November

November, November, November.  We had Thanksgiving.  I am so thankful for things like family and all that, but also the small stuff like cappuccino, and money, and indoor plumbing, books, clean water, etc.
This month I read 10 books.  I am getting a little behind on my review books.  But I got some done this month.
Love in Disguise- Carol Cox
Summer of Secrets- Charlotte Hubbard
Heavenly Temptation- Becca Fisher
Yellow Birds- Kevin Powers
Wettest County in the World- Matt Bondurant
Darkness Rising- Lisa Wiehl
Sinner's Creed- Scott Stapp
Autumn Winds- Charlotte Hubbard
Lady of the Rivers- Philippa Gregory
The Purple Shroud- Stella Duff
One was audio, four were digital, and 5 were paper.  This year I have read about half and half as far as digital vs paper goes and I can say that both are necessary depending on the situation.  As far as reading itself goes, it doesn't really matter.  The best book this month is probably a tie between "Yellow Birds" and "Wettest County"  Wettest County is the movie Lawless.  In case you are looking for a short cut.

purple shroud review

"The Purple Shroud" by Stella Duff is the second part to a two part series of books about Theodora, the Empress of Rome during the 4th century.  I would recommend reading the first one, "Theodora, Actress, Empress, Whore" first as there were a few times when I didn't really know what was going on or couldn't see the importance of what was happening.  It isn't necessary, however, I could still follow the storyline.  This novel has a LOT of history crammed into it.  I needed to google a few things here and there because I am not really up on my Roman Empire knowledge.  I took a World Civilization class in college once, but that didn't really cover it.  Justinian is one of the last Emperors of Rome and Theodora was his Empress.  She was really more of a co-ruler.  She was not just there for breeding purposes, in fact, she couldn't have children.  She fought for women's rights and looked out for the common people as well as the whores.  She set up homes for former prostitutes and worked with establishing women into society as independent people, if possible. 
Some of this book got a little boring because of my lack of knowledge.  It became more than what was entertainment.  The novel as a whole was good.  I think I'm going to read the first book, too.  I received this book for free from www.netgalley.com. 

xmas season is here

Christmas season is upon us.  I have put together the top 10 Christmas movies of all time.  It's simply not Christmas without them.
1.  The Nativity
2.  Christmas Vacation
3. Charlie Brown Christmas (ok, not a movie, but still mandatory)
4. Little Women (not really Christmas movie, but it's Christmas in it)
5. The Christmas Story
6. Elf
7. While You Were Sleeping
8. It's an Wonderful Life
9. The Santa Clause
10. Scrooged
11.  The Preacher's Wife (I know that makes 11, but when she sings "who could imagine a king" puts it on the list.)

Time for a marathon!

Autumn winds review

"Autumn Winds" by Charlotte Hubbard is the second in the Seasons of the Heart Series.  The first was "Summer of Secrets"  which I have read and reviewed earlier.  After reading the first one, I wished I hadn't already agreed to read the second because it was pretty bad.  However, the second surprised me.  Hubbard was no longer trying to out Amish the Amish and was starting to right  a story.  Even more surprisingly she decided to write about romance and sexual longing.  And she was writing it very well.  Her characters were evolving into people rather than just Amish stereotypes. Which I didn't see coming.  In "Autumn Winds" Miriam is still fighting off the unwanted advances of the bishop as well as trying to get a little something started with Ben, the new guy in town.  The bishop is getting his due, Ben's aunts are shaking things up, and Rhoda is getting to now herself better as her youth passes her by.  Keep in mind, that she is only 21 and there will probably be two more books.  I just hope she comes into her own before getting hitched.  I received this book for free from www.netgalley.com. 

creed review

"Sinner's Creed" by Scott Stapp, lead singer of Creed, is the memoir of a rock star; the memoir of a Christian.  It opens with him falling in a drunken haze off of a balcony head first and cracking his skull.  At first, I wasn't sure if he was bragging or confessing.  He then starts off at the beginning of memory and goes through to today.  He is adopted by his step-father who is quiet possibly insane and calls himself a Christian.  With the amount of physical abuse Scott endures as a child, it leads to a lifetime of conflict between a punishing God of his father's and a loving God that is true.  Though Creed is a rock band in every since of the word, this book is very spiritual and Christian.  He wrote it with the help of David Ritz.  It is very well written.  He admits to some pretty personal stuff, yet doesn't let on that he is superior or using it as a crutch.  He is rather matter-of-fact about it all.  I tend to bore of celebrity autobiographies when the person becomes famous in the book.  So it slowed quiet a bit when he became famous.  That might just be me, though.  It is a quick read; read it in a day.  About 1/8 or more of it is lyrics, which is his main form of writing, so that makes sense.  There are also pictures.  I would think any Creed fan will love this book.  Any Christian feeling the pull of love over rules, will like this book as well.  I received this hard back for free from Tyndale Publishing.

east salem 2 review

"Darkness Rising" by Lisa Wiehl, is the second book in the East Salem series.  And NO!, it's not about Batman.  Darkness Rising is a paranormal book about demons and angels and control over the world.  Dani and Tommy, a psychologist and ex-football player turned PI, respectively, have mostly solved the murder from the first novel in the series, Waking Hours, and are now searching for the solution to the mystery in the supernatural aspect of it.  A demon has come between the two characters, while they round up their exes and friends to hunt down evil.  It is a pretty good book.  A lot of it is really involved medically.  You wind up skimming over a lot of it unless you are a neurologist or something you won't understand some of it.  Could get boring if you aren't interested in that sort of thing.  If you read the first, you will want to read the second.  I wouldn't say the first ins mandatory to reading the second. I received this book for free from www.booksneeze.com. 

high calling

I can't help it, when I hear the words High Calling, I think of that scene in "Dead Poets Society" when Newanda goes "It's God calling.  He says we should have girls at Chatum."  This is kinda nothing like that.  www.highcalling.org is a site that unites Christian bloggers.  Now, I am a Christian, and I am a blogger, but it seems to be more of a blogging about Christianity kinda thing going on.  They have a home page kinda like facebook, where you can check in on the newest blogs related to Christianity.  I didn't read all of them.  It also offers daily and weekly e-mails and audio blogs as well.  I was to review the e-newsletter.  The archives had 2008s newsletters available.  I read several of those.  It mostly keeps up to date on new methods and such of communication with bloggers and social media networks.  Twitter and facebook being two of those that are included on this site.  It seems pretty interesting for a die-hard Christian.  I don't mean that is a so and so is more of a Christian as rather one who does it for a living: a Christian writer, speaker, pastor, etc.  I think it would be a great uniter in that field.  I received the e-mail for referral for this website from Handlebar Publishing. 

heavenly temptation review

"Heavenly Temptation (Amish Romance)" by Becca Fisher is a short story romance.  It takes less than an hour to read so it's great for your phone or whatever when you are waiting for something.  It is about Allison, an Amish woman, and Luke, a Philadelphian, who meet in a quilt shop and fall in love.  The love story is very sweet and charming.  It is, however, incredibly rushed.  But it's a short story, so ya gotta move quick.  Allison's sister is Abigail, who has left the Amish church for marriage to an outsider.  Her father, seems to only care about Abigail, leaving Allison to fall for an Englisher of her own.  The question is, Is Luke out for what he can get, or is it truly love?  We shall see.
I received this book for free from www.librarything.com. 

summer of secrets review

"Summer of Secrets" by Charlotte Hubbard, is your standard Amish book.  It fills the pages with cliches and Amish catchphrases till you can't hardly stand it.  It also relys on the fallback storyline of "the misplaced Amish kid".  If the only thing you knew about Amish people was what you read you would think these people couldn't keep track of a kid to save their lives.  It's like a massive Amish Easter egg hunt.  And then to top it off, fictionwise, they always want to keep outsiders out of it, so they don't bother to look very hard.  Now I don't know many Amish, but the ones I have met, I cannot imagine them any of them going "eh, no biggie, I'll get another one".  No, can't see it.
This one starts with Tiffany meeting her biological family of Amish folks.  Strangley, nobody is happy about it.  What starts out as a side story, is the bishop is making Miriam, the mom, sell her building that her business is in.  That story line takes over the book about 1/2 way through the book.  Hubbard lets go of some of the Amish lingo and cliches and the book gets a lot better.  I think she starts in too soon with the Tiffany storyline, because it starts before the reader can learn to care about any of the characters.  We don't even know she is missing when she is found.  I didn't especially like this one....trying too hard to be too Amish.  I received this book for free from www.librarything.com. 

love in disguise review

"Love in Disguise" by Carol Cox stars Ellie, a wanna be actress, who gets by working as an actress' assistant, finds herself fired and starving in Chicago.  She overhears two Pinkerton agents talking about needing to hire a woman for a job and quickly cons herself into not one job, but two.  She goes to Arizona and disguises herself as two women to solve the crime of who is the silver mine robbers.  She also falls in love while she's there.
This novel is ok, not bad.  It isn't very realistic.  Of all I have read on the Pinkertons, this book doesn't sound very true to life.  All in all, I'd say this book is readable, it will pass the time; you probably won't even remember it in a few days.  Nothing to complain about, nothing to rave about.  I received this book for free from Bethany House Publishers.

october

I never wanna see another piece of chocolate again!  Well... at least not for a long time.  There is candy everywhere!  We had two Halloween parties in the community.  One at the library and one for UNICEF.  The school partied all day Wednesday.  So now October is over.  Time to get thankful.  In October I read 8 books.  Four were digital, three were paper, and one was audio. 
This Scarlet Cord- Joan Wolf
The Memory Jar- Tricia Goyer
Die Trying- Lee Child
Travelers Rest- Ann Tatlock
Damsel in Distress- Shannon Drake aka Heather Graham
Gone Tomorrow- Lee child
Bones are Forever- Kathy Reichs
Potters Field- Patricia Cromwell.

Nothing really stood out being bad or good.  It was all pretty OK.  Some more OK than others.  Now that football is over, perhaps I can get some more reading done.