Tag: 4 star

A Handbook on Forms of Catholic Prayer – Prayer in the Catholic Tradition {Review}

Posted October 3, 2016 in Reading, Review / 0 Comments

A Handbook on Forms of Catholic Prayer – Prayer in the Catholic Tradition {Review}Prayer in the Catholic Tradition by Robert Wicks
Publisher: Franciscan Media (2016 - October 7)
eARC (640 pages)
Via: NetGalley
Rating:
Reading Challenges: Read 2016

Synopsis

Within the Catholic tradition, there are many ways to pray. Yet, while there are smaller books, books on praying with saints and contemporary figures, volumes assembling groups of individual prayers, or prayer within one particular strand of Catholic spirituality, there is no truly comprehensive work available on how to learn, practice, and teach ways of prayer in the broad Roman Catholic tradition. This handbook breaks new ground, offering forty important voices on forty essential topics for a comprehensive look at the learning, practice, and teaching of all that it means to pray in the Catholic tradition. Topics include:
• Types of spirituality (including Carmelite, Franciscan, Ignatian, Dominican and other major schools) and how they frame prayer and prayerfulness
• Liturgical prayer
• New Testament scriptural approaches to prayer
• Praying with the Psalms
• Contemplation
• Liturgy of the Hours
• Conversational prayer
• Resistances to prayer
• Journaling as prayer
• Enhancing a spirit of prayerfulness
• Praying in Ordinary Time
• Praying through grief, suffering, loss and pain
• Dealing with distractions in prayer
• The essentials of Catholic prayer; and much more.

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A Contemporary Christmastime Fairytale – Christmas in Paris{Review}

Posted September 29, 2016 in Reading, Review / 0 Comments

A Contemporary Christmastime Fairytale – Christmas in Paris{Review}Christmas in Paris by Anita Hughes
Publisher: St Martin's Griffin (2016 - October 4)
eARC (288 pages)
Via: NetGalley
Rating:
Reading Challenges: Read 2016

Synopsis

Hughes will fill your heart with the sights, sounds, and flavors of new love, glamorous fashion, and decadent holiday cuisine.
Isabel Lawson is standing on the balcony of her suite at the Hotel Crillon as she gazes at the twinkling lights of the Champs Elysee and wonders if she’s made a terrible mistake. She was supposed to be visiting the Christmas tree in the Place de la Concorde, and eating escargots and macaroons with her new husband on their honeymoon. But a week before the wedding, she called it off. Isabel is an ambitious Philadelphia finance woman, and Neil suddenly decided to take over his grandparents’ farm. Isabel wasn’t ready to trade her briefcase for a pair of rubber boots and a saddle.
When Neil suggested she use their honeymoon tickets for herself, she thought it would give her a chance to clear her head. That is until she locks herself out on the balcony in the middle of winter. Thankfully her neighbor Alec, a French children’s illustrator, comes to her rescue. He too is nursing a broken heart at the Crillon for the holidays. With a new friend by her side, Isabel is determined to use her time in the city of lights wisely. After a chance encounter with a fortune teller and a close call with a taxi, she starts to question everything she thought was important.
Christmas in Paris is a moving and heartwarming story about love, trust, and self-discovery. Set during the most magical week of the year, the glorious foods and fashions of the most romantic city in the world are sure to take your breath away.

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A YA Space-Western Reminiscent of Firefly – Starflight {Review}

Posted September 26, 2016 in Reading, Review / 2 Comments

A YA Space-Western Reminiscent of Firefly – Starflight {Review}Starflight by Melissa Landers
Series: Starflight #1
Publisher: Disney Hyperion (2016)
Hardcover (369 pages)
Rating:
Reading Challenges: Read 2016

Synopsis

Life in the outer realm is a lawless, dirty, hard existence, and Solara Brooks is hungry for it. Just out of the orphanage, she needs a fresh start in a place where nobody cares about the engine grease beneath her fingernails or the felony tattoos across her knuckles. She's so desperate to reach the realm that she's willing to indenture herself to Doran Spaulding, the rich and popular quarterback who made her life miserable all through high school, in exchange for passage aboard the spaceliner Zenith.
When a twist of fate lands them instead on the Banshee, a vessel of dubious repute, Doran learns he's been framed on Earth for conspiracy. As he pursues a set of mysterious coordinates rumored to hold the key to clearing his name, he and Solara must get past their enmity to work together and evade those out for their arrest. Life on the Banshee may be tumultuous, but as Solara and Doran are forced to question everything they once believed about their world—and each other—the ship becomes home, and the eccentric crew family. But what Solara and Doran discover on the mysterious Planet X has the power to not only alter their lives, but the existence of everyone in the universe...

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Six Main Characters, Six Narrators – Six of Crows {Review}

Posted September 12, 2016 in Reading, Review / 2 Comments

Six Main Characters, Six Narrators – Six of Crows {Review}Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo
Series: Six of Crows #1
Publisher: Henry Holt and Company (2015)
Hardcover (465 pages)
Via: Library
Rating:
Also by this author: Shadow and Bone, Siege and Storm, Ruin and Rising
Reading Challenges: Read 2016

Synopsis

Ketterdam: a bustling hub of international trade where anything can be had for the right price—and no one knows that better than criminal prodigy Kaz Brekker. Kaz is offered a chance at a deadly heist that could make him rich beyond his wildest dreams. But he can't pull it off alone...
A convict with a thirst for revenge.
A sharpshooter who can't walk away from a wager.
A runaway with a privileged past.
A spy known as the Wraith.
A Heartrender using her magic to survive the slums.
A thief with a gift for unlikely escapes.
Kaz's crew are the only ones who might stand between the world and destruction—if they don't kill each other first.

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A Different Sort of Vampires – Jessica’s Guide to Dating on the Dark Side {Review}

Posted September 1, 2016 in Reading, Review / 0 Comments

A Different Sort of Vampires – Jessica’s Guide to Dating on the Dark Side {Review}Jessica's Guide to Dating on the Dark Side by Beth Fantaskey
Series: Jessica #1
Publisher: Harcourt (2009)
eBook (351 pages)
Via: Library
Rating:
Reading Challenges: 2016 Backlist Books, 2016 Royal Challenge, Read 2016

Synopsis

The undead can really screw up your senior year ...
Marrying a vampire definitely doesn’t fit into Jessica Packwood’s senior year “get-a-life” plan. But then a bizarre (and incredibly hot) new exchange student named Lucius Vladescu shows up, claiming that Jessica is a Romanian vampire princess by birth—and he’s her long-lost fiancé. Armed with newfound confidence and a copy of Growing Up Undead: A Teen Vampire’s Guide to Dating, Health, and Emotions, Jessica makes a dramatic transition from average American teenager to glam European vampire princess. But when a devious cheerleader sets her sights on Lucius, Jess finds herself fighting to win back her wayward prince, stop a global vampire war—and save Lucius’s soul from eternal destruction.

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