Book Review: Invisible

Last week I read the book Invisible by Ginny Yttrup. I was emailed by Handlebar Publishing asking if I was interested to read this book. It seemed interesting enough to me so I agreed! Let me just start off by saying that I did not want to put this book down. Every opportunity I had to read I was doing so. I finished it in just four days and the days were filled pretty tightly with Easter activities. It was also a pretty easy read though it was a fairly long novel.

Invisible is the story of three women who each feel that either they are invisible or they want to be invisible. It's a story about God's love and redemption. A story of finding your true self as created in the Image of God. The book tells the story of Ellyn, a gourmet chef and restaurant owner who has struggled as long as she can remember with her physical appearance. She believes herself to be too fat and ugly to be loved. It also tells the story of Twila, a young lady in her mid-twenties who works at the local health food store and wants to help others feel healthy. She struggles with an eating disorder which stems from abandonment issues from her past. It also tells the story of Sabina, a practicing counselor who has come to this tiny town for about a year. She is really there to escape from her issues and hopefully overcome her depression.

Throughout the novel the three ladies become unlikely friends who each have a very big part in helping the recovery of the others. They help each other discover the healing that only God can provide for them. But most importantly, they help each other realize that they are truly made in the Image of God.

This novel was not necessarily just a light-hearted read. It contained some pretty heavy topics and was very emotional. But it was oh so very good. It kept me riveted and I loved how it told the story from the perspectives of the different characters. I felt like I really got to know each of the women intimately because I was "listening" to them all. After you read this book, I challenge you to not be changed by it. I love when a fiction novel teaches and reminds me of extremely valuable lessons.

Cindy

Book Review: The Sky Beneath My Feet

I recently finished reading the book The Sky Beneath My Feet by Lisa Samson. It didn't take me long to read this book at all. I downloaded it from Booksneeze to my Kindle app on my iPhone on a Thursday; I began reading on a Friday and finished it on a Monday afternoon. And I was BUSY that weekend. I just wanted to keep reading though. Good thing it was on my phone because it made it convenient to read!

The book is about Beth, a pastor's wife and mom of two teenage boys. Beth's husband Rick is taking a one month sabbatical from his church and he told Beth to plan a vacation for them. Beth struggles with planning something the whole family will enjoy and eventually a friend gives her the keys to a beach house in Florida. However, just before the sabbatical is to start, an old friend of the family comes to visit and offers Rick a great new pastoral job in Richmond. This offer throws Rick for a loop and he holes himself up in his office/shed without saying a word to anyone. No one knows exactly what is going on with Rick and it really upsets Beth and her boys. They begin trying to deal with their absent husband/father, but it messes up the vacation Beth had planned.

With Rick "away", Beth decides she needs to figure out some things for herself. She tries activities she never would have thought to do before, she gets involved in helping a girl who is addicted to drugs, she hangs out with people she has nothing in common with (or so she thinks), and she even has an adventure with her soul sister, Holly. Throughout this sabbatical Beth attempts to rediscover the idealistic woman she used to be.

The Sky Beneath My Feet was a great novel. I felt really close to the characters and I wanted to see Beth happy. I was really engrossed in this book and at times I was laughing, others times I was really angry at characters, and at other points I was so excited about what was happening! I would definitely recommend this if you want a light read. I also want to point out that this wasn't your typical Christian "Romance" Novel. This novel had characters that were down to earth and real; characters that can be related to. They struggled with serious things and it wasn't all lovey-dovey like some Christian novels are. I really enjoyed it!

Cindy

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze®.com. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's guidelines.

Book Review: Come to the Table

Hello friends! I've got a book review for you guys today. This book is number 2 in the Souled Out Sisters novels. I posted a review on the first book here. I was really excited to see that Booksneeze was offering Book 2, Come to the Table by Neta Jackson, so I quickly requested it!

This book was definitely a continuation of Stand By Me. The only difference was that instead of telling the story from the point of view of Kat and Avis, it tells it now from Kat, Nick, and a little bit of Edesa. Nick was introduced during the first book as a close friend of Kat; Edesa is a member of Souled Out that Kat works closely with to figure out her plans. In this novel, Kat begins to seek a plan with the help of God, her friends and women from her church to use her ideas of teaching nutrition to impoverished people. However, with guidance, prayer and lots of help Kat gets the idea to open a food pantry at Souled Out Community Church. During this same time, Nick is appointed as a pastoral intern at the church. He struggles with this new position in numerous ways, one being that his feelings for Kat keep growing and he doesn't want anyone to think impurely of him since they are roommates at the moment, along with Bree, and Avis's daughter Rochelle and her son, Conny.

This was a great novel. I love that it continues from Book 1 so well and it answers questions that I had at the end of the first one. I love how it's not just a feel good book, but that Neta actually creates tension between the characters. I also love how the story keeps growing and the lives of the characters keep intertwining. If you're looking for a good read, I suggest picking up Books 1 and 2 and giving them a read. I wouldn't recommend reading this one without having read Stand By Me just because the story is so involved. However, you could read it by itself if you wanted because the main plot points are "recapped" so to say at the beginning of the book.

Cindy

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze®.com. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's guidelines.

Book Review: Miraculous

I've got a new Booksneeze review for you guys today. The book was called Miraculous: A Fascinating History of Signs, Wonders and Miracles by Kevin Belmonte.

I was very intrigued by the title and description of this book. There are miracles all around us and so many people miss them because they're looking for big things of grandeur. However, miracles come in all shapes and sizes. And the best thing about miracles is that they point the way to God. Since all miracles are given to us by God if we take notice of them than we can't help but take notice of God. This book gives a detailed account of miracles and wondrous things that have taken place throughout the whole of history.

I want to preface my review of this book by saying that I rarely read Non-Fiction books unless it is for a Bible study or book club. I much prefer Fiction; something that I can get lost in. And as such this was my first Non-Fiction book chosen to review for Booksneeze. Like I said above, I was excited to read it because the premise behind it sounded great! I love miracles and I love finding all the little signs and wonders in the everyday to point me to God. However, I just could not get into this book. I tried and read several chapters but it just wasn't my cup of tea so to say. It wasn't necessarily that Kevin's writing was dull, it was just very textbook like. There was a lot of research done for this book, as there should have been, and I felt like I was in a classroom. And not that there's anything wrong with learning, I love to learn, but I feel like I would have much preferred to hear this book than read it. Does that make sense? The chapters themselves weren't that long and each chapter was devoted to a different sort of miracle in history broken in to two sections. The first section was all about Miracles in the Ancient World starting with Genesis and the miracle of Creation. It then went on to talk about other miraculous events throughout the Bible. The second section consisted of stories about Miracles in the Lives of God's People and described different miraculous events in the lives of various people which included, St. Augustine, Martin Luther and George Washington.

In conclusion, I'm not going to not recommend this book because I think it could be a very great book for someone looking for a scholarly or historical read. This book just wasn't for me. Kevin Belmonte had lots of great research and included lots of wonderful examples and excerpts to support his findings and I am very impressed with the work he did, I just only wish I could hear and see him deliver this information instead of read it.

Cindy

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze®.com. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's guidelines.

Book Review: Starring Me

I recently finished reading Starring Me by Krista McGee and this happened to be my latest Booksneeze book!

It was such a cute story that was definitely geared more towards young adults but I very much enjoyed it myself! Krista McGee's writing style was very fun and fluid. She kept you engrossed in the story and the lives of the characters. I actually read this book really fast because I couldn't put it down. I just wanted to find out what was going to happen next! It was that riveting.

Anyway.. the story is about a teenage girl named Kara McKormick who wants more than anything to be an actress. She finds out that she has been chosen to audition for a new teen variety show in Orlando! She leaves her New York home to spend a month auditioning for this new show against and living with nine other teenage girls and their very eccentric housemother. The girls must audition in various ways throughout the month, however it's not just their acting ability that is being auditioned, it's their character as well...

Unbeknownst to the girls auditioning, their co-star is the famous Chad Beacon who won a reality singing show called America's Next Star. Chad wanted to get into acting and the new teen network came up with the idea for this variety show to star him. However, his parents want him to have a co-star that shares his faith and would be a good influence on Chad since they will spend so much time together. They "plant" their long-time assistant Flora as the housemother to secretly glean information about the girls and to judge their character.

Throughout her time at the audition, Kara feels that God is after her heart but she isn't sure how to respond or what it means to be a Christian. But God has placed Kara exactly where she is for a very specific reason and soon Kara finds out there's a much bigger plan for her life then she could ever have imagined!

Like I said above, it was a very good book! After I finished this one I realized that Krista McGee had written one prior to Starring Me called First Date and I will soon be purchasing it to read more about some of the supporting characters from this book! I really did enjoy Krista's writing and it was a very fun and lighthearted read. Perfect for a summer read on the beach. Or if you have any young adult women who enjoy reading this would make a great gift!

Cindy

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze®.com. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's guidelines.

Book Review: Hope Springs

The latest book that I chose to read and review for Booksneeze was Hope Springs by Kim Cash Tate. This was also my first ebook that I've ever read! I don't have any of those electronic reading devices but I do have my iPhone and I discovered they make a snazzy Kindle app for it! Woo! I did enjoy the ease and accessibility of being able to read the book whenever I wanted on my phone but there was something missing not holding a physical copy of the book in my hands. That and it made it really hard to flip back a few pages to check on something that happened prior. There was no way to keep my current page while flipping back. So I'd have to remember what number I was at and go to that location. I kept forgetting. =P Anyway... it wasn't all bad. But this is a book review not a review of my e-reading experience!

Hope Springs was a great novel! I'd never read anything by Kim Cash Tate before but after reading this book I will definitely be reading some other novels from her. The book took place in a small North Carolina town called Hope Springs. It featured three main character women, Stephanie London, Janelle Evans, and Becca Anderson. Stephanie and Janelle are cousins from a very large extended family and Becca married a man who grew up in Hope Springs and was close with the other ladies' family as a child.

Stephanie is married to a doctor and lives in St. Louis with her husband but has no job and no responsibilities. Stephanie and her husband go to Hope Springs for Christmas to visit but when Stephanie finds out her grandmother is gravely ill she decides to stay and help her cousin Janelle take care of her. Stephanie had been feeling like she needed to do something more with her life and takes this as her "ministry boot camp" while her husband is in Haiti on a medical mission trip for a month.

Janelle lost her husband two years before the start of the book. She lives in Maryland and has two young children. They also make the journey to Hope Springs for Christmas and when she learns that her grandmother is sick and needs someone around to take care of her she volunteers to stay and help because she realizes there is really nothing in Maryland that she urgently needs to get back for. While in Hope Springs she reacquaints herself with her first love and falls into an easy friendship with him. She helps to start a Woman's Bible study and slowly grows into a fresh relationship with God since her husband's death.

Becca has been a small time woman's speaker at Christian conferences and the like. She recently got an offer to become part of the speaker team for a well renowned women's Christian conference and finally feels like God is leading her into a wonderful path for ministry. Then her husband feels called to become the pastor at his late father's church in Hope Springs. Becca is unsure how living in the small town will affect her ministry dreams but she will soon find out that God has big plans for her!

This was such a good book! Like other books I've loved, it was told from the perspective of the different women and each chapter featured a different woman. It was all told in third person form but you really got to know the characters through each of their chapters. And the chapters all intertwined which was really wonderful. I definitely did not want to put this book down which I suppose was a good thing it was on my phone because it made it a lot easier to read whenever I wanted. Even though it was a fairly long novel it went by so fast! I got the book on Wednesday of last week and finished it on Monday. And that included my very busy weekend where I didn't read at all! I love that this book included not just one God lesson but many. And each of those lessons were poignant and touching. It was a great reminder to me that God is working in all my circumstances and has a plan much bigger than I can ever imagine. =) I highly recommend you pick up this book. Definitely a five star rating in my opinion!

Cindy

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze®.com. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's guidelines.

Book Review: Stand By Me

If I haven't said it before I'm saying it now, I love to read series. I think the reason I love book series so much is because I get so involved in the character's lives and stories and I feel like reading about them for one book just isn't enough. I love to get to read more and become more engaged in their lives through book after book. Another thing I love in books is when author's tell the story from different character's points of view throughout the novel. It's so fun to get the different perspectives within the same book!

Anyway, the latest novel I received from Booksneeze was Stand By Me by Neta Jackson. This novel is the first in a new spin-off series called Souled Out Sisters following her other two series Yada Yada Prayer Group and House of Hope. I loved both of the other series and I was excited to learn that Neta Jackson was coming out with yet another series so I requested this book right away! And I started and finished it almost as soon as I received it!

The book is told from the perspective of a college senior who is a newly professed Christian, Kat Davies, part of the time, and from an elementary school prinicipal and long-time Christian and church leader, Avis Douglass, the other part. Kat is very enthusiastic about life, living "green" and her new found Christian faith. Kat discovers Souled Out Community Church and introduces herself to Avis and longs to become a part of the multi-cultural church and to be close to Avis, a woman whom she greatly admires. However, Avis is going through some hard times in her life at the moment; including a strained relationship with her daughter and the unknown of her and her husband's job status. She thinks Kat is very eccentric and nosy and does not want to be bothered by her. Kat is almost the complete oppostie of Avis and yet God put them in each other's paths for a reason. Their lives keep intertwining in ways neither of them would have expected but God knows what He is doing!

I realled enjoyed this book. It was so fun and filled with real struggles and life situations. It kept me very engaged and wanting to learn more and more about the characters. I had "met" Avis before in the other series books by Neta Jackson but she was never a main character. In the Yada Yada books she had a "supporting role" so to speak and in House of Hope she was basically a character that appeared every now and then. I'm loving that I get to learn more about her and her family. Kat was a new character and it was lots of fun to "meet" her. I look so forward to reading the rest of the books in this series and getting to know more about her! She was so spunky and full of life, she almost reminded me of myself in some ways.

If you're looking for a fun, engaging, heart warming story that teaches great lessons pick this one up! And the best part is, you don't need to have read the other series before reading it. All of Neta's series though intertwined are completely readable on their own! Each has a different set of main characters and the characters that are in the other series are explained well enough you know all you need to about them! I highly, highly recommend this book along with any of her others!

Cindy

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze®.com. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's guidelines.

Book Review: Smitten

I've got another Booksneeze review for you guys! This review is LONG overdue. I finished this book in December, right around Christmas time! But I didn't want to post about it then because I didn't want to interrupt all the Christmas goodness. Anyway... the book is called Smitten and it was a collaborative novel between four author friends, Colleen Coble, Kristin Billerbeck, Denise Hunter, & Diann Hunt.

I just want to start off by saying I loved this book! It was such a fun read and easy to read, too. Anyway... Smitten is about four friends who are all from the town of Smitten, VT, a town kept alive simply by the logging factory at the top of the hill. When the factory must close due to bankruptcy the four friends devise a plan to turn their small little town into a romantic tourist destination capitalizing on its charming name. Each of the women takes on a business venture related to romance and tries to gather the support of the whole town. The other women in the town are eager to help but some of the men take a lot of convincing. The four main characters, Natalie, Julia, Shelby and Reese work very hard to save the town and make it a honeymoon destitation spot and along the way they find romance of their own!

Like I said above, I loved this book. It was so cute and definitely a fun romance novel! And I especially loved that each character's story was told by a different author. The book is broken up into four small novels each one about one of the women. And though the authors have different writing styles, they all compliment each other well and each new character's story picks up right where the one before it left off! It was so fun to read the story like this with different characters and different points of view! And each story was sweet and had me excited to see how it would end! If you want to read a book about overcoming obstacles and finding love along the way then this is definitely a book you should pick up!

Cindy

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze®.com. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's guidelines.

The Gratitude Challenge - Day 12

1 Give thanks to the Lord and proclaim his greatness.
Let the whole world know what he has done.
2 Sing to him; yes, sing his praises.
Tell everyone about his wonderful deeds.
3 Exult in his holy name;
rejoice, you who worship the Lord.
Psalm 105 (NLT)

Today I am grateful for books. I am so grateful that I have the opportunity to read as much as I want, when I want, and what I want! I absolutely love to read books. This morning I finished my second book to review for Booksneeze and this one was called Softly and Tenderly by Sara Evans with Rachel Hauck.

This book was actually really good. It was a much different genre than the last book I reviewed and it was right up my alley - Christian chick lit. The book is about Jade who is happily married to her husband of two years. They are struggling with infertility but other than that, life is good. Jade runs two successful vintage stores and her husband Max is a lawyer at a very successful law firm owned by his family. Her relationship with her mother has been restored and they're making up for lost time, enjoying being together. And she has a close bond with her in-laws as well. Then Jade finds out that her husband, Max, has an illegitimate son and he wants her to help raise him. This turns her world upside down and she doesn't know what to do. So when her mom wants to go back home to Iowa because her health is failing, it gave her the perfect opportunity to escape for a little while to clear her head and think things through. So Jade, her mom, and her mother-in-law road trip to Iowa and spend some time on the farm where Jade grew up. While there in Iowa Jade begins to struggle with and question everything she thought she knew. She struggles to figure out what to do with her future. But while there Jade also begins to rely more on God and begins to see her future through His eyes and that her past does not dictate her future, God does!

I really enjoyed this book. It was full of real-life sceanarios that people may face and I felt like I could really connect to the characters. I may not be able to relate to the situations in their lives but I was invested in their lives. I felt like I knew them personally and was rooting for Jade and her relationships. The book was very well-written and it kept me captivated. I literally did not want to put this book down and read it in two days because I unfortunately could not read every moment. I am excited to read other books by Sara Evans and Rachel Hauck. I would definitely recommend this book for anyone to read. It's a great book about the struggles in life and how God can work through those struggles to make you stronger and better. Definitely something worth reading!

Cindy

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze®.com. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's guidelines.

Book Review: The Final Summit

My friend Meghan at Faith for Wings has been a blogger for BookSneeze for a while now and it piqued my interest in what it was. I checked into it and basically you get free books in exchange for a short and honest review of the books they send you. Since I love to read I figured, why not?!

The first book I chose to review was The Final Summit by Andy Andrews. I heard Andy speak at Women of Faith in 2010 and he fascinated me. He was such a a dynamic and interesting speaker. His stories were wonderful and full of so much passion. I immediately knew I wanted to read something by him so when I had the opportunity to get this book I jumped on it.

Honestly, the book was very hard for me to get into. It took me months to read it which is extremely strange for me. I can go through a book (or more) a week usually. I think the main thing for me was that the book wasn't my usual genre. I tend to stick with Christian Romance or Christian Chick-Lit and this book was more of a Christian Sci-Fi book. It was not bad at all. It was actually very well written but it wasn't my style, if that makes sense.

The book is actually a part two with the first book being The Traveler's Gift. Fortunately, you did not need to read the first book to understand this one. Everything you need to know is explained to you within the first few chapters. The book follows David Ponder as he attends a final summit meeting in another dimension in which he is the facilitator. The summit is assembled to find the one principle that will save humanity. The summit is filled with extrordinary people from the past and they offer advice, help, and support to David to find the principle needed to save humanity. Some of the people David encounters include President Lincoln, Winston Churchill, Joan of Arc, and King David. The answers that were submitted were all very thought provoking to me. It made me ponder how each of the principles could affect and better humanity. It made me want to instigate them in my own life to see what impact they could have if even in a small way.

Overall, I would recommend this book. It was well written and once I finally got into it I was curious to see what came next and wanted to read on to find the answers to what is a question of great value to us. If you're into sci-fi or history this book would definitely be great for you. One thing I really loved was reading about famous and well-loved people from the past. Andy did a great job of finding and telling the facts of each person's life and keeping the characters true to who they really were.

So, go ahead and read the book! If you do, tell me what you think about!

Cindy

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze®.com. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's guidelines.