Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Becoming a Woman who loves by Cynthia Heald

From the website: Description: Jesus loved unconditionally, passionately, and sacrificially. How can we possibly love as He did? And what does such love look like?
Becoming a Woman Who Loves by Navigator author Cynthia Heald is a topical Bible study that explores the incredible nature of Christlike love. Discover how to be sure such beautiful love resides deep within your soul and how to let it flow more freely to others as you become more like Jesus.

This is a great 11 week Bible Study that is good for individual study but can be used in a group just as easily.  This study goes into the aspects of the commandments by Jesus to love God and To love others. Some of the weeks address such topics as The Source of Love, Bearing Fruit, Love in Action and Love never fails. 

Each week tackles that topic and ends with a memory verse to commit to memory which is to be expected as this is from The Navigators. 

You can pick up your own copy here

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Missing Max by Karen Young

Missing Max: A Novel

Missing Max by Karen Young

From Goodreads: Jane and Kyle Madison search for their kidnapped baby, Max, as their family falls apart—until teenage daughter Melanie effects a daring rescue.


My Take:   I really liked this book. I can't Mardi Gras. Much of the story takes place about 6 months later. Jane has thrown herself into the Child Search organization, neglecting her job and her family, Kyle (the father) has thrown himself into his job. Melanie in a desparate attempt to make up for the fact that Max was in her care when he was taken has come up with a plan to make everything better. And what about those phone calls from an unknown person mocking Jane. And who is following her? This story graps you and keeps hold of you till the end.
 
 




Karen Youngs website is here.




Karen Young is the author of thirty-four novels with more than ten million copies in print. Her many awards include the RITA from Romance Writers of America and both the Career Achievement and Reviewer’s Choice awards from Romantic Times magazine. She is a frequent public speaker and a teacher of the craft of writing. Currently, she resides in Houston, Texas.

The Mailbox by Mary Whalen

It is time for a FIRST Wild Card Tour book review! If you wish to join the FIRST blog alliance, just click the button(in the sidebar). We are a group of reviewers who tour Christian books. A Wild Card post includes a brief bio of the author and a full chapter from each book toured. The reason it is called a FIRST Wild Card Tour is that you never know if the book will be fiction, non~fiction, for young, or for old...or for somewhere in between! Enjoy your free peek into the book!
You never know when I might play a wild card on you!

Today's Wild Card author is:

Marybeth Whalen
and the book:
The Mailbox
David C. Cook; New edition (June 1, 2010)

***Special thanks to Audra Jennings of The B&B Media Group for sending me a review copy.***



Marybeth Whalen is the general editor of For the Write Reason and The Reason We Speakas well as co-author of the book Learning to Live Financially Free. She serves as a speaker for the Proverbs 31 Ministry Team and directs a fiction book club, She Reads, through this same outreach. Most importantly, Marybeth is the wife of Curt Whalen and mother to their six children. She is passionate about sharing God with all the women God places in her path. She has been visiting the mailbox for years.

Visit the author's website



Product Details:
List Price: $14.99
Paperback: 320 pages
Publisher: David C. Cook; New edition (June 1, 2010)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0781403693
ISBN-13: 978-0781403696

>
AND NOW...THE FIRST CHAPTER:

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:


Sunset Beach, NC

Summer 1985


Campbell held back a teasing smile as he led Lindsey across the warm sand toward the mailbox. Leaning her head on Campbell’s shoulder, her steps slowed. She looked up at him, observing the mischievous curling at the corners of his mouth. “There really is no mailbox, is there?” she said, playfully offended. “If you wanted to get me alone on a deserted stretch of beach, all you had to do was ask.” She elbowed him in the side.


A grin spread across his flawless face. “You caught me.” He threw his hands up in the air in surrender.


“I gotta stop for a sec,” Lindsey said and bent at the waist, stretching the backs of her aching legs. She stood up and put her hands on her hips, narrowing her eyes at him. “So, have you actually been to the mailbox? Maybe the other kids at the pier were just pulling your leg.”


Campbell nodded his head. “I promise I’ve been there before. It’ll be worth it. You’ll see.” He pressed his forehead to hers and looked intently into her eyes before continuing down the beach.


“If you say so …” she said, following him. He slipped his arm around her bare tanned shoulder and squeezed it, pulling her closer to him. Lindsey looked ahead of them at the vast expanse of raw

coastline. She could make out a jetty of rocks in the distance that jutted into the ocean like a finish line.


As they walked, she looked down at the pairs of footprints they left in the sand. She knew that soon the tide would wash them away, and she realized that just like those footprints, the time she had left

with Campbell would soon vanish. A refrain ran through her mind: Enjoy the time you have left. She planned to remember every moment of this walk so she could replay it later, when she was back at home, without him. Memories would be her most precious commodity. How else would she feel him near her?


“I don’t know how we’re going to make this work,” she said as they walked. “I mean, how are we going to stay close when we’re so far away from each other?”


He pressed his lips into a line and ran a hand through his hair. “We just will,” he said. He exhaled loudly, a punctuation.


“But how?” she asked, wishing she didn’t sound so desperate.


He smiled. “We’ll write. And we’ll call. I’ll pay for the longdistance bills. My parents already said I could.” He paused. “And we’ll count the days until next summer. Your aunt and uncle already said you could come back and stay for most of the summer. And you know your mom will let you.”


“Yeah, she’ll be glad to get rid of me for sure.” She pushed images of home from her mind: the menthol odor of her mother’s cigarettes, their closet-sized apartment with parchment walls you could hear the neighbors through, her mom’s embarrassing “delicates” dangling from the shower rod in the tiny bathroom they shared. She wished that her aunt and uncle didn’t have to leave the beach house after

the summer was over and that she could just stay with them forever.


The beach house had become her favorite place in the world. At the beach house, she felt like a part of a real family with her aunt and uncle and cousins. This summer had been an escape from the reality of her life at home. And it had been a chance to discover true love. But tomorrow, her aunt and uncle would leave for their home and send her back to her mother.


“I don’t want to leave!” she suddenly yelled into the open air, causing a few startled birds to take flight.


Campbell didn’t flinch when she yelled. She bit her lip and closed her eyes as he pulled her to him and hugged her.


“Shhh,” he said. “I don’t want you to leave either.” He cupped her chin with his hand. “If I could reverse time for you, I would. And we would go back and do this whole summer over.”


She nodded and wished for the hundredth time that she could stand on the beach with Campbell forever, listening to the hypnotic sound of his voice, so much deeper and more mature than the boys at school. She thought about the pictures they had taken earlier that day, a last-ditch effort to have something of him to take with her. But it was a pitiful substitute, a cheap counterfeit for the real thing.


Campbell pointed ahead of them. “Come on,” he said and tugged on her hand. “I think I see it.” He grinned like a little boy. They crested the dune and there, without pomp or circumstance,

just as he had promised, stood an ordinary mailbox with gold letters spelling out “Kindred Spirit.”


“I told you it was here!” he said as they waded through the deep sand. “The mailbox has been here a couple of years,” he said, his tone changing to something close to reverence as he laid his hand on top

of it. “No one knows who started it or why, but word has traveled and now people come all the way out here to leave letters for the Kindred Spirit—the mystery person who reads them. People come from all over the world.”


“So does anybody know who gets the letters?” Lindsey asked. She ran her fingers over the gold, peeling letter decals. The bottom half of the n and e were missing.


“I don’t think so. But that’s part of what draws people here— they come here because this place is private, special.” He looked down at his bare feet, digging his toes into the sand. “So … I wanted to bring you here. So it could be our special place too.” He looked over at her out of the corner of his eye. “I hope you don’t think that’s lame.”


She put her arms around him and looked into his eyes. “Not lame at all,” she said.


As he kissed her, she willed her mind to record it all: the roar of the waves and the cry of the seagulls, the powdery softness of the warm sand under her feet, the briny smell of the ocean mixed with the scent of Campbell’s sun-kissed skin. Later, when she was back at home in Raleigh, North Carolina, she would come right back to this moment. Again and again. Especially when her mother sent her to her room with the paper-thin walls while she entertained her newest boyfriend.


Lindsey opened the mailbox, the hinges creaking as she did. She looked to him, almost for approval. “Look inside,” he invited her.


She saw some loose paper as well as spiral-bound notebooks, the kind she bought at the drugstore for school. The pages were crinkly from the sea air and water. There were pens in the mailbox too, some

with their caps missing.


Campbell pointed. “You should write a letter,” he said. “Take a pen and some paper and just sit down and write what you are feeling.” He shrugged. “It seemed like something you would really get into.”


How well he had come to know her in such a short time. “Okay,” she said. “I love it.” She reached inside and pulled out a purple notebook, flipping it open to read a random page. Someone had written about a wonderful family vacation spent at Sunset and the special time she had spent with her daughter.


She closed the notebook. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. She couldn’t imagine her own mother ever wanting to spend time with her, much less being so grateful about it. Reading the notebook made her feel worse, not better. She didn’t need reminding about what she didn’t have waiting for her back home.


Campbell moved in closer. “What is it?” he said, his body lining up perfectly with hers as he pulled her close.


She laid the notebook back inside the mailbox. “I just don’t want to go home,” she said. “I wish my uncle didn’t have to return to his stupid job. How can I go back to … her? She doesn’t want me there any more than I want to be there.” This time she didn’t fight the tears that had been threatening all day.


Campbell pulled her down to sit beside him in the sand and said nothing as she cried, rocking her slightly in his arms.


With her head buried in his shoulder, her words came out muffled. “You are so lucky you live here.”


He nodded. “Yeah, I guess I am.” He said nothing for a while.

“But you have to know that this place won’t be the same for me without you in it.”


She looked up at him, her eyes red from crying. “So you’re saying I’ve ruined it for you?”


He laughed, and she recorded the sound of his laugh in her memory too. “Well, if you want to put it that way, then, yes.”


“Well, that just makes me feel worse!” She laid her head on his shoulder and concentrated on the nearness of him, inhaled the sea scent of his skin and the smell of earth that clung to him from working

outside with his dad.


“Everywhere I go from now on I will have the memory of you with me. Of me and you together. The Island Market, the beach, the arcade, the deck on my house, the pier …” He raised his eyebrows as

he remembered the place where he first kissed her. “And now here. It will always remind me of you.”


“And I am going home to a place without a trace of you in it. I don’t know which is worse, constant reminders or no reminders at all.” She laced her narrow fingers through his.


“So are you glad we met?” She sounded pitiful, but she had to hear his answer.


“I would still have wanted to meet you,” he said. “Even though it’s going to break my heart to watch you go. What we have is worth it.” He kissed her, his hands reaching up to stroke her hair. She heard his words echoing in her mind: worth it, worth it, worth it. She knew that they were young, that they had their whole lives ahead of them, at least that’s what her aunt and uncle had told her. But she also knew

that what she had with Campbell was beyond age.


Campbell stood up and pulled her to her feet, attempting to keep kissing her as he did. She giggled as the pull of gravity parted them. He pointed her toward the mailbox. “Now, go write it all down for the Kindred Spirit. Write everything you feel about us and how unfair it is that we have to be apart.” He squinted his eyes at her. “And I promise not to read over your shoulder.”


She poked him. “You can read it if you want. I have no secrets from you.”


He shook his head. “No, no. This is your deal. Your private world—just between you and the Kindred Spirit. And next year,” he said, smiling down at her, “I promise to bring you back here, and you can write about the amazing summer we’re going to have.”


“And what about the summer after that?” she asked, teasing him.


“That summer too.” He kissed her. “And the next.” He kissed her again. “And the next.” He kissed her again, smiling down at her through his kisses. “Get the point?


“This will be our special place,” he said as they stood together in front of the mailbox.


“Always?” she asked.


“Always,” he said.


Summer 1985


Dear Kindred Spirit,


I have no clue who you are, and yet that doesn’t stop me from writing to you anyway. I hope one day I will discover your identity. I wonder if you are nearby even as I put pen to paper. It’s a little weird to think that I could have passed you on the street this summer and not know you would be reading my

deepest thoughts and feelings. Campbell won’t even read this, though I would let him if he asked me.


As I write, Campbell is down at the water’s edge, throwing shells. He is really good at making the shells skip across the water—I guess that’s proof that this place is his home.


Let me ask you, Kindred Spirit: Do you think it’s silly for me to assume that I have found my soul mate at the age of fifteen? My mom would laugh. She would tell me that the likelihood of anyone finding a soul mate—ever—is zero. She would tell me that I need to not go around giving my heart away like a hopeless romantic. She laughs when I read romance novels or see sappy movies that make me cry. She says that I will learn the truth about love someday.


But, honestly, I feel like I did learn the truth about love this summer. It’s like what they say: It can happen when you least expect it, and it can knock you flat on your back with its power. I didn’t come here expecting to fall in love. The truth is I didn’t want to come here at all. I came here feeling pushed aside and unwanted. I can still remember when my mom said that she had arranged for my aunt and uncle to bring me here, smiling at me like she was doing me some kind of favor when we both knew she just wanted me out of the picture so she could live her life without me cramping her style.


I tried to tell her that I didn’t want to come—who would want to spend their summer with bratty cousins? I was so mad, I didn’t speak to my mom for days. I begged, plotted, and even got my best friend Holly’s parents to say I could stay with them instead. But in the end, as always, my mother ruled, and I got packed off for a summer at the beach. On the car ride down, I sat squished in the backseat beside Bobby and Stephanie. Bobby elbowed me and stuck his tongue out at me the whole way to the beach. When his parents weren’t looking, of course. I stared out the window and pretended to be anywhere but in that car.


But now, I can’t believe how wonderful this summer has turned out. I made some new friends. I read a lot of books and even got to where I could tolerate my little cousins. They became like the younger siblings I never had. Most of all, I met Campbell.


I know what Holly will say. She will say that it was God’s plan. I am working on believing that there is a God and that he has a plan for my life like Holly says. But most of the time it feels like God is not aware I exist. If he was aware of me, you’d think he’d have given me a mom who actually cared about me.


Ugh—I can’t believe I have to leave tomorrow. Now that I have found Campbell, I don’t know what I will do without him. We have promised to write a lot of letters. And we have promised not to date other people.


A word about him asking me not to date other people: This was totally funny to me. Two nights ago we were walking on the beach and he stopped me, pulling me to him and looking at me really seriously. “Please,” he said, “I would really like it if you wouldn’t see other people. Is that crazy for me to ask that of you when we are going to be so far apart?”


I was like, “Are you kidding? No one asks me out. No one at my school even looks at me twice!” At school I am known for being quiet and studious—a brain, not a girl to call for a good time. Holly says that men will discover my beauty later in life. But until this summer I didn’t believe her. I couldn’t admit that no one notices me at school because, obviously, he believes I am sought after. And I knew enough to let him believe it. So I very coyly answered back, “Only if you promise me the same thing.”


And he smiled in that lazy way of his and said, “How could I even look at another girl when I’ve got the best one in the world?”


And so now you see why I just can’t bear the thought of leaving him. But the clock is ticking. When I get home, I swear I will cry myself to sleep every night and write letters to Campbell every day. The only thing I have to look forward to is hanging out with Holly again. Thank goodness for Holly, the one constant in my life. In math class we learned that a constant is something that has one value all the time and it never changes.

That’s what Holly is for me: my best friend, no matter what.


I wonder if Campbell will be a constant in my life. I guess it’s too soon to tell, but I do hope so. I’m already counting down the days until I can come back and be with Campbell. Because this summer—I don’t care how lame it sounds—I found my purpose. And that purpose is loving Campbell with all my

heart. Always.


Until next summer,

Lindsey

©2010 Cook Communications Ministries. The Mailbox by Marybeth Whalen. Used with permission. May not be further reproduced. All rights reserved.



My Take:  I really liked the premise of this book.  People write in a notebook on a isolated beach and put it in a mailbox. Campbell and Holly meet while Holly is on vacation and vow to not date anyone else and to write everyday.  Fast forward several years and they both have married and divorced other people and have children.  Holly heads to the beach for some time away.  Campbell still lives there.  And so the story begins.

I would give this book:

Nice clean story.  Refreshing!


Monday, June 28, 2010

Remember The Ladies by Ann Covell

Remembering the Ladies

Remember the Ladies by Ann Covell
From Goodreads:

WHERE DID INSPIRATION FOR THIS BOOK COME FROM?
During the period of the 2008 American presidential election, when the whole world was held spellbound, I overheard a group of British college students discussing their latest study project. They were required to write an essay comparing any modern American First Lady with one who had served within the first century of the presidency. They quickly discovered that the early First Ladies lived in a complex world and that their role in that era was difficult. Pulling the overwhelming jigsaw of facts together from internet research was proving to be laborious and wearisome. The students would have preferred one compilation of First Ladies stories from the 19th century, which could be discussed with each other and /or their tutor at anytime, anywhere. Enthusiasm for the project was dampened by an apparent dearth of such volumes and by the lack of time available to study long individual biographies. The idea for this compendium was born!

WHAT'S IT ALL ABOUT?
In this 21st century, America's First Lady is as well known as her husband due to world-wide modern technology. In the 19th century, however, it was difficult for the public to even know who the president's wife was. Even today it is not easy to call to mind those pioneering First Ladies, many of whom were burdened with more than their fair share of misfortune and some almost forgotten
This book provides an insight into the lives of the 19th century First Ladies, in an undemanding, easy-to-read style, and aims to raise awareness of the historical significance of these women. Their abridged stories, sometimes joyful, sometimes sad, range from slavery, bigamy, duels, royal snubs, European conflicts, American wars, assassinations and suffrage, and demonstrate how the Ladies might be seen as victims of history. The text includes a basic review of the restricted evolution of the First Lady role during the first hundred years. The aim is that the book will encourage foundational study in colleges and schools, and inspire anyone who is interested in presidential history to deeper levels of publications and study.

WHO'S THE AUTHOR?
The author is an English woman, married to a dental surgeon, both of whom fell in love with America when they first visited the country twenty-five years ago. She served as a Justice of the Peace in England for over twenty-five years, and also worked in the National Health Service for a number of years, serving on two Health Service boards as a non-executive director. She has written for various British regional magazines and newspapers; currently she is the editor of a bi-annual magazine for the Costa del Sol Decorative and Fine Arts Society in Spain. She and her husband divide their time between homes in England and Spain, and continue to visit America whenever they can (La Jolla in California is their favourite spot.)
 
My Take:  I will be using this book as part of my history text for my daughter for school next year.  I found the book very well presented and it was nice to get to know the women behind the men.  I am sure that my daughter will find it interesting also.

It's Monday what are you reading?

This Meme is brought to you by Sheila over at  One Person's Journey through a World of Books.

Head over there to See what everyone is readng this week. 


Last Week (Links lead to reviews)  


Up This week:
Missing Max: A Novel
Missing Max by Karen Young  Review on Tuesday

The Mailbox: A Novel
The Mailbox by Marybeth Whalen.  Review on Tuesday

Fever Dream
I hope to post on Fever Dream by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child
and

The Last Christian: A Novel
The Last Christian by David Gregory

Hope to Read this week:

The Lost Children
The Lost Children by Carolyn Cohagan

Nightshade (Discarded Heroes)
Nightshade by Ronie Kendig

Unwilling Warrior (Seasons of Redemption)
Unwilling Warrior by Andrea Kuhm Boeshaar 

Boyfriends, Burritos& an Ocean of Trouble
Boyfriends, Burritos and an Ocean of Trouble by Nancy Rue

Hopes Promise (Sierra Chronicles V2)
Hope's Promise by Tammy Barley

Still Working on:

So Long, Insecurity: You've Been a Bad Friend to Us
So Long Insecurity by Beth Moore

Babylon Rising
Babylon Rising by Tim LaHaye

Against All Odds (Heroes of Quantico Series, Book 1)
Against All Odds by Irene Hannon
Finshed on audio:
The Last Christian: A Novel
The Last Christian by David Gregory
so Started:

The Passage
The Passage by Justin Cronin

what are you reading this week?

Sunday, June 27, 2010

In My Mailbox


In My Mailbox is a Meme sponsored by Kristi over at The Story Siren and Mailbox Monday is sponsored byMarcie over at the Printed Page so head over there and see what everone got in their mailboxes.  

I had a great week:

On Monday:
  Missing Max: A Novel
Missing Max by Karen Young,  I have already read this and will have a review up on Tuesday.   thanks to Rebecca at Glass Road 

Unwilling Warrior (Seasons of Redemption)
Unwilling Warrior by Andrea Kuhn Boesher  for a blog tour for Glass Road

On Tuesday:

Take Four (Above the Line Series)
Take Four by Karen Kingsbury.  I Love all of Karen's Books and I just had to get this one to finish out the series although I am only on the second one.  I got two copies so I have one as the prize of my 100 follower giveaway so if you are a follower just head up to the page on top of the blog and enter!!

On Wednesday:

Nightshade (Discarded Heroes)
Nightshade by Ronie Kendig for a blog tour

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake: A Novel
The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender.  Thanks to Judy at Doubleday.  I am also having a giveaway for this book so enter on the page at the top. 
Hailey's War: A Novel
Hailey's War by Jodi Compton

The Chill of Night (Det. Michael McCabe Mysteries)
Chill of the Night by James Hayman for a blog tour

Room: A Novel
Room by Emma Donoghue from Shelf Awareness

On Thursday:

The Wiersbe Bible Study Series: John: Get to Know the Living Savior
Warren Wiersbe bible Study series : John  for a blog tour

Be Compassionate (Luke 1-13): Let the World Know That Jesus Cares (The BE Series Commentary)
Warren Wiersbe Be Compassionate for a blog tour

On Friday:

One Season of Sunshine
One Season of Sunshine by Julia London from Shelfawareness

The King's Mistress: A Novel
The King's Mistree by Emma Campion from Shelf Awareness.  for some reason I received 2 Arc's of this book so I will probably be giving one away 

Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter: A Novel
Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin from Shelf Awareness    

Infinite Days (Vampire Queen)
Infinite Days by Rebecca Maizel from Shelf Awareness.  My daughter has claimed this one but I told her that she would have to write a review.

On Saturday:

Bad Boy: An Inspector Banks Novel (Inspector Alan Banks)
Bad Boy by Peter Robinson from Shelf Awareness

The Fall by Chuck Hogan from Shelf Awareness ( couldn't find an image)

Lingering Spirit
Lingering Spirit by Marilyn  Meredith 
In a Heartbeat: Sharing the Power of Cheerful Giving
In a Heartbeat: Sharing the Power of Cheerful Giving by Leigh Anne Tuohy, Sean Touhy and Sally Jenkins  for a blog tour.  this is the story of the family behind the movie Blindside 

So What did you get in your Mailbox?