Book: Any Minute

This week, the
Christian Fiction Blog Alliance
is introducing
Any Minute
FaithWords (June 30, 2009)
by
Joyce Meyer and Deborah Bedford

ABOUT THE AUTHORS:
Joyce Meyer is one of the world's leading practical Bible teachers. A #1 New York Times bestselling author, she has written more than seventy inspirational books, including The Confident Woman, I Dare You, the entire Battlefield of the Mind family of books, her first venture into fiction with The Penny, and many others. She has also released thousands of audio teachings as well as a complete video library. Joyce's Enjoying Everyday Life® radio and television programs are broadcast around the world, and she travels extensively conducting conferences. Joyce and her husband, Dave, are the parents of four grown children and make their home in St. Louis, Missouri.


Deborah Bedford is a career fiction writer who began her professional life as a journalist in a Colorado mountain town.

A Rose By The Door, Deborah's first with Warner Book (name changed to FaithWords in 2006), hit bookstores in November 2001. A Morning Like This was released by Warner Books in 2002. Deborah's short story, “Connor Sapp's Baseball Summer,” is included in Multnomah Publisher's The Storytellers' Collection, Tales From Home, alongside stories by Chuck Colson, Terri Blackstock, Randy Alcorn and Karen Kingsbury.

Deborah and Jack have two children, Jeff and Avery. When she isn't writing, Deborah spends her time fly-fishing, cheering at American Legion baseball games, shopping with her daughter, singing praise songs while she walks along the banks of Flat Creek, and taking her dachshund Annie for hikes in the Tetons where they live.


ABOUT THE BOOK


Sarah Harper is driven to achieve success no matter what the cost. She wants to do good and not hurt the people she loves--especially her children and her husband, Joe--but her desire to succeed in her career too often leaves little time for family.

One cold, autumn morning, all of that changes when Sarah's car plunges off a bridge and into a river. She is presumed dead by those on the "outside," but Sarah's spirit is still very much alive. What she discovers on the other side transforms everything about Sarah's view of life--past, present, and future.

When Sarah is revived, she is a changed woman. And the unsuspecting world around her will never be the same again.

***

This is one of those books where the cover description is a bit misleading. Somehow I was expecting the book to start on the day Sarah goes off the bridge, but that doesn't happen until more than halfway through the book. In the meantime you really get a chance to see that she is somewhat conflicted about the choices she's making. She just can't seem to make the right ones to keep everyone happy, herself included.

I really liked this book, it was well written and has a good message for today. We really don't know how much time we have and how are we treating the people in our lives. It's not one I would read again (not to say I wouldn't have read it) because it was just a bit too intense for me, always waiting for the bad thing to happen.

If you would like to read the first chapter of Any Minute, go here!

Book: Blue Like Play Dough

About the book: In the everyday stretch and squeeze of motherhood, Tricia Goyer often feels smooshed by the demands of life. In Blue Like Play Dough, she shares her unlikely journey from rebellious, pregnant teen to busy wife and mom with big dreams of her own. As her story unfolds, Tricia realizes that God has more in store for her than she has ever imagined possible.

Sure, life is messy and beset by doubts. But God keeps showing up in the most unlikely places–in a bowl of carrot soup, the umpteenth reading of Goodnight Moon, a woe-is me teen drama, or play dough in the hands of a child.

In Tricia’s transparent account, you’ll find understanding, laughter, and strength for your own story. And in the daily push and pull, you’ll learn to recognize the loving hands of God at work in your life… and know He has something beautiful in mind
Read an excerpt

About the author: Using her own experiences as a teen mother, and leader of today’s generation, Tricia’s vision is to be a voice of hope and possibility for teenage girls, pregnant teen girls, mothers and wives through her educational and inspirational speaking, workshops and books. Her intention is to serve ordinary women by encouraging extraordinary things with God’s help. Tricia expresses real life, real hope, for real women.

Tricia is the author of 20+ books and has published over 300 articles for national publications such as Guideposts for Kids, Focus on the Family, Christian Parenting Today, Today’s Christian Woman and HomeLife Magazine. She won Historical Novel of the Year in 2005 and 2006 from American Christian Fiction Writers, and was honored with the Writer of the Year award from Mt. Hermon Writer's Conference in 2003. Tricia's book Life Interrupted was a finalist for the Gold Medallion Book Award in 2005.

In her fiction novels, Tricia writes contemporary and historical stories that feature strong women overcoming great challenges. She recreates historic wartime eras with precise detail through persevering and comprehensive research.

Tricia also speaks and conducts workshops for teens around the nation, and offers programs to assist teens and teen moms through Hope Pregnancy Ministries in Northwestern Montana, which she founded. Tricia is a frequent workshop presenter at the MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) International Convention.

***

This is one of those books that you can't just sit down and read in one sitting. There are so many thought provoking ideas that you have to take a break between chapters. Although it does also read like a story so it's not dry at all.

I'm about halfway through and I think this will be one of the books that I keep in my personal collection. It's fabulous for moms and I would be you'd get something out of it even if you aren't a mom!

***

Author website: http://www.triciagoyer.com

Link to purchase the book: http://triciagoyer.com/store

Wordless Wednesday: Cutest Boy Ever

This picture is from a couple weeks ago, but with our computer issues I didn't even put any pictures on it lately. Now I have a months worth of pictures to go through... wish me luck... on a computer that they couldn't find anything wrong with that is still crashing on me. Joy.

Book: Things Left Unspoken

This week, the
Christian Fiction Blog Alliance
is introducing
Things Left Unspoken
Revell (June 1, 2009)
by
Eva Marie Everson

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Eva Marie Everson taught Old Testament theology for six years at Life Training Center in Longwood, Florida and has written numerous articles for Crosswalk.com (including the acclaimed Falling Into The Bible series), and has had articles featured in numerous publications, including Christianity Today, Evangel, Christian Bride, Christian Retailing, The Godly BusinessWoman and Marriage Partnership magazines. Eva Marie has been interviewed by radio, television, newspaper, and Internet media outlets. In 2002Eva Marie was one of six Christian journalists sent to Israel for a special ten-day press tour.

Eva Marie’s work includes the award-winning titles Reflections of God's Holy Land; A Personal Journey Through Israel, Shadow of Dreams, Sex, Lies and the Media, and The Potluck Club series.

She is married, has four children and five grandchildren, and lives in Central Florida.


ABOUT THE BOOK

Every family--and every house--has its secrets. Jo-Lynn Hunter is at a crossroads in life when her great-aunt Stella insists that she return home to restore the old family manse in sleepy Cottonwood, Georgia. Jo-Lynn longs to get her teeth into a noteworthy and satisfying project. And it's the perfect excuse for some therapeutic time away from her self-absorbed husband and his snobby Atlanta friends.

Beneath the dust and the peeling wallpaper, things are not what they seem, and what Jo-Lynn doesn't know about her family holds just as many surprises. Was her great-grandfather the pillar of the community she thought he was? What is Aunt Stella hiding? And will her own marriage survive the renovation? Jo-Lynn isn't sure she wants to know the truth--but sometimes the truth has a way of making itself known.

***

This book was an interesting picture for me, having only visited the South once. Twice with working after Katrina, but that wasn't really the South, that was more of a disaster zone. Everything is so "old" there, coming from the Pacific Northwest where Seattle isn't even as old as some of the houses down there!

The story itself was slightly suspenseful although it's told with some flashbacks so you know some of the things that the main character will discover before she does. At least I was able to figure them out with all the foreshadowing, both in the main story and in the flashbacks.

Overall it was an enjoyable read, but at times I did find myself skipping over some of the details to speed up.


If you would like to read the first chapter of Things Left Unspoken, go HERE

Technology and other things

We got this fancy new computer a couple months ago. It was supposed to help me with my picture editing, allow me the freedom to get things done in a timely manner. (instead of taking an hour to edit one picture because my old laptop was so slow)

For whatever reason on Thursday our new computer decided it didn't like us anymore. It randomly crashed and has repeatedly crashed since then. We can't figure out why. We were doing the same things we'd been doing since we got it.

Brian has been working on it since then and as far as we can tell he's no closer to figuring out what's going on. To our knowledge we have no viruses or spy-ware. All scans show up clean and the memory and disk checks find nothing. He even re-installed Vista (don't laugh, we know that must have something to do with it - stupid unstable OS) and still it crashes.

It seems to somehow be tied to our internet usage as Firefox has stopped working all together and it only crashes when we are online. But we don't know what's making it crash.

If nothing resolves itself soon Brian will get to take it with him to the computer shop in Seattle where we bought it when he goes off to his summer job next week.

Needless to say, I probably won't be online much this week or next. I'm lucky that the internet works in safe mode... and of course I could break out my old laptop if I wanted to wait half an hour for it to boot up and load the internet...

Any and all suggestions are welcome!

Happy 4th of July... and I won't even go into have crazy convoluted and un-church-like our church felt this morning...

Book: Love and Other Natural Disasters

This week I read another book from Hachette Book Group. I would say it was about as completely opposite from the last one as humanly possible. The book is titled Love and Other Natural Disasters although there really weren't any natural disasters to speak of... only man-made ones.

Here's the book description:

Is it better to unknowingly live a happy lie than to have your world shattered by a painful truth?

Eve is eight months pregnant and in the middle of a Thanksgiving celebration when she discovers that her husband Jonathan has developed an intimate relationship with a woman over the past year. Jonathon asserts his innocence (an affair involves physical intimacy, and he didn't have any), while Eve feels deeply betrayed by the emotional connection he shared with someone else. What Jon has done seems so terrifyingly out of character that Eve finds herself questioning her entire reality. Did she ever really know Jon at all? Was their happiness together a lie? Is emotional intimacy more forgivable than sexual intimacy? And can their marriage survive?

***

I did read through this book with a feeling of dread that I wouldn't like how it ended. I won't spoil it, but I will say that at least it has a hopeful ending (that was actually one of the book group questions... did you think that it had a hopeful ending?).

It was definitely an interesting look into how two people can so easily become complacent in a marriage. The ways that Eve and Jonathan use to figure themselves out I'm not sure I agree with though. In the interest of disclosure, this is NOT a Christian book so it's the views on life in general I didn't always agree with as well as one scene in the book that, while it helped the story, was rather more graphic than I needed.

Brian has been eyeing this one over my shoulder and since he really loves to analyze things I'll see if he'll read it and maybe give you his reactions later...