FTC: I received a free copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for my honest review. I received no other compensation and the opinions expressed in this review are one hundred percent true and my own.
Stars in the Grass by Ann Marie Stewart was another book that I like right from the start. Like the book that I reviewed yesterday, this is the first book I have read by this author, and I am so glad that I got the chance to read this book. I really loved the author’s style of writing and how reading her book was so easy. It just flowed so well that I was able to get through this book quickly. She put just the right amount of details into the book which I also loved because I got everything I needed but it didn’t have so much in it that I got bogged down or lost in all the details. I loved watching how the characters grew and changed throughout the book. If you love books that tackle real life problems than I know you will enjoy this book as much as I did.
About The Book
The idyllic world of nine-year-old Abby McAndrews is transformed when a tragedy tears her family apart. Before the accident, her dad, Reverend John McAndrews, had all the answers, but now his questions and guilt threaten to destroy his family. Abby’s fifteen-year-old brother, Matt, begins an angry descent as he acts out in dangerous ways. Her mother tries to hold her grieving family together, but when Abby’s dad refuses to move on, the family is at a crossroads. Set in a small Midwestern town in 1970, Abby’s heartbreaking remembrances are balanced by humor and nostalgia as her family struggles with—and ultimately celebrates—an authentic story of faith and life after loss.
I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t writing stories, putting on plays, or belting songs. Ever since grade school when my dad substituted me in for his turn at the Toastmaster podium and I held a captive audience with my speech, I’ve loved making people laugh and cry.
I originated AMG’s Preparing My Heart series, write the column “Ann’s Lovin’ Ewe” for The Country Register and blog for Mentoring Moments. My first novel, Stars in the Grass comes out February 2017.
When I’m not writing, I’m waving my arms directing musicals, teaching middle schoolers, or watching UVA Basketball or Madam Secretary. In my free time I hang out with my husband, raising two lovely daughters and a whole flock of fuzzy sheep on Skye Moor Farm, in Virginia–where unscripted drama provides plenty of entertaining material.
FTC: I received a free copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for my honest review. I received no other compensation and the opinions expressed in this review are one hundred percent true and my own.
Under Rose-Tainted Skies by Louise Gornall was a super interesting book. Once I started this book I didn’t want to stop reading it until it was finished. As I am sitting here thinking about this book I still can’t put my finger on what I like so much about this book. Usually, it has to do with the writing or the characters, but this time I feel like it was just the whole package. This is the first book I have read by this author, and I am going to add her to my list of authors to check out later when I have more time to pick out books to read. If you like young adult type books that I know you will enjoy this book as much as I did.
About The Book
At seventeen, Norah has accepted that the four walls of her house delineate her life. She knows that fearing everything from inland tsunamis to odd numbers is irrational, but her mind insists the world outside is too big, too dangerous. So she stays safe inside, watching others’ lives through her windows and social media feed.
But when Luke arrives on her doorstep, he doesn’t see a girl defined by medical terms and mental health. Instead, he sees a girl who is funny, smart, and brave. And Norah likes what he sees.
Their friendship turns deeper, but Norah knows Luke deserves a normal girl. One who can walk beneath the open sky. One who is unafraid of kissing. One who isn’t so screwed up. Can she let him go for his own good—or can Norah learn to see herself through Luke’s eyes?
I’m a young adult author, mental health mouth, anxious agoraphobic, lover of cheese, film nerd, book bird, identical twin, and rumoured pink Power Ranger.
It has been almost 2 months since I have had the time to get to write a blog post about anything other than the book reviews that have to go up on time. My day job took over my life because one of the ladies I work was going out of town for 2 weeks at the end of last year. So I was learning her job starting in about November and once that started I had no time to do anything. When it was the weekends I usually didn’t feel great so the last thing I wanted to do was sit down and write a blog post. I am not hoping that things have calmed down enough that I can get back to posting more regularly. Anyway, let’s get on to today’s post.
This week’s quote is by Les Brown.
I found this quote last year and I knew that it had to be the one that used when I started blogging more regularly. I liked it because it is true and I have seen over the years how people act when a person has resting bitch face as compared to if a person is smiling when someone walks into the room. Those are my thoughts about this quote.
What do you think of this week’s quote by Les Brown?
FTC: I received a free copy of this book from PUYB in exchange for my honest review. I received no other compensation and the opinions expressed in this review are one hundred percent true and my own.
Fighter Pilot’s Daughter by Mary Lawlor was a book I was never able to get into. I always try and find good things about books that I am reading, and it is rare for me to just not like anything about books. I can always seem to find something that I enjoyed about the book, but this time I really didn’t enjoy this book. I found that I was bored throughout most of the book. I had a really hard time finishing this book because I was so bored with it. I kept thinking while I was reading it was that it reminded me of a book that I would have read in high school. That is really all I can say about this book because like I said I didn’t like it. I am sure there are people who would really enjoy this book I just wasn’t one of them.
About The Book
FIGHTER PILOT’S DAUGHTER: GROWING UP IN THE SIXTIES AND THE COLD WAR tells the story of the author as a young woman coming of age in an Irish Catholic, military family during the Cold War. Her father, an aviator in the Marines and later the Army, was transferred more than a dozen times to posts from Miami to California and Germany as the government’s Cold War policies demanded. For the pilot’s wife and daughters, each move meant a complete upheaval of ordinary life. The car was sold, bank accounts closed, and of course one school after another was left behind. Friends and later boyfriends lined up in memory as a series of temporary attachments. The book describes the dramas of this traveling household during the middle years of the Cold War. In the process, FIGHTER PILOT’S DAUGHTER shows how the larger turmoil of American foreign policy and the effects of Cold War politics permeated the domestic universe. The climactic moment of the story takes place in the spring of 1968, when the author’s father was stationed in Vietnam and she was attending college in Paris. Having left the family’s quarters in Heidelberg, Germany the previous fall, she was still an ingénue; but her strict upbringing had not gone deep enough to keep her anchored to her parents’ world. When the May riots broke out in the Latin quarter, she attached myself to the student leftists and American draft resisters who were throwing cobblestones at the French police. Getting word of her activities via a Red Cross telegram delivered on the airfield in Da Nang, Vietnam, her father came to Paris to find her. The book narrates their dramatically contentious meeting and return to the American military community of Heidelberg. The book concludes many years later, as the Cold War came to a close. After decades of tension that made communication all but impossible, the author and her father reunited. As the chill subsided in the world at large, so it did in the relationship between the pilot and his daughter. When he died a few years later, the hard edge between them, like the Cold War stand-off, had become a distant memory.
About The Author
Mary Lawlor grew up in an Army family during the Cold War. Her father was a decorated fighter pilot who fought in the Pacific during World War II, flew missions in Korea, and did two combat tours in Vietnam. His family followed him from base to base and country to country during his years of service. Every two or three years, Mary, her three sisters, and her mother packed up their household and moved. By the time she graduated from high school, she had attended fourteen different schools. These displacements, plus her father?s frequent absences and brief, dramatic returns, were part of the fabric of her childhood, as were the rituals of base life and the adventures of life abroad.
As Mary came of age, tensions between the patriotic, Catholic culture of her upbringing and the values of the sixties counterculture set family life on fire. While attending the American College in Paris, she became involved in the famous student uprisings of May 1968. Facing her father, then posted in Vietnam, across a deep political divide, she fought as he had taught her to for a way of life completely different from his and her mother’s.
Years of turbulence followed. After working in Germany, Spain and Japan, Mary went on to graduate school at NYU, earned a Ph.D. and became a professor of literature and American Studies at Muhlenberg College. She has published three books, Recalling the Wild (Rutgers UP, 2000), Public Native America (Rutgers UP, 2006), and most recently Fighter Pilot’s Daughter: Growing Up in the Sixties and the Cold War (Rowman and Littlefield, September 2013).
She and her husband spend part of each year on a small farm in the mountains of southern Spain.
FTC: I received a free copy of this book from Litfuse in exchange for my honest review. I received no other compensation and the opinions expressed in this review are one hundred percent true and my own.
The Mark of the King by Jocelyn Green was an okay book. At times I did find myself getting bored with this book and I also felt like from time to time I got lost because I had a hard time focusing on this book. For some reason, I just could get into this book. I am not usually a huge fan of historical fiction books, but I had a hard time stay engaged with this book. This is the first book I have read this book and because I had such a hard time staying interested in this book I don’t think I will read her books in the future. I think I am going to hang on to this book for a few years and see if when I try and read it again if I don’t enjoy it more next time. If you enjoy historical fiction books, I would say to read an excerpt of this book before you buy it or see if your local library has a copy of it that way if you don’t enjoy it you would be out any money.
About The Book
Sweeping Historical Fiction Set at the Edge of the Continent
After being imprisoned and branded for the death of her client, twenty-five-year-old midwife Julianne Chevalier trades her life sentence for exile to the fledgling 1720s French colony of Louisiana, where she hopes to be reunited with her brother, serving there as a soldier. To make the journey, though, women must be married, and Julianne is forced to wed a fellow convict.
When they arrive in New Orleans, there is no news of Benjamin, Julianne’s brother, and searching for answers proves dangerous. What is behind the mystery, and does military officer Marc-Paul Girard know more than he is letting on?
With her dreams of a new life shattered, Julianne must find her way in this dangerous, rugged land, despite never being able to escape the king’s mark on her shoulder that brands her a criminal beyond redemption.
About The Author
Jocelyn Green inspires faith and courage as the award-winning author of ten books to date, including Wedded to War, a Christy Award finalist in 2013; Widow of Gettysburg; Yankee in Atlanta; and The 5 Love Languages Military Edition, which she coauthored with bestselling author Dr. Gary Chapman. A former military wife herself, her passion for military families informs all of her writing as well as her numerous speaking opportunities. Jocelyn graduated from Taylor University with a BA in English and now lives with her husband and two children in Iowa.
FTC: I received a free copy of this book from Blogging for Books in exchange for my honest review. I received no other compensation and the opinions expressed in this review are one hundred percent true and my own.
The Angel of Forest Hill by Cindy Woodsmall was a sweet story. I am a huge fan of Amish fiction books as you all know and I was sad when this book was done because it was such a sweet Christmas story. I did read this book around Christmas time and I was so glad that I did. This book did put me in a great mood when I finished it. It was a shorter book so I was able to get it read in about a day which I also enjoyed. I really loved the characters in this book and I saw a lot of myself in Rose and I spent the entire book hoping that things would work out with Rose and Joel. If you are looking for a sweet Amish fiction book than I would for sure recommend this book to you.
About The Book
A time of anticipation. A season of miracles.
Because of Joel s impossible situation, twenty-one-year-old Rose must sacrifice everything. As days pass into years in the midst of the beautiful hills, the laughter of children, and God s providence is it too much for Rose to hope for love in return?
An amazing journey toward love and belonging, filled with the wonder of the season of Christ s birth.
When Old Order Amish Rose Kurtz is asked to leave her family, travel deep into West Virginia, and help Joel Dienner with his children in the wake of tragedy, the quiet young woman recognizes a home where she might find kindness instead of criticism and hope replacing harsh words. She agrees to stay in Forest Hill and become Joel s wife for the sake of his family needs, but their marriage is to be a partnership, one built from need, not love and affection.
As the years pass, Rose continues to beckon Joel to join life again, to take joy in his growing children, and to awaken his heart to the possibility of new love. Joel hopes that Rose can move beyond deep-rooted hurts to see the beautiful Christmas ahead, their season. But will the arrival of a beautiful widow and a series of misunderstandings reverse how far Rose and Joel have come?”
About The Author
Cindy Woodsmall is a New York Times and CBA best-selling author who has written nineteen (and counting!) works of fiction and one of nonfiction. She and her dearest Old Order Amish friend, Miriam Flaud, coauthored the nonfiction, Plain Wisdom: An Invitation into an Amish Home and the Hearts of Two Women. Cindy’s been featured on ABC Nightline and the front page of the Wall Street Journal, and has worked with National Geographic on a documentary concerning Amish life. In June of 2013, the Wall Street Journal listed Cindy as one of the top three Amish fiction writers.
She is also a veteran homeschool mom who no longer holds that position. As her children progressed in age, her desire to write grew stronger. After working through reservations whether this desire was something she should pursue, she began her writing journey. Her husband was her staunchest supporter as she aimed for what seemed impossible.
She’s won Fiction Book of the Year, Reviewer’s Choice Awards, Inspirational Reader’s Choice Contest, as well as one of Crossings’ Best Books of the Year. She’s been a finalist for the prestigious Christy, Rita, and Carol Awards, Christian Book of the Year, and Christian Retailers Choice Awards.
Her real-life connections with Amish Mennonite and Old Order Amish families enrich her novels with authenticity. Though she didn’t realize it at the time, seeds were sown years ago that began preparing Cindy to write these books. At the age of ten, while living in the dairy country of Maryland, she became best friends with Luann, a Plain Mennonite girl. Luann, like all the females in her family, wore the prayer Kapp and cape dresses. Her parents didn’t allow television or radios, and many other modern conveniences were frowned upon. During the numerous times Luann came to Cindy’s house to spend the night, her rules came with her and the two were careful to obey them—afraid that if they didn’t, the adults would end their friendship. Although the rules were much easier to keep when they spent the night at Luann’s because her family didn’t own any of the forbidden items, both sets of parents were uncomfortable with the relationship and a small infraction of any kind would have been enough reason for the parents to end the relationship. While navigating around the adults’ disapproval and the obstacles in each other’s lifestyle, the two girls bonded in true friendship that lasted into their teen years, until Cindy’s family moved to another region of the US.
As an adult, Cindy became friends with a wonderful Old Order Amish family who opened their home to her. Although the two women, Miriam and Cindy, live seven hundred miles apart geographically, and a century apart by customs, when they come together they never lack for commonality, laughter, and dreams of what only God can accomplish through His children. Over the years Cindy has continued to make wonderful friendships with those inside the Amish and Mennonite communities—from the most conservative ones to the most liberal.
Cindy and her husband reside near the foothills of the North Georgia Mountains in their now empty nest.
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