Book Review: Old Made New

 

Old Made New

A Guide to the New Testament Use of the Old Testament

Greg Lanier

Pub Date 12 Apr 2022 

 Crossway 

Christian

I am reviewing a copy of Old Made New through Crossway and Netgalley:

In Old Made New, Greg Lanier explains how New Testament authors used the Old Testament to communicate the gospel and present the person and work of Jesus.   Lanier writes for a broad range of readers, and distills thorough research into descriptive examples and a simple 3-step study method.

If you’re looking for a book that not only tells you how to rightly interesting the Bible, Lanier shows you with many examples and comparisons that lead to a better understanding.

Old Made New is written in an easy to read manner making it accessible to anyone who’d like a better understanding of how the Old and New Testaments connect

Five out of five stars 

Happy Reading!

Book Review: Kennedy’s Goodbye

 

Kennedy's Goodbye

by Kati Rose

Pub Date 08 Mar 2022 

 Post Hill Press 

 General Fiction (Adult)  |  New Adult 

I am reviewing a copy of Kennedy’s Goodbye through Post Hill Press and Netgalley:

 In Kennedy’s Goodbye these three questions are posed.  Is hope a myth? Is love a lie? Is God dead?  Kennedy needs to know the answers.  But she’s left feeling alone, grappling to make sense of the world around her. The youngest member of a devout Catholic family, her preordained pathway of perfection into heaven becomes more like a highway to hell. With so many roadblocks—sin, sex, losses, lies—will Kennedy find a place to belong? A place where it’s OK to be OK? A place where hope is real and love is true?

This coming of age novel is set in upstate New York in the seventies and eighties, told in a freshly candid voice that evolves as she grows and matures, Kennedy says goodbye to many things but to what? Hope? Love? God? Or her own self?

I give Kennedy’s Goodbye five out of five stars!

Happy Reading!

Book Review: Pleading the Fish

 

Pleading the Fish

by Bree Baker

 Poisoned Pen Press 

Pub Date 29 Mar 2022 

Mystery & Thrillers

I am reviewing a copy of Pleasing the Fish through Poisoned Pen Press and Netgalley:

Pleading the Fish is the seventh and final book of Bree Baker's critically acclaimed Seaside Café Mystery series, and it does not disappoint.

Everly Swan's wedding plans are upended by a dead body. She'll have to run her teashop, find a dress, and catch a murderer all before she can walk down the aisle!

Everly Swan like every Swan woman before her, is cursed in love. The only problem,  is that her fiancé Detective Grady Hayes has something to say about it—he doesn't believe in magic and is determined to prove the curse wrong so they can spend their lives together. Everly wishes it could be so simple!

After a historian looking into the Swan’s history is found dead in an antique wishing well, and Everly fears the curse is spreading. Grady takes the case, looking to find justice and prove the curse wrong, while Everly does a bit of investigating on her own. Big change is coming for Everly and her friends, but with mysterious strangers lurking about and someone leaving increasingly threatening messages for the happy couple, Everly's not sure she'll get her happily-ever-after!

If you’re looking for a fun, weekend read, or a book to enjoy on the beach, them I’d recommend Pleading the Fish.

Five out of five stars!

Happy Reading!

Book Review: The Summer We Forgot

 

The Summer We Forgot

by Caroline George

Pub Date 08 Mar 2022 

 Thomas Nelson--FICTION,  Thomas Nelson

 Mystery & Thrillers  |  Teens & YA

I am reviewing a copy of The Summer We Forgot  through Thomas Nelson-Fiction and Netgalley:

There are some memories better left forgotten.

Darby and Morgan haven’t talked in two years, and their group of  friends had splintered.  But after the body of their former science teacher is found in the marsh where they attended camp that summer.  They soon realize they have more questions than they do answers, and they have even fewer memories of what happened.

Either no one remembers, or no one is talking.

The group of reunited friends suspects that a murderer is stalking the coastal highway 30A,  they become desperate to remember what happened before the history that they can’t seem to remember, repeats itself.

Everyone has a secret.

As tensions rise and time runs out, Darby and Morgan begin to wonder if they can believe one another . . . or if they can even trust themselves.

I give The Summer We Forgot five out of five stars!

Happy Reading!

Book Review: Write for Your Life

 

Write for Your Life

by Anna Quindlen

Pub Date 12 Apr 2022 

 Random House Publishing Group - Random House,  Random House

 Self-Help 

I am reviewing a copy of Write For Your Life through Random House and Netgalley:

In Write For Your Life, Anna Quindlen asks these questions truly lasts in our hearts and minds? Where can we find community, history, humanity?  In this new lyrical book, the answer is clearly shown, and that is, it’s through writing.  This is a book for what Quindlen calls “civilians,” those who want to use the written word to become more human, more themselves. 

Write For Your Life shows us that there has never been a more important time to stop and record what we are thinking and feeling. Using examples from past, present, and future—from Anne Frank to Toni Morrison, from love letters written after World War II to journal reflections from nurses and doctors today—Write for Your Life vividly illuminates the ways in which writing connects us to ourselves and to those we cherish. Drawing on her personal experiences not just as a writer but as a mother and daughter, Quindlen makes the case that recording our daily lives in writing is essential.

I give Write For Your Life five out of five stars!

Happy Reading!

Book Review: The Silent Unseen

 

The Silent Unseen

A Novel of World War II

by Amanda McCrina

Pub Date 05 Apr 2022 | 

 Macmillan Children's Publishing Group,  Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)

 Historical Fiction  |  Teens & YA  |  Women's Fiction

I am reviewing a copy of The Silent Unseen through Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group, Farrah, Straus and Giroux and Netgalley:

The year is 1944, Poland, Sixteen year old Maria is making her way home after years of forced labor in Nazi Germany, only to find her village destroyed and her parents killed in a war between the Polish Resistance and Ukrainian nationalists.  It shocks Maria to learn the local Resistance unit is commanded by her older brother, Tomek who she thought was dead. He is now a “Silent Unseen,” a special-operations agent with an audacious plan to resist a new and even more dangerous enemy sweeping in from the East. 

After Tomek disappears, Maria is determined to find him, but the only person who might be able to help is a young Ukrainian prisoner and the last person Maria trusts even as she feels a growing connection to him that she can’t resist.

The Silent Unseen is a deeply intense, tightly woven tale of loyalty, lies, and love during wartime.

I give The Silent Unseen five out of five stars!

Happy Reading!

Book Review: Tell Me Everything

 

Tell Me Everything

Tell Me Everything The Story of a Private Investigation

by Erika Krouse Narrated by Gabra Zackman

Pub Date 15 Mar 2022

Macmillan Audio

Biographies & Memoirs

I am reviewing a copy of Tell Me Everything through Macmillan and Netgalley:

Erika Krouse is one of those people that has one of the faces that have people spilling confessions to her. In the fall of 2002, Erika accepts a new contract job investigating lawsuits as a private investigator. The role seems perfect for her, but she quickly realizes she has no idea what she’s doing. When a lawyer named Grayson assigns her to investigate a sexual assault, a college student who was attacked by football players and recruits at a party a year earlier. Erika knows she should turn the assignment down. Her own history with sexual violence makes it all too personal. But she decides to take the job anyway.

During the next five years Erika learns everything she can about P. I. technique, tracking down witnesses and investigating a culture of sexual assault and harassment ingrained in the university’s football program. But as the investigation grows into a national scandal and a historic civil rights case, Erika finds herself increasingly consumed. When both her life and the case start to implode. Erika must figure out a way to help the case without loosing herself.

I give Tell Me Everything five out of five stars!

Happy Reading!

Book Review: Fly Girl

 

Fly Girl

A Memoir

by Ann Hood

Pub Date 03 May 2022 |

 W. W. Norton & Company 

 Biographies & Memoirs  |  Travel 

I am reviewing a copy of Fly Girl , A Memoir through W.W. Norton & Company and Netgalley:

It was 1978, the tail wind of the Golden era of traveling by air, back when flight attendants were the epitome of glamor and sophistication.  Ann Hood was fresh out of college, ready to experience the world and maybe even write about it, and perhaps even write about it someday!

After a grueling job search, Hood survived TWA’s rigorous Breech Training Academy and learned to evacuate seven kinds of aircraft, deliver a baby, mix proper cocktails, administer oxygen, and stay calm no matter what the situation.  Ann Hood joined the ranks.

Ann Hood found both the adventure was all she dreamed of as well as the realities of life on the job.  She carved chateaubriand in the first-class cabin and dined in front of the pyramids in Cairo, fended off passengers’ advances and found romance on layovers in London and Lisbon, and walked more than a million miles in high heels. She flew through the start of deregulation, an oil crisis, massive furloughs, and a labor strike.

Just as the air industry started to change around here, Hood began writing even drafting snatches of her first novel from the jump-seat. She reveals how the job empowered her, despite its roots in sexist standards. Packed with funny, moving, and shocking stories of life as a flight attendant, Fly Girl captures the nostalgia and magic of air travel at its height, and the thrill that remains with every takeoff.

If you are looking for a writing advice book, full of tips on how to go about different aspects of a writing career, Fly Girl is not that book…But if you are looking for one writers inspiring, and exciting start to writing, I highly recommend Fly Girl.

Five out of five stars!

Happy Reading!

Book Review: Unmask Alice

 

Unmask Alice

LSD, Satanic Panic, and the Imposter Behind the World's Most Notorious Diaries

by Rick Emerson

Pub Date 07 Jun 2022 |

 BenBella Books 

 Biographies & Memoirs  |  History  |  True Crime 

I am reviewing a copy of Unmask. Alice through BenBella Books and Netgalley:

If you were a teen in the 1970’s, 1980’s or 1990’s you likely read either Go Ask Alice, (First Published in 1971) or Jay’s Journal (First published in 1979).  Go Ask Alice reinvented the young adult genre with a blistering portrayal of sex, psychosis, and teenage self-destruction. The supposed diary of a middle-class addict, Go Ask Alice terrified adults and cemented LSD's fearsome reputation, fueling support for the War on Drugs. Five million copies later, Go Ask Alice remains a divisive bestseller, outraging censors and earning new fans, all of them drawn by the book's mythic premise: A Real Diary, by Anonymous.

But Alice was only the beginning.

In 1979, another diary rattled the culture, setting the stage for a national meltdown. The posthumous memoir of an alleged teenage Satanist, Jay's Journal merged with a frightening new crisis adolescent suicide to create a literal witch hunt, shattering countless lives and poisoning whole communities.

But what’s the truth behind the journals.  It boils down to this both journals came from the same dark place a serial con artist who betrayed a grieving family, stole a dead boy's memory, and lied her way to the National Book Awards.

Basically the story behind the story is just as bad if not worse than the plot of the story, betrayal and deception in the face of  great loss.

I give  Unmask Alice five out of five stars!

Happy Reading!

Book Review: Beautiful Ashes

 

Beautiful Ashes

A True Story of Murder, Betrayal, and One Woman's Search for Peace

by Shelly Edwards Jorgensen

Pub Date 06 Apr 2022 

 BooksGoSocial 

 Biographies & Memoirs  |  True Crime

I am reviewing a copy of Beautiful Ashes through BooksGoSocial and Netgalley:

Shelly watched as they removed her Mothers body from the ashes of her home.

Her life was filled with Unbearable loss, dangerous secrets, and a life-threatening illness endangered her only hope for a future .  But through it all, she found her faith.

Shelly Edwards was fifteen, when her Alcoholic Father murders her Mother  she loses her home, her family, and the only life she's ever known.

Abandoned, broken from abuse and assault, facing poverty, and gripped with fear for her life, Shelly struggles to dismantle decades of lies.

But even into the deepening darkness that follows, God sends heavenly gifts, leading Shelly to a newfound faith. There she finds a peace she's never thought possible.

After Shelly eventually meets the man she will marry she thinks her life will finally be everything she's ever dreamed of, but the lingering wounds of her past and new, devastating medical complications shake her faith. After all she's endured, can she rise from the ashes and trust God once more?

I give Beautiful Ashes five out of five stars!

Happy Reading!

Book Review: Life Flight

 

Life Flight

by Lynette Eason

Jan 2022 

 Revell 

 Christian  |  Mystery & Thrillers  |  Romance

I am reviewing a copy of Life Flight  through Revell and Netgalley:

If you’re looking for a novel full of mystery, an edge of your seat suspense, I highly recommend Life-Flight:

Penny Carlton is an EMS helicopter pilot  who is used to high risk situations but being forced to land on a mountain in a raging storm with a critical patient and a serial killer on the loose tests her skills and her nerve to the limit. She survives with FBI Special Agent Holt Satterfield's help. But she's not out of the woods yet.

In the days that follow, Penny finds herself under attack.  And when news reaches Holt that he may not have gotten his man after all, it will take all he and Penny have to catch a killer--before he catches one of them.

I give Life Flight five out of five stars!

Happy Reading!

Book Review: The Lady of Galway Manor

 

 The Lady of Galway Manor

by Jennifer Deibel

Pub Date 01 Feb 2022 

 Revell 

 Christian  |  Historical Fiction  |  Romance

I am reviewing a copy of Galway Manor through Revell and Netgalley:

Get ready for a journey back into to 1920 Ireland, where Annabeth De Lacy's father is appointed landlord of Galway Parish in Ireland. Bored without all the trappings of the British Court, Annabeth convinces her father to arrange an apprenticeship for her with the Jennings family- descendants of the creator of the famed Claddagh Ring. 

Stephen Jennings however longs to do anything but Annabeth De Lacy's father is appointed landlord of Galway Parish in Ireland. Bored without all the trappings of the British Court, Annabeth convinces her father to arrange an apprenticeship for her with the Jennings family--descendants of the creator of the famed Claddagh Ring. 

But as the war for Irish independence gains strength, many locals resent the De Lacys and decide to take things into their own hands to display their displeasure. As events take a dangerous turn for Annabeth and her family, she and Stephen begin to see that perhaps the "other side" isn't quite as barbaric and uncultured as they'd been led to believe--and that the bonds of friendship, love, and loyalty are only made stronger when put through the refiner's fire.

If you are looking for a poignant tale of romance I highly recommend The Lady of Galway Manor!

I give the Lady of Galway Manor five out of five stars! 

Happy Reading!