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?
Find the book: Goodreads
Read More
Tagged as 4 star, Blogging for Books, Catholic, Catholic Connections, Read 2015, You Read How Many Books Challenge
Posted May 4, 2015 in Faith, Reading, Review / 4 Comments
Arriving At Amen by
Leah Libresco Publisher: Ave Maria Press (2015)
eARC (192 pages)
Via: NetGalley Rating: Reading Challenges: Read 2015 Synopsis
A former atheist makes sense of Catholicism and learns to pray by relying on the rosary and the rumba, avoiding sin and the sunk cost fallacy, and finding communion along Cartesian coordinates.
Find the book: Goodreads
Read More
Tagged as 5 star, All Time Favorites, Catholic, Catholic Book, Catholic Connections, NetGalley, Read 2015, You Read How Many Books Challenge
Posted April 9, 2015 in Reading, Review / 0 Comments
Moonlands by
Steven Savile Series: Moonlands #1 Publisher: CreateSpace (2015)
eARC (484 pages)
Via: NetGalley Rating: Reading Challenges: Read 2015 Synopsis
Ashley Hawthorne thinks of herself as the Cuckoo Girl. No matter where she is it feels like she doesn’t quite belong.
Everything changes when her eccentric aunt, Elspeth Grimm, leaves her the key to a safety deposit box in a bank that was destroyed during the Blitz. That box contains the first part of her true inheritance: an umbrella, a battered old notebook, a pair of aviator’s goggles and a locket. Each of these gifts is a unique part of who she really is.
Elspeth is a Grimm, a descendent of the brothers who purged this world of monsters by trapping them within the Concord. She is the Oracle. A keeper of all the knowledge we have amassed about the creatures of the Fae and other worlds. And someone intent on destroying the Concord has murdered her!
When Ashley looks through the goggles that night she sees curious creatures on the roof of the house across the street watching her. To the naked eye they look like crows but they are not. It is the first glimpse of the other place—the place where she will finally belong.
The journal is crammed full of things, but there’s no actual writing in it. Ash decides she’s going to use the book as a journal, and begins the first entry: My name is Ashley Hawthorne. The ink fades so she writes it again. My name is Ashley Hawthorne. Again the ink fades. She tries again and again until the ink scratches out an entirely different first line: That is not who you are!
Find the book: Goodreads
Read More
Tagged as 4 star, Catholic, Catholic Connections, NetGalley, Read 2015, You Read How Many Books Challenge
Posted February 27, 2015 in Reading, Review / 0 Comments
Akarnae by
Lynette Noni Series: The Medoran Chronicles #1 Publisher: Pantera Press (2015)
eARC (397 pages)
Via: NetGalley Rating: Also by this author: Raelia Also in this series: Raelia Reading Challenges: Read 2015 Synopsis
Dreading her first day at a new school, Alex is stunned when she walks through a doorway and finds herself stranded in Medora, a fantasy world full of impossibilities. Desperate to return home, she learns that only a man named Professor Marselle can help her… but he’s missing.
While waiting for him to reappear, Alex attends Akarnae Academy, Medora’s boarding school for teenagers with extraordinary gifts. She soon starts to enjoy her bizarre new world and the friends who embrace her as one of their own, but strange things are happening at Akarnae, and Alex can’t ignore her fear that something unexpected… something sinister… is looming.
An unwilling pawn in a deadly game, Alex’s shoulders bear the crushing weight of an entire race’s survival. Only she can save the Medorans, but what if doing so prevents her from ever returning home?
Will Alex risk her entire world–and maybe even her life–to save Medora?
Find the book: Goodreads
Read More
Tagged as 5 star, All Time Favorites, NetGalley, Read 2015, You Read How Many Books Challenge
Posted February 26, 2015 in Reading, Review / 0 Comments
Dauntless by
Dina Sleiman Series: Valiant Hearts #1 Publisher: Bethany House (2015)
eARC (368 pages)
Via: NetGalley Rating: Reading Challenges: 2015 Alphabet Soup,
Read 2015 Synopsis
Though once a baron’s daughter, Lady Merry Ellison is willing to go to any lengths to protect the orphaned children of her former village. Dubbed “The Ghosts of Farthingale Forest,” her band of followers soon become enemies of the throne when they hijack ill-gotten gold meant for the king.
Timothy Grey, ninth child of the Baron of Greyham, longs to perform some feat so legendary that he will rise from obscurity and earn a title of his own. When the Ghosts of Farthingale Forest are spotted in Wyndeshire, where he serves as assistant to the local earl, he might have found his chance. But when he comes face-to-face with the leader of the thieves, will he choose fame or love?
Find the book: Goodreads
Read More
Tagged as 4 star, Alphabet Soup Reading Challenge, NetGalley, Read 2015, You Read How Many Books Challenge