not sick, but she might as well be. By age thirteen, she has undergone countless surgeries, transfusions, and shots so that her older sister, Kate, can somehow fight the leukemia that has plagued her since childhood. The product of preimplantation genetic diagnosis, Anna was conceived as a bone marrow match for Kate - a life and a role that she has never questioned… until now. Like most teenagers, Anna is beginning to question who she truly is. But unlike most teenagers, she has always been defined in terms of her sister - and so Anna makes a decision that for most would be unthinkable… a decision that will tear her family apart and have perhaps fatal consequences for the sister she loves. My Sister's Keeper examines what it means to be a good parent, a good sister, a good person. Is it morally correct to do whatever it takes to save a child's life… even if that means infringing upon the rights of another? Is it worth trying to discover who you really are, if that quest makes you like yourself less?
OHHHHH and a movie is going to be made of this novel!!!!!!
Cameron Diaz courts a 'Keeper' role:Actress to star in Cassavetes-directed drama
By Michael Fleming
Cameron Diaz will star in "My Sister's Keeper," a Nick Cassavetes-directed adaptation of the Jodi Picoult novel for New Line Cinema. Shooting will begin early next year.
The drama was scripted by Jeremy Leven and will be produced by Mark Johnson, both of whom made "The Notebook" with Cassavetes for New Line.
Diaz had been circling the film for weeks, but negotiations have heated up and a deal should be completed shortly.
Thesp will play a former defense attorney who returns to the courtroom to defend herself and her husband when they are sued by their 13-year-old daughter for emancipation. The girl was conceived as a genetic match with the hope she could prolong her cancer-ridden sister's life.
Johnson most recently produced "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe," and he is prepping the Michael Apted-directed "Chronicles of Narnia" sequel "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader."
Recently I read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone to preview for my older daughter. I began the book knowing it was controversial in the Christian community. I was pleasantly surprised, however. I found it to be a delightful fantasy story. Harry is a great character, and his friends and archrivals at Hogwarts are engaging as well.
I look forward to reading the other six books in the series.
Are you up for a good book challenge? Visit this blog for more about the plethora (and I do mean a LOT) of book challenges that are available for bloggers (and non-bloggers) to participate in.
http://novelchallenges.blogspot.com/
Shopgirl is a novella by Steve Martin, and also a movie written and produced by Steve Martin. Yes, that Steve Martin!
Why Shopgirl? Well, I've read some of Steve Martin's nonfiction, and I have wanted to read his foray into fiction for a long time. Just never got around to it, I guess.
The book is short at 130 pages, and it reads quickly as most novellas do. The story is simple: Mirabelle (the shopgirl of the title) works at the glove counter at Neiman Marcus, a seldom-frequented section of the store next to couture. She lives her quiet, dare I say mundane life, until a few things happen: she meets Jeremy at the laundromat, and she meets Ray at work. The story is how these two very different men interact with Mirabelle, and how all three characters change.
The story is written in present tense, which adds a sense of immediacy (it could be happening right now). I couldn't help but hear Steve Martin's voice in my head as I read (even though I read before I saw the movie, in which he is also the narrator).
I must caution that the book is rated R, as is the movie (although the movie is much tamer than the book language-wise). The book is rife with raw, almost vulgar, sexual language. It's almost jarring when suddenly there is a comment about f---ing just thrown in. The language just seems out of place in this story.
The movie:
I finished the book just before watching the movie, and the two are very close (as one might suspect when the same man is the author of both). Claire Danes plays Mirabelle, and she's much more beautiful than I pictured Mirabelle to be from the book. Jason Schwartzman plays Jeremy, and he is a good choice for the role. I laughed out loud at how awful his character was in the beginning; I think he was worse in the movie than the book, at first! Steve Martin is the perfect Ray, of course, and he adds a vulnerability to the character that isn't as evident in the book.
I liked the movie better than the book, because the crass language isn't there to jar my sense of story. It has an almost fairy tale quality to it, and the vulgar sexuality is turned into a sensuality on screen that seems much more consistent with the story's tone, and with the whole older man-younger woman relationship.
As an aside: Blockbuster has this in the drama, not comedy, section, in case you want to rent it.
I am still reading, but with my husband returning from his overseas tour, I wasn't online much until he returned to work this week.
I have been reading, though! I'll be posting more reviews coming soon.
As always, if you have a question or comment, feel free to contact me at pattie @ dcwblogs.com (remove spaces, which I added to avoid spam).
Happy reading!
You might remember that I joined a challenge in December to read a book a month from the TBR stack that threatens continually to overwhelm my livingroom.
You can read that post here.
So how is Pattie doing?
Not too shabby, folks, not too shabby.
Here's an updated list:
1. The Yada Yada Prayer Group by Neta Jackson FINISHED IN JUNE
2. Eats, Shoots and Leaves by Lynne Truss
3. Girl Time by Laura Jensen Walker FINISHED IN FEBRUARY
4. Ambassador Families: Equipping Your Kids to Engage Popular Culture by Mitali Perkins
5. A Seahorse in the Thames by Susan Meissner this is a SUPERB book. FINISHED IN JUNE
6. In All Deep Places by Susan Meissner
7. The Remedy for Regret by Susan Meissner Finished in July
8. Potter Springs by Britta Coleman FINISHED IN JANUARY
9. The Reading Group by Elizabeth Noble FINISHED IN FEBRUARY
10. Under the Tuscan Sun by Frances Mayes (My November Book Club book!)
11. Goodnight Nobody by Jennifer Weiner FINISHED IN MARCH
12. Georgia on Her Mind by Rachel Hauck FINISHED IN FEBRUARY
My problem is that I keep getting more books from Paperback Swap and friends and publishers and authors, to read! Not that I'm complaining, mind you, just explaining.
Wild Rose by Ruth Axtell Morren
Historical Inspirational Romance
Wild Rose is a love story between a poor young woman and a former sea captain. Geneva lives on the edge of the town of Haven’s End, dresses in men’s clothing, and works hard to support herself by fishing and selling garden vegetables. Captain Caleb Phelps has been wrongfully accused of a serious offense in his hometown of Boston, so he moves to Haven’s End to begin a new life.
The two forge a friendship based on gardening advice and reading lessons – and eventually they grow closer together. However, will her past and his prevent them from having a future together?
One of the strengths of this book is the strong sense of place that permeates its pages. Through the lovely descriptions and dialogue of the locals, the reader really gets a feel for this quaint seaside village in Maine. Another strength of the novel is the characterization. None of the characters seem unrealistic; rather, they are just like people in real life: multifaceted and complex, and thoroughly engaging. Geneva was particularly wonderful. I felt so sad for her; her feeling on the outskirts of society, her abandonment issues, all of these are universal feelings. I longed to see her come into her own and be comfortable in her own skin.
The spiritual aspects of the novel are well-done, also. Sometimes in inspirational fiction, the reader feels hit over the head with the message of salvation. Not so here. I particularly liked the characters of the minister and his wife. Loving and kind, nonjudgmental, and engaging.
Overall, I enjoyed this book. It took me awhile to get into it, but once I was, I was hooked.
Wild Rose was a Booklist Top Ten Christian Novel for 2005.
Author’s website: http://www.ruthaxtellmorren.com/
Legally Blonde is a novel by Amanda Brown.
I watched the movie before I knew it was a book, and then I couldn't find the book until this summer, when I discovered it at a Half Price Books in Minnesota. It didn't take me long to read it, and I have to say I enjoyed it...but this is one of those rare cases where I believe I liked the movie better.
Most of the characters are the same, basically, but instead of trekking all the way to Harvard, Elle only follows her ex-boyfriend Warner from LA to Stanford, which puts her not as far away from her friends as she was in the movie. She's still a "fish out of water," though.Elle still gets the internship to help with Brooke's trial, and she still nails Chutney. But no Luke Wilson character, and that makes me sad. It does, however, show that Elle can do it all on her own.
I think the book is a good one, but I enjoyed the movie better.
Breakfast at Tiffany's is a wistful book. I read it a few years ago, and I've enjoyed reading it again. It's a novella, actually, so it doesn't take long to read. And I'm not even sure why the word wistful seems to fit, but it's a word I can't disassociate from this book.
You can find a synopsis anywhere, so I won't really point out the obvious plot points. I still think Holly is likeable in spite of her many flaws. The narrator sometimes judges her, sometimes he chooses to be her friend, but mostly he chooses to tell what he sees.
One thing I noticed as I read Breakfast recently: the language is both old and new. Some of the expressions used by Holly and the nameless, faceless narrator are obviously dated (the book was written over 50 years ago, so that's a given), but a few are expressions still in use today (and all of those are rather crude, so I won't outline them here). I loved her habit of using French words sprinkled liberally through her speech. Quel delight!
I watched the movie sometime during the past school year, and I was horrified by how much had changed from the book (Mickey Rooney as the Japanese landlord was obviously a mistake). But I adored Audrey Hepburn in the role of Holly.
September 8, 2007
Madeleine L’Engle, Writer of Children’s Classics, Is Dead at 88
By DOUGLAS MARTIN
Madeleine L’Engle, who in writing more than 60 books, including childhood fables, religious meditations and science fiction, weaved emotional tapestries transcending genre and generation, died Thursday in Connecticut. She was 88.
Her death, of natural causes, was announced today by her publisher, Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Ms. L’Engle (pronounced LENG-el) was best known for her children’s classic, “A Wrinkle in Time,” which won the John Newbery Award as the best children’s book of 1963. By 2004, it had sold more than 6 million copies, was in its 67th printing and was still selling 15,000 copies a year.
Her works — poetry, plays, autobiography and books on prayer — were deeply, quixotically personal. But it was in her vivid children’s characters that readers most clearly glimpsed her passionate search for the questions that mattered most. She sometimes spoke of her writing as if she were taking dictation from her subconscious.
“Of course I’m Meg,” Ms. L’Engle said about the beloved protagonist of “A Wrinkle in Time.”
The “St. James Guide to Children’s Writers” called Ms. L’Engle “one of the truly important writers of juvenile fiction in recent decades.” Such accolades did not come from pulling punches: “Wrinkle” is one of the most banned books because of its treatment of the deity.
“It was a dark and stormy night,” it begins, repeating the line of a 19th- century novelist Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, and presaging the immortal sentence that Snoopy, the inspiration-challenged beagle of the Peanuts cartoon, would type again and again. After the opening, “Wrinkle,” quite literally, takes off. Meg Murray, with help from her psychic baby brother, uses time travel and extrasensory perception to rescue her father, a gifted scientist, from a planet controlled by the Dark Thing. She does so through the power of love.
The book used concepts that Ms. L’Engle said she had plucked from Einstein’s theory of relativity and Planck’s quantum theory, almost flaunting her frequent assertion that children’s literature is literature too difficult for adults to understand. She also characterized the book as her refutation of ideas of German theologians.
In the “Dictionary of Literary Biography,” Marygail G. Parker notes “a peculiar splendor” in Ms. L’Engle’s oeuvre, and some of that splendor is sheer literary range. “Wrinkle” is part of her series of children’s books, which includes “A Wind in the Door,” “A Swiftly Tilting Planet,” “Many Waters” and “An Acceptable Time.” The series combines elements of science fiction with insights into love and moral purpose that pervade Ms. L’Engle’s writing.
Ms. L’Engle’s other famous series of books concerned another family. The first installment, “Meet the Austins,” which appeared in 1960, portrayed an affectionate family whose members displayed enough warts to make them interesting. (Perhaps not enough for The Times Literary Supplement in London, though; it called the Austins “too good to be real.”)
By the fourth of the five Austin books, “A Ring of Endless Light,” any hint of Pollyanna was gone. Named a Newbery Honor Book in 1981, it told of a 16-year-old girl’s first experience with death. Telepathic communication with dolphins eventually helps the girl, Vicky, achieve a new understanding of things.
“The cosmic battle between light and darkness, good and evil, love and indifference, personified in the mythic fantasies of the ‘Wrinkle in Time’ series, here is waged compellingly in its rightful place: within ourselves,” Carol Van Strum wrote in The Washington Post in 1980.
Madeleine L’Engle Camp was born in Manhattan on the snowy night of Nov. 29, 1918. The only child of Madeleine Hall Barnett and Charles Wadsworth Camp, she was named for her great-grandmother, who was also named Madeleine L’Engle.
Young Madeleine’s mother came from Jacksonville, Fla., society and was a fine pianist; her father was a World War I veteran who worked as a foreign correspondent and later as drama and music critic for The New York Sun. He also knocked out potboiler novels.
The family lived on the Upper East Side of Manhattan; her parents had artistic friends, Madeleine an English nanny. She felt unpopular at school. She recalled that an elementary school teacher – Miss Pepper or Miss Salt, she couldn’t remember which — treated her as if she were stupid.
She had written her first story at 5 and retreated into writing. When she won a poetry contest in the fifth grade, her teacher accused her of plagiarizing. Her mother intervened to prove her innocence, lugging a stack of her stories from home.
When she was 12, she was sent to a boarding school in Switzerland, Chatelard, and at 15 to Ashley Hall, a boarding school in Charleston, S.C. She graduated from Smith College with honors in English. (She took no science, often a surprise to readers impressed with her science fiction.)
Returning to New York, Ms. L’Engle began to get small acting parts. She wrote her first novel, “The Small Rain,” in 1945 and had several plays she wrote produced.
She met the actor Hugh Franklin when both were appearing in a production of Chekhov’s “The Cherry Orchard.” They married in 1946, and their daughter Josephine was born the next year. In 1951, when Ms. L’Engle became pregnant again, they moved to the small town of Goshen, Conn., where they bought and ran a general store. Their son, Bion, was born in 1952, and in 1956 they adopted another daughter, Maria.
Mr. Franklin died in 1986 and Bion in 1999. Ms. L’Engle is survived by her daughters, Josephine F. Jones and Maria Rooney; five grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren.
Ms. L’Engle’s writing career was going so badly in her 30s that she claimed she almost quit writing at 40. But then “Meet the Austins” was published in 1960, and she was already deeply into “Wrinkle.” The inspiration came to her during a 10-week family camping trip.
That was just the start. She once described herself as a French peasant cook who drops a carrot in one pot, a piece of potato in another and an onion and a piece of meat in another.
“At dinnertime, you look and see which pot smells best and pull it forward,” she was quoted as saying in a 2001 book, “Madeleine L’Engle (Herself): Reflections on a Writing Life,” compiled by Carole F. Chase.
“The same is true with writing,” she continued. “There are several pots on my backburners.”
Her deeper thoughts on writing were deliciously mysterious. She believed that experience and knowledge are subservient to the subconscious and perhaps larger, spiritual influences.
“I think that fantasy must possess the author and simply use him,” she said in an interview with Horn Book magazine in 1983. “I know that is true of ‘A Wrinkle in Time.’ I cannot possibly tell you how I came to write it. It was simply a book I had to write. I had no choice.
“It was only after it was written that I realized what some of it meant.”
What turned out to be her masterpiece was rejected by 26 publishers. Editors at Farrar, Straus and Giroux loved it enough to publish it, but told her that she should not be disappointed if it failed.
The family moved back to New York, where Hugh Franklin won fame as Dr. Charles Tyler on the popular soap opera “All My Children.” For more than three decades, starting in 1966, Ms. L’Engle served as librarian and writer-in-residence at the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine. One or two of her dogs often accompanied her to the cathedral library.
Much of her later work was autobiographical, although sometimes a bit idealized; she often said that her real truths were in her fiction. Indeed, she discussed her made-up stories the way a newspaper reporter might discuss his latest article about a crime.
When her son, then 10, protested the death of Joshua in “The Arm of the Starfish” (1965), she insisted that she could not change the tale, which was still unpublished at the time.
“I didn’t want Joshua to die, either,” Ms. L’Engle said in 1987 in a speech accepting the Margaret Edwards Award from the American Library Association for lifetime achievement in writing young adult literature, one of scores of awards she received.
“But that’s what happened. If I tried to change it, I’d be deviating from the truth of the story.”
Her characters continued living their lives even if she hadn’t mentioned them for decades. She had gotten word that Polly O’Keefe, who appeared in three books of the “Time Fantasy” series, was in medical school, she said a few months before the library speech.
A woman wrote her to say that she herself was a first-year medical student at Yale and that she would love to have Polly in her class. Ms. L’Engle said fine, and the student went to the registrar’s office to sign up Polly as an “official” Yale medical student.
“Why does anybody tell a story?” Ms. L’Engle once asked, even though she knew the answer.
“It does indeed have something to do with faith,” she said, “faith that the universe has meaning, that our little human lives are not irrelevant, that what we choose or say or do matters, matters cosmically.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/08/books/07cnd-lengle.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Why I Wore Lipstick to My Mastectomy is written by Geralyn Lucas and tells her cancer story. It's an engaging and thought-provoking memoir.
Lucas's book gives good insight into what it is like for a young woman in today's society facing the loss of something profoundly and foundationally female: a breast. Cancer, that evil in a cell, manifests in many forms. It claims lives like my friend's; it claims breasts and portions of breasts; it crops up in the most unexpected places. But it can never conquer the human spirit, and it will never, EVER, conquer God.
Rarely does a children's book touch my heart as much as this book does.
Kate DiCamillo's novel about a lonely preacher's daughter tugged at my heartstrings. And as a dog lover, I loved Winn-Dixie. He is always smiling and loyal.
Surprisingly, the movie follows the novel quite closely, except with the addition of a couple of characters. Dave Matthews is charming as the guitar-playing pet store man, and Annasophia Robb shines as Opal.
Read the book. Watch the movie. Both are fabulous.
If you enjoy the USA mystery series MONK, with Tony Shalhoub as the Obsessive Compulsive Detective, you'll get a kick out of the books written by Lee Goldberg with Monk as the main character, and his trusty assistant Natalie as the narrator.
The books are fun. Not without a few faults (which my husband, in typical Monk-ish fashion, found when he read them), but enjoyable nevertheless for this Monk fan.
The titles are:
Mr. Monk Goes to the Firehouse
Mr. Monk Goes to Hawaii
Mr. Monk and the Blue Flu
Mr. Monk and the Two Assistants
I don't remember where I heard about this book, but it's been on my Paperback Swap wish list for quite a while. I received the book this week, started reading it yesterday, and COULD NOT PUT IT DOWN. I fell asleep reading it last night, and finished it today.
The protagonist, Adda Sinclaire, is a romance writer with writer's block. She is the most likeable non-Christian heroine I've encountered in a long time. I was rooting for her the whole book! Each wrong turn, every wrong thing she said or did, I was pulling for her to succeed and come out on top.
If you enjoy romances, you'll enjoy the "insider's view" this book affords of the industry, its own perceptions of itself, and even the way it chuckles a bit at itself. It was a truly enjoyable read. I'll be checking out more of Tamera Leigh, you can be sure!
Kate DiCamillo tells an amazing tale of a mouse named Despereaux, a princess named Pea, and many other memorable and unique characters. It reads like a fairy tale, yet speaks volumes to children and adults.
My grade-school daughters enjoyed this book as we read aloud this summer.
At first glance, Talie Ingrim is an enviable woman. Her husband is successful in his career, they have a lovely one-year-old son, and she finds out she is expecting another child. Life is so very good.
Talie is happy and content, until she begins reading a family heirloom journal written by one of her ancestors. She also begins to notice differences between her son’s development and other children of the same age in a playgroup. She unwillingly discovers a legacy she had no idea she’d passed on to her son, and perhaps her unborn child as well: Fragile X Syndrome.
In an artfully and lovingly crafted novel, Maureen Lang tells the stories of Talie and her several-greats grandmother, Cosima. Through journal entries in Cosima’s own voice, as well as skillfully-told narratives in both nineteenth and twenty-first centuries, Lang weaves a story that is at once difficult, sad, exciting, heartbreaking, and heartwarming.
The Oak Leaves is a novel that informs as well as entertains. It is both easy and difficult to read: easy in a captivating narrative style that is fast-paced and engaging; difficult in its subject matter of genetics, love, and most of all, God’s grace. The Oak Leaves will stay with me for a long time.
Author's website: www.maureenlang.com
Jeanne Marie Leach crafts her historical western novel around a protective yet naïve mother, her outlaw son, and the handsome bounty hunter who captures her heart.
Mattie’s plight is clear throughout the story. She must find her son Will and help him make his peace with God. She will not rest until she accomplishes her goal. In her devotion to God and to her son, bounty hunter Cyrus Braydon finds much to admire in Mattie, an attractive widow who both intrigues and frustrates him.
Their journeys—apart and together—lead them to and away from Will, but ultimately closer to God.
Leach’s novel is well-crafted and easy to read. I especially liked the title character, Mattie Gordon. She is likeable and believable, not only for her faith in God and devotion to her son, but also in her naïveté, her wish to believe the best rather than the worst about all people.
I recommend this novel for fans of period western romances.
from the back cover:
Conutless times throughout history, people--mostly young adults--have grown weary of status quo, legalistic, lifeless Christianity. Moved by God, believers have been used to spread radical ideas that fostered life-changing encounters with Christ across the globe. These movements have left a lasting mark on the generations that followed.
Author Alvin L. Reid (of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary) believes that God is stirring a movement once again and wants to know--are you ready to join?
___________
Written specifically with the millennial generation in mind, this book would be great for anyone in ministry, particularly youth, college, or young adult ministry.
Thanks to Kregel Publications for a copy of this book.
Mameve Medwed's book is truly delightful. The title is a bit cumbersome, much like the antique chamber pot our gal Abby decides to take to the Antiques Roadshow. Who knew it was worth so much?
I picked this up on my recent road trip, and I am so glad I did. It is a good story, just a bit of chick lit mixed in with a family drama and a lot of information about antiques, Harvard, and the married poets, the Brownings (Robert and Elizabeth), to whet one's appetite for more knowledge about it all.
If you are looking for a good summer read, find this at your local bookstore (for me, it was on the summer sale shelf at a South Dakota Barnes & Noble).
Lightning and Lace by DiAnn Mills
From Amazon:
Bonnie Kahler, immersed in grief since losing her husband, attempts to rise from the ashes of mourning. Will love and faith give her the power to conquer the demons within and evils without? In an attempt to outrun his past, Preacher Travis Whitworth arrives in Kahlerville, incognito. When he stumbles across a dead body, suspicion falls on his shoulders. Is Travis in too deep to win Bonnie's love? As Bonnie finds herself drawn to Travis, her life and heart are threatened. When secrets unravel, will she be strong enough to face the twisted truth?
DiAnn Mills’ third installment in the Texas Legacy series doesn’t disappoint. I have not yet read the first two books in this trilogy, but enough backstory is given that I am not lost. I do, however, intend to go back and read them.
DiAnn Mills’ prose is engaging and her style never becomes didactic. She is a terrific storyteller and draws her readers into the story.
I found myself wrapped up in the story. What would happen to Bonnie and her children? Would Zach reform into the young man his father would be proud of? And what about the new “pastor with a past,” Travis Whitworth?
These burning questions—and more—are answered to the reader’s complete satisfaction in a happy ending sure to please the most romantic heart.
Susan Meissner is one of my very favorite writers. I'm working my way through her entire body of work. She is an excellent author, creater of characters, and master of weaving a social issue within the story without hitting you over the head with it (to mix my metaphors a bit).
A Seahorse in the Thames is about finding beauty in unexpected places. The characters within its pages find beauty where they least expect to find it, and the result is truly amazing.
If you are looking for women's fiction, Christian or not, choose this book. You will fall in love with the characters!
Death of a Garage Sale Newbie by Sharon Dunn
I loved the characters in this story. It's hard when someone dies in real life—we cry, we mourn, we say things we don't mean. Sharon Dunn truly handles this well in her book. These women—Ginger, Kindra, and Suzanne—lost a friend. Worse, she died in a violent manner. There’s nothing funny about that. Yet life goes on. People move on, remembering their friends; sometimes with tears, sometimes with laughter.
Sharon Dunn wisely allows Ginger to grieve, even as she investigates to discover the truth about Mary Margret’s death. That, to me, is the kind of detail that adds enough realism to make the story plausible. TO allow that “suspension of disbelief” we all face inside a novel, that invites us to enter the world of the story, live in it for awhile, and finish it knowing it was a good journey through its pages.
Cecelia Ahern is the Irish Prime Minister's daughter, and she's a novelist in her own right.
PS I Love You is a sweet story, not quite romance and not quite chick lit. A widow finds letters from her deceased husband, who has assignments for his wife so that she can carry on without him.
I really enjoyed this novel. It is scheduled to be made into a film at the end of this year.
This classic story by Madeleine L'Engle is worthy of its Newbery Award. It is part science fiction, part fantasy, and all fun.
A Wrinkle in Time was one of my favorites growing up, and I recently read it to my daughters as part of the Newbery reading challenge I joined. I fell in love with Meg, Calvin, and especially Charles Wallace all over again.
Revisiting this book was so much fun!
Sheri is bound and determined to steer clear of the Mule Hollow Matchmakers. She even goes out of her way to formulate a plan to catch them at their own game! She enlists the help of Pace Gentry, a new cowboy in town, against his better judgment. In the meantime, Sheri and Pace find themselves attracted to one another, but mismatched in their faith. Will the plan work, or will it backfire on Sheri?
Sheri is one of the feistiest heroines I’ve come across in the Love Inspired line of inspirational fiction. At times she was exasperating, but at other times, quite endearing. I enjoyed her very much.
Pace, well, he’s a strong silent type of a cowboy. He’s a new Christian, and he’s trying to understand how to follow God’s will. He doesn’t approve of Sheri’s plot to foil the Matchmakers of Mule Hollow, and yet he finds himself in the plot anyway.
I really enjoyed this story and of course, I’ve got a soft spot in my heart for Mule Hollow. I can’t wait to read the rest of the books in the series!
http://summerreadingchallenge.blogspot.com will tell you all you need to know!
This is one of my Spring Challenge books.
Petticoat Ranch by Mary Connealy
This is a cute story. It's a bit reminiscent of Janette Oke, but rougher, like the difference between calico and burlap. Janette Oke writes frontier stories with God, romance, and family. Connealy's novel has God, romance, and family as well, but she also has women sharpshooters and trappers, desperadoes, screaming preachers, and lots and lots of Texas.
One of the greatest strengths of the novel is characterization. Connealy captures the battle between men and women beautifully and with much humor. The transitions between points of view are also very well done.
I tended to get confused with all the men--who were the good guys, who were the bad guys, and there were so many of them to track! But it all works out for a happily-ever-after ending.
I'd recommend this book to fans of Janette Oke and other pioneer stories with a Christian message.
I hit fifty books! I've met my goal this year of 10 books/month. Woooohoooo!!!!
Elizabeth Berg is a gifted writer. Her book A Year of Pleasures is amazing. It's a study of grief, of marriage, of individuality, and of friendship. If you enjoy fiction about and by women, be sure to grab this one.
Hello there! I found a great new feature over at 5 Minutes for Mom!
Stop by and see the 5 Minutes for Books column, with a review for Mary De Muth's parenting book!
