Posted March 8, 2017 in Reading, Review / 0 Comments
The Bear and the Nightingale by
Katherine Arden Series: Winternight #1 Publisher: Del Rey (2017)
eARC (322 pages)
Via: NetGalley Rating: Also by this author: The Girl in the Tower,
The Winter of the Witch Also in this series: The Girl in the Tower,
The Winter of the Witch Reading Challenges: 2016 Retelling Challenge,
2016 Royal Challenge,
Read 2016 Synopsis
At the edge of the Russian wilderness, winter lasts most of the year and the snowdrifts grow taller than houses. But Vasilisa doesn’t mind—she spends the winter nights huddled around the embers of a fire with her beloved siblings, listening to her nurse’s fairy tales. Above all, she loves the chilling story of Frost, the blue-eyed winter demon, who appears in the frigid night to claim unwary souls. Wise Russians fear him, her nurse says, and honor the spirits of house and yard and forest that protect their homes from evil.
After Vasilisa’s mother dies, her father goes to Moscow and brings home a new wife. Fiercely devout, city-bred, Vasilisa’s new stepmother forbids her family from honoring the household spirits. The family acquiesces, but Vasilisa is frightened, sensing that more hinges upon their rituals than anyone knows.
And indeed, crops begin to fail, evil creatures of the forest creep nearer, and misfortune stalks the village. All the while, Vasilisa’s stepmother grows ever harsher in her determination to groom her rebellious stepdaughter for either marriage or confinement in a convent.
As danger circles, Vasilisa must defy even the people she loves and call on dangerous gifts she has long concealed—this, in order to protect her family from a threat that seems to have stepped from her nurse’s most frightening tales.
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Tagged as 5 star, All Time Favorites, Read 2016
Posted October 22, 2016 in Reading, Review / 0 Comments
Beauty Begins by
Chris Shook,
Megan Shook Alpha Publisher: WaterBrook Press (2016)
Hardcover (208 pages)
Rating: Reading Challenges: Read 2016 Synopsis
You are, and always have been, beautiful.
“Beauty begins. That’s the point of this book. Our understanding of beauty got started somewhere and somehow, and probably due to someone. Now that may have been a good start, but then again it may not have. But regardless of what your past looks like, we want to offer up this word of hope: it’s never too late to make peace with your reflection.”
We live in a culture that’s obsessed with beauty. Walk by any magazine stand, turn on a television, or visit the local shopping mall, and you’ll be bombarded with the images and ideals that our culture believes are the epitome of what it means to be beautiful. And if you’re like most women, you’ve probably spent countless hours trying to measure up to this standard of beauty whether you realize it or not.
But if you don’t make peace with your reflection, you’ll end up declaring war on yourself.
That’s where mother-daughter team, Chris and Megan Shook, want to help. In Beauty Begins, they explore the origins of beauty (hint, it didn’t start with a fashion magazine) and challenge each of us to trade the pressure of perfection for God's perfect love.
Poignant, relevant, and relatable, Beauty Begins is for every woman who wants to reclaim what it means to be truly beautiful.
Do you feel beautiful?
When you look in the mirror, what do you see? Others may tell you that you’re beautiful, but do you believe them? Why not? Don’t let another day go by without believing and knowing that you are fearfully and wonderfully made.
It’s time for you to exchange society’s cookie-cutter suggestions for what is beautiful and instead discover and reclaim what true beauty looks like – and the One who created it.
In Beauty Begins, Chris and Megan Shook share with you their own experiences and struggles with appearance and body image, as well as equip you with the wisdom to distinguish what’s artificial beauty and what’s real. Filled with heartfelt encouragement, insightful challenges, and undeniable truth, after reading Beauty Begins, you’ll never look in the mirror the same way again.
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Tagged as 4 star, Read 2016
Posted June 27, 2016 in Reading, Review / 4 Comments
And I Darken by
Kiersten White Series: The Conquerors Saga #1 Publisher: Delacorte Press (2016 - June 28)
eARC (496 pages)
Via: NetGalley Rating: Reading Challenges: 2016 Retelling Challenge,
2016 Royal Challenge,
Read 2016 Synopsis
NO ONE EXPECTS A PRINCESS TO BE BRUTAL.
And Lada Dragwlya likes it that way. Ever since she and her gentle younger brother, Radu, were wrenched from their homeland of Wallachia and abandoned by their father to be raised in the Ottoman courts, Lada has known that being ruthless is the key to survival. She and Radu are doomed to act as pawns in a vicious game, an unseen sword hovering over their every move. For the lineage that makes them special also makes them targets.
Lada despises the Ottomans and bides her time, planning her vengeance for the day when she can return to Wallachia and claim her birthright. Radu longs only for a place where he feels safe. And when they meet Mehmed, the defiant and lonely son of the sultan, who’s expected to rule a nation, Radu feels that he’s made a true friend—and Lada wonders if she’s finally found someone worthy of her passion.
But Mehmed is heir to the very empire that Lada has sworn to fight against—and that Radu now considers home. Together, Lada, Radu, and Mehmed form a toxic triangle that strains the bonds of love and loyalty to the breaking point.
From New York Times bestselling author Kiersten White comes the first book in a dark, sweeping new series in which heads will roll, bodies will be impaled . . . and hearts will be broken.
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Tagged as 5 star, Read 2016
Posted April 25, 2016 in Reading, Review / 0 Comments
Juliet Immortal by
Stacey Jay Series: Juliet Immortal #1 Publisher: Delacorte Press (2011)
Hardcover (206 pages)
Via: Library Rating: Reading Challenges: 2016 Backlist Books,
2016 Retelling Challenge,
Read 2016 Synopsis
These violent delights have violent ends
And in their triumph die, like fire and powder,
Which as they kiss consume.
-William Shakespeare, ROMEO AND JULIET
Juliet Capulet didn't take her own life. She was murdered by the person she trusted most, her new husband, Romeo Montague, who made the sacrifice to ensure his own immortality. But Romeo didn't anticipate that Juliet would be granted eternal life as well, and would become an agent for the Ambassadors of Light.
For seven hundred years, Juliet has struggled to preserve romantic love and the lives of the innocent, while Romeo has fought for the dark side, seeking to destroy the human heart. Until now.
Now Juliet has found her own forbidden love, and Romeo, O Romeo, will do everything in his power to destroy their happiness.
Secrets unfold and surprises abound in Stacey Jay's powerfully dark romance, which reunites literature's most tragic couple.
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Tagged as 3 star, Read 2016
Posted April 23, 2016 in Reading, Review / 0 Comments
The Name of God is Mercy by
Pope Francis Publisher: Random House (2016)
Hardcover (176 pages)
Rating: Also by this author: The Joy of the Gospel,
Walking with Jesus,
Encountering Truth Reading Challenges: Read 2016 Synopsis
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • In his first book published as Pope, and in conjunction with the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy, Pope Francis here invites all humanity to an intimate and personal dialogue on the subject closest to his heart—mercy—which has long been the cornerstone of his faith and is now the central teaching of his papacy.
In this conversation with Vatican reporter Andrea Tornielli, Francis explains—through memories from his youth and moving anecdotes from his experiences as a pastor—why “mercy is the first attribute of God.” God “does not want anyone to be lost. His mercy is infinitely greater than our sins,” he writes. As well, the Church cannot close the door on anyone, Francis asserts—on the contrary, its duty is to go out into the world to find its way into the consciousness of people so that they can assume responsibility for, and move away from, the bad things they have done.
The first Jesuit and the first South American to be elected Bishop of Rome, Pope Francis has traveled around the world spreading God’s message of mercy to the largest crowds in papal history. Clear and profound, The Name of God Is Mercy resonates with this desire to reach all those who are looking for meaning in life, a road to peace and reconciliation, and the healing of physical and spiritual wounds. It is being published in more than eighty countries around the world.
“The name of God is mercy. There are no situations we cannot get out of, we are not condemned to sink into quicksand.”—Pope Francis
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Tagged as 5 star, Catholic, Catholic Book, Pope Francis, Read 2016
