Format: Hardcover

Review: Beauty – An Epic Fairy Tale

Posted May 14, 2015 in Reading, Review / 2 Comments

Review: Beauty – An Epic Fairy TaleBeauty by Robin McKinley
Publisher: HarperCollins (1978)
Hardcover (247 pages)
Via: Library
Rating:
Reading Challenges: 2015 Birthday Month, 2015 Fairytale Retelling, 2015 Re-Reading, Read 2015

Synopsis

A young woman, well educated and honourable, accepts responsibility for her father’s act and leaves her family to enter the enchanted world of castle and Beast. The Beast she finds is not the one she imagined, but can she stay with him?
A gifted storyteller embellishes the classic tale, developing a new and very real world of her own in a love story that has all the wonder and magic of the fairy tale.

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Review: Grave Mercy

Posted April 29, 2015 in Reading, Review / 0 Comments

Review: Grave MercyGrave Mercy by Robin LaFevers
Series: His Fair Assassin #1
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (2012)
Hardcover (549 pages)
Via: Library
Rating:
Also by this author: Dark Triumph, Mortal Heart
Also in this series: Dark Triumph, Mortal Heart
Reading Challenges: Read 2015

Synopsis

Why be the sheep, when you can be the wolf?
Seventeen-year-old Ismae escapes from the brutality of an arranged marriage into the sanctuary of the convent of St. Mortain, where the sisters still serve the gods of old. Here she learns that the god of Death Himself has blessed her with dangerous gifts—and a violent destiny. If she chooses to stay at the convent, she will be trained as an assassin and serve as a handmaiden to Death. To claim her new life, she must destroy the lives of others.
Ismae’s most important assignment takes her straight into the high court of Brittany—where she finds herself woefully under prepared—not only for the deadly games of intrigue and treason, but for the impossible choices she must make. For how can she deliver Death’s vengeance upon a target who, against her will, has stolen her heart?

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Review: The Raven Boys – Searching for a Mythical Welsh King

Posted April 27, 2015 in Reading, Review / 0 Comments

Review: The Raven Boys – Searching for a Mythical Welsh KingThe Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater
Series: The Raven Cycle #1
Publisher: Scholastic (2012)
Hardcover (416 pages)
Via: Library
Rating:
Also by this author: Shiver, The Scorpio Races, The Dream Thieves
Also in this series: The Dream Thieves, Blue Lily, Lily Blue, The Raven King
Reading Challenges: 2015 Alphabet Soup, 2015 What's In A Name?, Read 2015

Synopsis

“There are only two reasons a non-seer would see a spirit on St. Mark’s Eve,” Neeve said. “Either you’re his true love . . . or you killed him.”
It is freezing in the churchyard, even before the dead arrive.
Every year, Blue Sargent stands next to her clairvoyant mother as the soon-to-be dead walk past. Blue herself never sees them—not until this year, when a boy emerges from the dark and speaks directly to her.
His name is Gansey, and Blue soon discovers that he is a rich student at Aglionby, the local private school. Blue has a policy of staying away from Aglionby boys. Known as Raven Boys, they can only mean trouble.
But Blue is drawn to Gansey, in a way she can’t entirely explain. He has it all—family money, good looks, devoted friends—but he’s looking for much more than that. He is on a quest that has encompassed three other Raven Boys: Adam, the scholarship student who resents all the privilege around him; Ronan, the fierce soul who ranges from anger to despair; and Noah, the taciturn watcher of the four, who notices many things but says very little.
For as long as she can remember, Blue has been warned that she will cause her true love to die. She never thought this would be a problem. But now, as her life becomes caught up in the strange and sinister world of the Raven Boys, she’s not so sure anymore.

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Review: Seven Revolutions – Changing the World

Posted April 4, 2015 in Faith, Reading, Review / 0 Comments

I just finished this book and did not want to wait to share it. I really loved it. I also think that it fits nicely with the Triduum and the Easter season.

I pray that every one of you has a wonderful Easter weekend!


Review: Seven Revolutions – Changing the WorldSeven Revolutions by Mike Aquilina, James L Papandrea
Publisher: Image (2015)
Hardcover (256 pages)
Via: Blogging for Books
Rating:
Also by this author: History's Queen
Reading Challenges: Read 2015

Synopsis

Combining history, politics, and religion, Mike Aquilina and Jim Papandrea provide practical lessons to be learned from the struggles of the Early Church, lessons that can be applied to the day-to-day lives of Christian readers.
Prolonged, multiple wars in the Middle East. Waves of immigrants crossing the borders. Ongoing economic recession. Increasing political polarization, often with religious overtones. Conflicts over ideologies that pit the progressive against the traditional. Sound familiar? These conditions not only describe the United States, but the situation of the Roman Empire in the third century. That situation led to religious persecution and the eventual collapse of the empire. In the middle of the third century, the Roman Empire was roughly the same age as the United States is now.
In this book, authors Mike Aquilina and Jim Papandrea examine the practices of the Early Church—a body of Christians living in Rome—and show how the lessons learned from these ancient Christians can apply to Christians living in the United States today. The book moves from the Christian individual, to the family, the church and the world, explaining how the situation of the Early Church is not only familiar to modern Christian readers, but that its values are still relevant.

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Review: Fairest – *cue villain theme song*

Posted March 26, 2015 in Reading, Review / 0 Comments

Review: Fairest – *cue villain theme song*Fairest by Marissa Meyer
Series: The Lunar Chronicles #3.5
Publisher: Feiwel and Friends (2015)
Hardcover (222 pages)
Rating:
Also by this author: Cinder, Scarlet, Cress
Also in this series: Cinder, Scarlet, Cress
Reading Challenges: 2015 Fairytale Retelling, Read 2015

Synopsis

In this stunning bridge book between Cress and Winter in the bestselling Lunar Chronicles, Queen Levana’s story is finally told.

Mirror, mirror on the wall,
Who is the fairest of them all?

Fans of the Lunar Chronicles know Queen Levana as a ruler who uses her “glamour” to gain power. But long before she crossed paths with Cinder, Scarlet, and Cress, Levana lived a very different story – a story that has never been told . . . until now.
Marissa Meyer spins yet another unforgettable tale about love and war, deceit and death.

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