“… in your time you shall do wrong unto others and others shall do wrong unto you. And these opposing wrongs will become your chains. The wrongs you have done unto others will be bound to you in the form of guilt, and the wrongs that others have done unto you in the form of indignation. The teachings of Jesus Christ Our Savior are there to free you from both. To free you from your guilt through atonement and from your indignation through forgiveness. Only once you have freed yourself from both of these chains may you begin to live your life with love in your heart and serenity in […]
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The Sanctuary Book Review
Sanctuary is the remarkable true story of how faith turned one lost man’s life around with the help of the rescue animals who loved him. In the small Irish village of Liscarroll, Patrick Barrett helped his family run a sanctuary for abandoned and abused donkeys. He did poorly in school and his headmaster beat him. Patrick only felt truly accepted in the presence of the donkeys and he could read their body language and communicate in ways they could understand. Falling prey to the cultural norms of life in an Irish village, Barrett had his first drink at age seven and came to depend on alcohol to numb his anxiety. At […]
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Bloomsbury Girls – Book Review
Bloomsbury Books is an old-fashioned new and rare bookstore that has resisted change for a hundred years. It is run by men and guided by the general manager’s unbreakable fifty-one rules, but in post-war 1950, the world is changing, especially the world of books and publishing. At Bloomsbury Books, the women who work in the shop have plans. Vivien Lowry: Brilliant and stylist, Vivien has been single since her aristocratic fiancé died fighting during World War II. A budding writer, she works in the shop’s fiction department. Grace Perkins: Married with two young sons, she’s been working to support the family following her husband’s mental breakdown in the war’s aftermath. […]
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Until Leaves Fall in Paris – Book Review
“Not everything God created is useful, but it’s all good. He didn’t have to create beauty, but he did. He didn’t have to create color, but he did. He didn’t have to create music, but he did. None of it useful. Then he created us in his creative image with the ability to make beauty and color and music. It might not be useful, but it’s good.” ― Sarah Sundin, Until Leaves Fall in Paris. When the Nazis march toward Paris, American ballerina Lucie Girard buys her favorite English-language bookstore to allow the Jewish owners to escape. The Germans make it difficult for her to keep Green Leaf Books afloat. And […]
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On A Night of a Thousand Stars
“One cannot and must not try to erase the past merely because it does not fit the present.” — Golda Meir New York, 1998. Wealthy Argentinian diplomat, Santiago Larrea, is hosting a soiree with this wife and 21-year-one daughter, Paloma, to celebrate his appointment as Argentina’s ambassador to the United Nations. When a party guest makes an intriguing off-handed remark about her father’s university days, Paloma is determined to learn more about his life in the years leading up to the military dictatorship of 1976. When the family travels to Buenos Aires for Santiago’s UN ambassadorial appointment, Paloma is determined to learn more about his life in the years leading […]
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I Must Betray You – Book Review
“Please remember that when adversity is drawn out of the shadows and recognized, we ensure that human beings living under oppression—past and present—know they are not forgotten. Together, we can shine a light in dark corners of the past. Together, we can give history a voice.”—Ruta Sepetys, I Must Betray You. Ruta Sepetys’s latest novel is set in Romania in 1989. Communist regimes are crumbling across Europe, but tyrannical dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu, who has been in power for twenty-four years, still governs by isolation and fear. Seventeen-year-old Cristian Florescu dreams of becoming a writer, but Romanians aren’t free to dream; they are bound by rules and force. When Cristian is blackmailed […]
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Steel Fear – Book Review
In Steel Fear, combat-decorated Navy SEAL Brandon Web and award-winning author John David Mann come together to share a high-octane thriller about murder on an aircraft carrier. The moment Navy SEAL sniper Finn sets foot on the USS Abraham Lincoln to hitch a ride back to the States from the Persian Gulf, it’s clear something is amiss. When crew members disappear one by one, what at first seems like a random string of suicides soon reveals something sinister: there’s a serial killer onboard. Suspicion falls on Finn, the newcomer to the ship who is being sent home in disgrace, after a failed mission in Yemen—the details of which he doesn’t remember. He […]
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Damnation Spring – Book Review
Colleen and Rich Gundersen are raising their young son, Chub, on the rugged California coast. It’s 1977, and life in this Pacific Northwest logging town isn’t what it used to be. For generations, the community has lived and breathed timber; now that way of life is threatened. Colleen is an amateur midwife. Rich is a tree-topper, a dangerous job that requires him to scale trees hundreds of feet tall, a job his father and grandfather died doing. Rich secretly spends their savings on a swath of ancient Redwoods and fashions his life to support his deceit. Colleen, who has suffered eight miscarriages and is desperate to have a second baby, […]
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Amy’s April 2022 Book Reviews
Sheesh, will I ever catch up on my book reviews? I read some amazing books in April, and I’m thrilled to share my reviews. Here goes! The Progeny By Tosca Lee Emily Porter is on a quest that will take her to the secret underground of Europe and the inner circles of three ancient orders—one determined to kill her, one devoted to keeping her alive, and one she must ultimately save. The Progeny is the present-day saga of a 400-year-old war between the descendants of “Blood Countess” Elizabeth Báthory, the most prolific female serial killer of all time, and a secret society dedicated to erasing every one of her descendants. The […]
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A Small Hotel – Book Review
It’s the summer of 1941. Europe is at war, but New York’s Thousand Islands are at the height of the tourist season. Kennet Fiskare, son of a hotel proprietor, is having the summer of a lifetime, having fallen deeply in love with a Swedish-Brazilian guest named Astrid Virtanen. But the affair is cut short. The rigors of military life help dull his heartache, but when Kennet’s battalion reaches France, he is thrown into the crucible of frontline combat. As his unit crosses Europe, from the Battle of the Bulge in Belgium to Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria, Kennet falls into a different kind of love: the intense camaraderie between soldiers. […]
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