Posted May 14, 2015 in Reading, Review / 2 Comments
Beauty 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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Tagged as 5 star, All Time Favorites, Birthday Month Reading Challenge, Catholic, Catholic Connections, Fairy Tales, Fairytale Retelling Challenge, Library, Read 2015, Rereading Challenge, You Read How Many Books Challenge
Posted May 13, 2015 in Reading, Review / 0 Comments
The Pharaoh's Daughter by
Mesu Andrews Series: Treasures of the Nile #1 Publisher: WaterBrook Press (2015)
eARC,
Paperback (384 pages)
Via: Blogging for Books Rating: Also by this author: Miriam,
Isaiah's Daughter,
Isaiah's Legacy Also in this series: Miriam Reading Challenges: Read 2015 Synopsis
“You will be called Anippe, daughter of the Nile. Do you like it?” Without waiting for a reply, she pulls me into her squishy, round tummy for a hug.
I’m trying not to cry. Pharaoh’s daughters don’t cry.
When we make our way down the tiled hall, I try to stop at ummi Kiya’s chamber. I know her spirit has flown yet I long for one more moment. Amenia pushes me past so I keep walking and don’t look back.
Like the waters of the Nile, I will flow.
Anippe has grown up in the shadows of Egypt’s good god Pharaoh, aware that Anubis, god of the afterlife, may take her or her siblings at any moment. She watched him snatch her mother and infant brother during childbirth, a moment which awakens in her a terrible dread of ever bearing a child. Now she is to be become the bride of Sebak, a kind but quick-tempered Captain of Pharaoh Tut’s army. In order to provide Sebak the heir he deserves and yet protect herself from the underworld gods, Anippe must launch a series of deceptions, even involving the Hebrew midwives—women ordered by Tut to drown the sons of their own people in the Nile.
When she finds a baby floating in a basket on the great river, Anippe believes Egypt’s gods have answered her pleas, entrenching her more deeply in deception and placing her and her son Mehy, whom handmaiden Miriam calls Moses, in mortal danger.
As bloodshed and savage politics shift the balance of power in Egypt, the gods reveal their fickle natures and Anippe wonders if her son, a boy of Hebrew blood, could one day become king. Or does the god of her Hebrew servants, the one they call El Shaddai, have a different plan—for them all?
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Tagged as 4 star, Blogging for Books, Catholic, Catholic Connections, Read 2015, You Read How Many Books Challenge
Posted May 11, 2015 in Reading, Review / 0 Comments
Divergent by
Veronica Roth Series: Divergent #1 Publisher: Katherine Tegan Books (2011)
eBook (487 pages)
Rating: Reading Challenges: Read 2015 Synopsis
In Beatrice Prior’s dystopian Chicago, society is divided into five factions, each dedicated to the cultivation of a particular virtue–Candor (the honest), Abnegation (the selfless), Dauntless (the brave), Amity (the peaceful), and Erudite (the intelligent). On an appointed day of every year, all sixteen-year-olds must select the faction to which they will devote the rest of their lives. For Beatrice, the decision is between staying with her family and being who she really is–she can’t have both. So she makes a choice that surprises everyone, including herself.
During the highly competitive initiation that follows, Beatrice renames herself Tris and struggles to determine who her friends really are–and where, exactly, a romance with a sometimes fascinating, sometimes infuriating boy fits into the life she’s chosen. But Tris also has a secret, one she’s kept hidden from everyone because she’s been warned it can mean death. And as she discovers a growing conflict that threatens to unravel her seemingly perfect society, she also learns that her secret might help her save those she loves . . . or it might destroy her.
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Tagged as 4 star, Catholic, Catholic Connections, Read 2015, You Read How Many Books Challenge
Posted May 6, 2015 in Reading, Review / 0 Comments
Tortall and Other Lands by
Tamora Pierce Series: Tortall Publisher: Bluefire (2010)
Paperback (369 pages)
Via: Library Rating: Reading Challenges: Read 2015 Synopsis
Alanna the knight, Numair the mage, Daine the wolf-speaker and more! Favorite and unfamiliar characters in 11 tales, including three brand new stories!
Collected here for the first time are six tales from the land of Tortall, featuring both previously unknown characters as well as old friends. Filling some gaps of time and interest, these stories, some of which have been published before, will lead Tammy’s fans, and new readers into one of the most intricately constructed worlds of modern fantasy. Also included are four other fantasy stories . . . one set in a remote desert, two in an unknown town, and one set in a very familiar locale: New York City, in the present day. Also, as a bonus, there is a non-fantasy story set in contemporary Idaho that proves that Pierce’s ability to spin a tale is not limited to realms of dragons and magic.
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Tagged as 4 star, Library, 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
