Posted August 31, 2015 in Reading, Review / 2 Comments
A Whole New World by
Liz Braswell Series: Twisted Tales #1 Publisher: Disney Press (2015)
eARC (336 pages)
Via: NetGalley Rating: Also by this author: Once Upon A Dream Also in this series: Once Upon A Dream Reading Challenges: 2015 Fairytale Retelling,
Read 2015 Synopsis
This dark and daring version of Aladdin twists the original story with the question: What if Jafar was the first one to summon the Genie?
When Jafar steals the Genie’s lamp, he uses his first two wishes to become sultan and the most powerful sorcerer in the world. Agrabah lives in fear, waiting for his third and final wish.To stop the power-mad ruler, Aladdin and the deposed Princess Jasmine must unite the people of Agrabah in rebellion. But soon their fight for freedom threatens to tear the kingdom apart in a costly civil war.
What happens next? A Street Rat becomes a leader. A princess becomes a revolutionary. And readers will never look at the story of Aladdin in the same way again.
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Tagged as 3 star, Fairytale Retelling Challenge, NetGalley, Read 2015, You Read How Many Books Challenge
Posted August 19, 2015 in Reading, Review / 0 Comments
The Plain Choice by
Sherry Gore Publisher: Zondervan (2015)
eARC (224 pages)
Via: NetGalley Rating: Reading Challenges: Read 2015 Synopsis
Raised in a broken family and emotionally overlooked, Sherry Gore grew up without a solid foundation, a prisoner of her own poor choices, and at times without hope. A series of terrible mistakes left her feeling wrecked and alone and a sudden tragedy threw Sherry into an emotional tailspin too powerful to escape.
Sherry hangs by a thread, unable to see how she can go on living, until it happens: on a morning of no particular significance, she walks into a church and BAM the truth of Jesus forgiving love shatters her world and cleaves her life in two: She goes to bed stunned; she wakes up a Christian.
Unwilling to return to the darkness of her former life, Sherry attacks her faith head on. Soon the life Sherry Gore remakes for herself and her children as she seeks to follow the teachings of the Bible features head coverings, simple dress, and a focus on Jesus Christ. Only then does she realize, in a fit of excitement, that there are others like her. They are called Amish and Mennonite, and she realizes she has found her people.
The plain choice that Sherry makes is not easy and life still brings unexpected pain and heartache – but it changes everything for her, as she becomes one of the few people on earth to have successfully joined the Amish from the outside.
She has found her place. And her story proves that one can return from the darkest depths to the purest light with the power of God.
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Tagged as 4 star, NetGalley, Read 2015, You Read How Many Books Challenge
Posted July 8, 2015 in Reading, Review / 0 Comments
Rebel Mechanics by
Shanna Swendson Series: Rebel Mechanics #1 Publisher: Farrar Straus Giroux (2015)
eARC (320 pages)
Via: NetGalley Rating: Reading Challenges: Read 2015 Synopsis
A sixteen-year-old governess becomes a spy in this alternative U.S. history where the British control with magic and the colonists rebel by inventing.
It’s 1888, and sixteen-year-old Verity Newton lands a job in New York as a governess to a wealthy leading family—but she quickly learns that the family has big secrets. Magisters have always ruled the colonies, but now an underground society of mechanics and engineers are developing non-magical sources of power via steam engines that they hope will help them gain freedom from British rule. The family Verity works for is magister—but it seems like the children’s young guardian uncle is sympathetic to the rebel cause. As Verity falls for a charming rebel inventor and agrees to become a spy, she also becomes more and more enmeshed in the magister family’s life. She soon realizes she’s uniquely positioned to advance the cause—but to do so, she’ll have to reveal her own dangerous secret.
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Tagged as 4 star, Catholic, Catholic Connections, NetGalley, Read 2015, You Read How Many Books Challenge
Posted June 1, 2015 in Reading, Review / 0 Comments
Spelled by
Betsy Schow Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire (2015)
eARC (352 pages)
Via: NetGalley Rating: Reading Challenges: 2015 Fairytale Retelling,
Read 2015 Synopsis
Fairy Tale Survival Rule #32: If you find yourself at the mercy of a wicked witch, sing a romantic ballad and wait for your Prince Charming to save the day.
Yeah, no thanks. Dorthea is completely princed out. Sure being the crown princess of Emerald has its perks—like Glenda Original ball gowns and Hans Christian Louboutin heels. But a forced marriage to the brooding prince Kato is so not what Dorthea had in mind for her enchanted future.
Talk about unhappily ever after.
Trying to fix her prince problem by wishing on a (cursed) star royally backfires, leaving the kingdom in chaos and her parents stuck in some place called “Kansas.” Now it’s up to Dorthea and her pixed off prince to find the mysterious Wizard of Oz and undo the curse…before it releases the wickedest witch of all and spells The End for the world of Story.
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Tagged as 3 star, Catholic, Catholic Connections, Fairy Tales, Fairytale Retelling Challenge, NetGalley, Read 2015, You Read How Many Books Challenge
Posted May 13, 2015 in Reading, Review / 0 Comments
The Pharaoh's Daughter by
Mesu Andrews Series: Treasures of the Nile #1 Publisher: WaterBrook Press (2015)
eARC,
Paperback (384 pages)
Via: Blogging for Books Rating: Also by this author: Miriam,
Isaiah's Daughter,
Isaiah's Legacy Also in this series: Miriam Reading Challenges: Read 2015 Synopsis
“You will be called Anippe, daughter of the Nile. Do you like it?” Without waiting for a reply, she pulls me into her squishy, round tummy for a hug.
I’m trying not to cry. Pharaoh’s daughters don’t cry.
When we make our way down the tiled hall, I try to stop at ummi Kiya’s chamber. I know her spirit has flown yet I long for one more moment. Amenia pushes me past so I keep walking and don’t look back.
Like the waters of the Nile, I will flow.
Anippe has grown up in the shadows of Egypt’s good god Pharaoh, aware that Anubis, god of the afterlife, may take her or her siblings at any moment. She watched him snatch her mother and infant brother during childbirth, a moment which awakens in her a terrible dread of ever bearing a child. Now she is to be become the bride of Sebak, a kind but quick-tempered Captain of Pharaoh Tut’s army. In order to provide Sebak the heir he deserves and yet protect herself from the underworld gods, Anippe must launch a series of deceptions, even involving the Hebrew midwives—women ordered by Tut to drown the sons of their own people in the Nile.
When she finds a baby floating in a basket on the great river, Anippe believes Egypt’s gods have answered her pleas, entrenching her more deeply in deception and placing her and her son Mehy, whom handmaiden Miriam calls Moses, in mortal danger.
As bloodshed and savage politics shift the balance of power in Egypt, the gods reveal their fickle natures and Anippe wonders if her son, a boy of Hebrew blood, could one day become king. Or does the god of her Hebrew servants, the one they call El Shaddai, have a different plan—for them all?
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Tagged as 4 star, Blogging for Books, Catholic, Catholic Connections, Read 2015, You Read How Many Books Challenge
