Book Journey

Just the right read to relax into over a weekend… ~ Sheila

When Ava Nickerson was a child, her mother jokingly betrothed her to a friend’s son, and the contract the parents made has stayed safely buried for years. Now that still-single Ava is closing in on thirty, no one even remembers she was once “engaged” to the Markowitz boy. But when their mother is diagnosed with cancer, Ava’s prodigal little sister Lauren comes home to Los Angeles where she stumbles across the decades-old document.
Frustrated and embarrassed by Ava’s constant lectures about financial responsibility (all because she’s in a little debt. Okay, a lot of debt), Lauren decides to do some sisterly interfering of her own and tracks down her sister’s childhood fiancé. When she finds him, the highly inappropriate, twice-divorced, but incredibly charming Russell Markowitz is all too happy to re-enter the Nickerson sisters’ lives, and always-accountable Ava is forced to consider just how binding a contract really is . . .

In My Opinion:

A light read about two sisters that really did keep me turning the pages.  I enjoyed the sister relationship between Ava and Lauren and found I could relate to each of them in different ways.  While the book is clearly chick lit and the topics are somewhat serious in parts (a mother battling cancer) there were also relationships brewing for each of the sisters.

While Ava was too high strung and work focused we have Lauren who is too fun focused.  Ava’s issues are she takes no personal pride in her appearance and feels as long as she is clean, that is good – where Lauren puts too much into her appearance.  You can probably see where I am going here….

While the book had no wonderful message in it or even really a deep plot… it was enough to keep turning the pages and wanting to know how it was all going to come together.

About Claire:

She grew up in Newton, Massachusetts, went to Harvard and moved to LA. (Her name was Claire Scovell for a large part of all that.) She lives in the Pacific Palisades with her husband Rob (who writes for “The Simpsons”), her four kids (Max, Johnny, Annie and Will) and too many pets to keep track of.

I received my review copy from Hachette Book Group

Reading Group Guide

A fictional faith journey that I was glad to be a part of… ~  Sheila

I meet Jesus on the day I get home from the war. I’m on the beach, but I don’t know how I got here. My mind is as dark as the night. . . . I spend the whole night on the beach. But when the sun’s faint light begins to bend around the Earth, I see him. . . . There, coming toward me, out of the light, is a man. . . . Behind the man a faint curtain of light rises to the sky out of the ocean. He wears the light like a robe, though I see he’s dressed like me. Jeans and a T-shirt, no shoes. And that he’s older than I am, a lot older, maybe mid-thirties. He walks right toward me. He walks right into my eyes.

So begins the spellbinding story of Warren Harlan Pease, a young U.S. Army sniper freshly returned from the Iraq War to his native New Hampshire. What follows is a page-turning adventure that is also a powerful meditation on religion and war, love and loss.

The Last Day answers questions and asks many more. Armed with a sniper’s rifle and his deeply held faith, Specialist Pease travels across ideological borders and earns an appreciation for his enemy’s culture and for what connects us all as human beings. “War doesn’t test your faith in Jesus,” Warren comes to realize. “It tests your faith in yourself.” Upon returning home, he spends an entire day with Jesus visiting and contemplating his own life with fresh eyes, and a willing heart. He examines his relationship to those he loves, and grapples with the pain he has been carrying inside since the death of his mother when he was just a boy.

In My Opinion:

Iraq war (or any war really) would not hit my favorite topics in any format, especially in reading.  However, I dipped a cautious eye into this novel and found myself reading it as a memoir.  And it is not a memoir, but a character, not a real person, but Warren Harlan Pease.  And…. I find out …. I like Warren.

I enjoyed the banter back and forth between Warren and Jesus.  The book mainly swirls around the theme of faith and takes us from Warrens life as a young child to his relationships with parents and into the war.  I had moments of tears and moments of laughter as I read.  In some parts of the book the war topic goes over my head but the basic message of the book was interesting and I found the book overall a good read.

I received my ARC from LibraryThing

In the autumn of 2000, Hope Edelman was a woman adrift, questioning her marriage, her profession, and her place in the larger world. Feeling vulnerable and isolated, she was primed for change. Into her stagnant routine dropped Dodo, her three-year-old daughter Maya’s curiously disruptive imaginary friend. Confused and worried about how to handle Dodo’s apparent hold on their daughter, Edelman and her husband made the unlikely choice to take her to Maya healers in Belize, hoping that a shaman might help them banish Dodo—and, as they came to understand, all he represented—from their lives.

An account of how an otherwise mainstream mother and wife finds herself making an extremely unorthodox choice, The Possibility of Everything chronicles the magical week in Central America that transformed Edelman from a person whose past had led her to believe only in the visible and the “proven” to someone open to the idea of larger, unseen forces. This deeply affecting, beautifully written memoir of a family’s emotional journey explores what Edelman and her husband went looking for in the jungle and what they ultimately discovered—as parents, as spouses, and as ordinary people—about the things that possess and destroy, or that can heal us all.

In My Opinion:

Hope describes herself as a “I have to see it to believe it” type of person.  She begins her memoir without having faith in anything  other than the possibility of everything – but not without visual proof.  My belief system is so much in contrast to Hope’s that I hungered to see her know there is more.

Getting deeper into the book, while I enjoyed Hope’s writing style I just had a hard time getting fully into the book.  I tried to place myself in her shoes…. doing whatever I could for my child no matter what.  I  of course would…. yet the direction they go still surprises me.  There are points of this book where I simply have a hard time relating to the authors thoughts.

While Hope Elderman has a way with words,  parts of this book seems to drag out the details and I found myself passing over pages quickly to find the heart of the memoir.   I did enjoy the details about Belize but by the time I finished the book I was still not in agreement with the actions this family took for their daughter.

I have read some wonderful reviews on this book so be sure to check out other opinions.

About The Author:

Most of the year I live outside of Los Angeles with my husband, two daughters, and a growing menagerie of beloved pets. You can also find me every July in Iowa City, where I teach in the summer writing festival and never miss the Johnson County Fair. I’m a New Yorker by birth, a Californian by circumstance, but a Midwesterner at heart.

Here are the rest of the tour stops – be sure to check them out!

Thursday, Dec. 3
Book reviewed & giveaway at Luxury Reading

Friday, Dec. 4
Book reviewed at Readaholic
Guest blogging at As the Pages Turn

Monday, Dec. 7
Interviewed at Blogcritics
Book reviewed at My Reading Room

Tuesday, Dec. 8
Interviewed at The Hot Author Report
Book reviewed at The Life of an Inanimate Flying Object

Wednesday, Dec. 9
Reviewed at Review From Here
Reviewed at Rundpinne

Thursday, Dec. 10
Guest blogging at Blogging Authors
Guest blogging at Carol’s Notebook

Friday, Dec. 11
Book reviewed at A Sea of Books

Monday, Dec. 14
Interview l Chat l Book Giveaway at Pump Up Your Book!

Tuesday, Dec. 15
Book reviewed at Brizmus Blogs Books
Book reviewed and guest blogging at My Book Views

Wednesday, Dec. 16
Book reviewed at Buuklvr81

I received my review copy of this book from Pump Up Your Book Promotion

I really did find treasure within this book!  ~  Sheila

Cigar boxes. Refrigerator doors. Scrapbooks and sock drawers and top shelves. These are the places we store our treasures–the keepsakes that tell the story of whom and what we’ve loved, how we’ve lived, and what matters most to us.

God is a collector, too, whose treasures are tucked securely into the pages of his book: a golden bell here, an olive leaf there, a scarlet thread, a blood-stained cloth, a few grains of barley. Each of these saved artifacts reveals a facet of his heart and tells the story of a Father whose most precious possession is…us.

In My Opinion:

This book was a treasure to me.  I was engrossed in the stories that Leigh shares as she takes “treasures” out of different parts of the Bible.  Opening with Genesis 3:6-7, Leigh McLeroy writes about the fig leaf that to me was just a past of the make up of the early scriptures – and she takes it beyond the leaf.  Yes.  Beyond the leaf.  As this first chapter unfolds I get a real idea of where Leigh McLeroy is going here… she is literally taking pieces of the Bible and going deeper… and I am totally following her lead.

From Abraham’s knife… we are shown God’s mercy.  From Ruth we see through a head of barley, God gleans joy from sorrow… and on and on the chapters go breathing life into the stories that really made me think of all the treasures that surround me daily thatI do not always see as… well… treasures.

I closed this book with a renewed desire to read deeper.  To look beyond the obvious words and see what I have been missing.  Treasures has become a book for me that is just that.  A treasure that will stay with me a long time and remind me to look beyond the surface.  I just found what I will be getting many of my close friends for Christmas.

About The Author:

A former ghostwriter with seven books to her credit, Leigh’s first solo effort, Moments for Singles, was published by NavPress in 2004. She is the author of The Beautiful Ache and The Sacred Ordinary, published by Revell in 2007 and 2008, and a contributor to Daily Seeds, a compilation devotional published by Moody in 2008.

A frequent conference and event speaker, Leigh makes her home in Houston, Texas, where she is raising Owen – who may be the most adorable spaniel ever named after an Inkling, a John Irving character, and a Puritan preacher.

You can purchase this book through here

I received my review copy of this book from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group

A first time reader of Lisa Tawn Bergren, I loved these books and would love to read more!  ~ Sheila

As Little Cub and Grandpa Bear’s Fishing adventure is interrupted by mischievous otters, the little polar bear begins to ask questions why we must love others… even the seemingly unlovable.

In answering her questions, Grandpa Bear gives tender explanations that teach Little Cub about the different kinds of love that is shared between families, friends, and mamas, and papas.  Grandpa explains that all these kinds of love comes from God and that it is important to love others because…

This time, the bears are getting ready to celebrate the most special day of the year: Christmas. In this enchanting picture book, you can help young children celebrate the true meaning of Christmas, and it offers the perfect opportunity for little ones to discover the awesome truth of how much God loves them.

In the midst of all the Christmas preparations, curious Little Cub asks one day, “Who invented Christmas?” Mama’s answer only leads to more questions, like: “Is God more important than Santa?” So Mama decides to take Little Cub on an expedition to discover how God gave them Christmas. As their journey unfolds, the pair finds signs that God is at work all around them. Mama’s gentle guidance helps Little Cub discover that Jesus is the best present of all! Recommended for ages 4 to 8.

In My Opinion:

Using a little cub’s curiosity to explain Love in God Gave Us Love, and to explain Christmas in God Gave us Christmas, author Lisa Tawn Bergren hits the topics in a gentle teaching way that are wonderful for children to understand.  I enjoyed reading her words and at the same time knowing that David Hohn’s beautiful illustrations would glue children to every page.

In God gave Us Love the message is about the different kinds of love we experience.

How do we know God loves us?  Little Cub whispered.  I mean when we can’t see or touch or feel Him?

We trust He is always with us, Grandpa whispers back.  Like your brother and sistercan’t see you right now, but they know you are here.  That’s Faith.

I appreciated the message that is brought across in this book.

In God Gave Us Christmas, Lisa Tawn Bregren again gives a great message in a way that the little ones in our life can grasp on to.  While Little Cub is hoping to be able to go and find santa, Mama instead sets out to show him God.  She shows him lights in the sky, and the sun in the morning, she shows him great bodies of water and ice bergs…. through nature and the story of the first Christmas, little Cub learns of the present of all.

Two wonderful reads!

About the Author

Lisa Tawn Bergren is the best-selling author of ten novels, three novellas, and two gift books. God Gave Us Christmas is her third childrens book. She makes her messy-but-cozy home in Colorado, with her husband, Tim, and their children, Olivia, Emma, and Jack.

David Hohn is an award-winning illustrator who graduated with honors from the Maryland Institute college of Art. He lives in Portland, Oregon.

I received these review copies from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group