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 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.
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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!
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Tagged as 4 star, Catholic, Catholic Connections, NetGalley, Read 2015, You Read How Many Books Challenge
