Posted January 29, 2015 in Faith, Reading, Review / 0 Comments
My Sisters the Saints by
Colleen Carroll Campbell Publisher: Image (2012)
eARC (224 pages)
Via: NetGalley Rating: Reading Challenges: 2015 Alphabet Soup,
2015 What's In A Name?,
Read 2015 Synopsis
In My Sisters the Saints, author Colleen Carroll Campbell blends her personal narrative of spiritual seeking, trials, stumbles, and breakthroughs with the stories of six women saints who profoundly changed her life: Teresa of Avila, Therese of Lisieux, Faustina of Poland, Edith Stein of Germany, Mother Teresa of Calcutta, and Mary of Nazareth. Drawing upon the rich writings and examples of these extraordinary women, the author reveals Christianity's liberating power for women and the relevance of the saints to the lives of contemporary Christians.
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Tagged as 5 star, All Time Favorites, Catholic, Catholic Book, NetGalley, Read 2015
Posted January 21, 2015 in Faith, Reading, Review / 0 Comments
A Book of Uncommon Prayer by
Brian Doyle Publisher: Ave Maria Press (2014)
eARC (128 pages)
Via: NetGalley Rating: Reading Challenges: 2015 Alphabet Soup,
Read 2015 Synopsis
Acclaimed, award-winning essayist and novelist Brian Doyle—whose writing, in the words of Mary Oliver, is “a gift to us all”—presents one hundred new prayers that evoke his deep Catholic belief in the mystery and miracle of the ordinary (and the whimsical) in human life.
In Brian Doyle’s newest work, A Book of Uncommon Prayer: 100 Celebrations of the Miracle & Muddle of the Ordinary, his readers will find a series of prayers unlike any of the beautiful, formal, orthodox prayers of the Catholic tradition or the warm, extemporized prayers heard from pulpits and dinner tables. Doyle’s often-dazzling, always-poignant prayers include eye-opening hymns to shoes and faith and family. In Doyle’s words, “the world is crammed with miracles, so crammed and tumultuous that if we stop, see, savor, we are agog,” and the pages of his newest book give voice and body to this credo. By focusing on experiences that may seem the most unprayerful (one prayer is titled “Prayer on Seeing Yet Another Egregious Parade of Muddy Paw Prints on the Floor”), he gives permission to discover the joys and treasures in what he often calls the muddle of everyday life.
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Tagged as 5 star, Alphabet Soup Reading Challenge, Catholic, Catholic Book, NetGalley, Read 2015, You Read How Many Books Challenge
Posted January 16, 2015 in Reading, Review / 2 Comments
The Web by
Megan Chance Series: The Fianna Trilogy #2 Publisher: Skyscape (2015)
eARC (384 pages)
Via: NetGalley Rating: Reading Challenges: 2015 Alphabet Soup,
2015 Mythology,
Read 2015 Synopsis
The Fianna, legendary Irish warriors, have been magically called from their undying sleep to aid Ireland in its rebellion against Britain. But the Fianna have awakened in New York alongside their bitter enemies, the Fomori. A prophecy demands that a Druid priestess—a veleda—must choose between these two sides. Grace is this veleda.
But being the veleda means she must sacrifice her power—and her life—to her choice. On one side are her fiancé, Patrick Devlin, and the Fomori. On the other are the Fianna—and the warrior Diarmid Ua Duibhne, with whom Grace shares an undeniable connection. Patrick has promised to find a way to save her life. In three months, at the ancient ritual, Diarmid must wield the knife that kills her.
Grace doesn’t know whom to trust. As dark forces converge on the city, she struggles to discover the truth about her power. Can she change her own destiny? Can she escape the shadows of the past and reach for a future she could never have imagined?
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Tagged as 5 star, Alphabet Soup Reading Challenge, Mythology Reading Challenge, NetGalley, Read 2015, You Read How Many Books Challenge
Posted January 15, 2015 in Faith, Reading, Review / 0 Comments
Loved as I Am by
Miriam James Heidland Publisher: Ave Maria Press (2014)
eARC (128 pages)
Via: NetGalley Rating: Reading Challenges: Read 2015 Synopsis
When Sr. Miriam James Heidland’s life as a successful college athlete proved unfulfilling, she went searching for something deeper and ended up falling in love with Jesus. By charting her own journey toward wholeness, Heidland invites young Catholics to pursue their own relationship with Jesus.
Although originally full of athletic ambition and goals for a career in sports news, Heidland was transformed in a very slow but deep way during her undergraduate years, moving from party girl to bride of Christ. In Loved as I Am: An Invitation to Conversion, Healing, and Freedom through Jesus, Heidland helps readers learn from her experience of seeking love in the wrong places and instead finding it in Christ. She shares her struggles—learning she was adopted, battling alcoholism, and healing from childhood sexual abuse—as signs of hope that anyone who desires to know Christ can find him and be loved intimately by him in return. By bringing readers into Heidland’s healing process, Loved as I Am provides a gentle and subtle template for finding peace and freedom in Jesus.
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Tagged as 5 star, Catholic, Catholic Book, NetGalley, Read 2015, You Read How Many Books Challenge
Posted December 28, 2014 in Reading, Review / 0 Comments
Splintered by
A G Howard Series: Splintered #1 Publisher: Amulet Books (2013)
eBook (377 pages)
Via: Library Rating: Also by this author: Unhinged,
Ensnared Also in this series: Unhinged,
Ensnared Reading Challenges: Read 2014 Synopsis
This stunning debut captures the grotesque madness of a mystical under-land, as well as a girl’s pangs of first love and independence.
Alyssa Gardner hears the whispers of bugs and flowers—precisely the affliction that landed her mother in a mental hospital years before. This family curse stretches back to her ancestor Alice Liddell, the real-life inspiration for Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Alyssa might be crazy, but she manages to keep it together. For now.
When her mother’s mental health takes a turn for the worse, Alyssa learns that what she thought was fiction is based in terrifying reality. The real Wonderland is a place far darker and more twisted than Lewis Carroll ever let on. There, Alyssa must pass a series of tests, including draining an ocean of Alice’s tears, waking the slumbering tea party, and subduing a vicious bandersnatch, to fix Alice’s mistakes and save her family. She must also decide whom to trust: Jeb, her gorgeous best friend and secret crush, or the sexy but suspicious Morpheus, her guide through Wonderland, who may have dark motives of his own.
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Tagged as 5 star, All Time Favorites, Library, Read 2014
