Room by Emma Donahue

For the month of March our bookclub selected Room by Emma Donahue.  If I could use one word to describe this book it would be: INTERESTING.  Overall, I generally liked the book.  It was pretty fast paced and kept me reading until the very end.  Although the ending was a little predictable, the writer kept me engaged and wanting to read on continually.  The entire book is told from the perspective of 5 yr old Jack which makes for a very interesting and unexpected read.

Here is an exert taken from Amazon.com - In many ways, Jack is a typical 5-year-old. He likes to read books, watch TV, and play games with his Ma. But Jack is different in a big way--he has lived his entire life in a single room, sharing the tiny space with only his mother and an unnerving nighttime visitor known as Old Nick. For Jack, Room is the only world he knows, but for Ma, it is a prison in which she has tried to craft a normal life for her son. When their insular world suddenly expands beyond the confines of their four walls, the consequences are piercing and extraordinary. Despite its profoundly disturbing premise, Emma Donoghue's Room is rife with moments of hope and beauty, and the dogged determination to live, even in the most desolate circumstances.

Little Bee

Our February book selection was one that I've had on my reading list for quite a while.  To have finally chosen the book was a little exciting.  Is it possible to get excited over book selection?  If you are a book worm, it's completely acceptable.  If not, then you should probably crawl out from under that rock get to reading.  The book we chose was Little Bee by Chris Cleave.  I really liked the book with the exception of the ending.  Not quite what I was expecting.  The following description was taken from readinggroupguides.com.  

The story is about a young Nigerian refugee named Little Bee whom has just been released from the British immigration detention center where she has been held under horrific conditions for the past two years, after narrowly escaping a traumatic fate in her homeland of Nigeria. Alone in a foreign country, without a family member, friend, or pound to call her own, she seeks out the only English person she knows. Sarah is a posh young mother and magazine editor with whom Little Bee shares a dark and tumultuous past.

They first met on a beach in Nigeria, where Sarah was vacationing with her husband, Andrew, in an effort to save their marriage after an affair, and their brief encounter has haunted each woman for two years. Now together, they face a disturbing past and an uncertain future with the help of Sarah’s four-year-old son, Charlie, who refuses to take off his Batman costume. A sense of humor and an unflinching moral compass allow each woman, and the reader, to believe that even in the face of unspeakable odds, humanity can prevail.

Book Club Pick for January

Our book club selection for the month of January was The Hand that First Held Mine by Maggie O'Farrell.  This was a story of motherhood, determination, love and loss.  Overall I really enjoyed this read.  The author delicately portrayed the lives of two very different women set in different time periods and intricately intertwined their lives together in a pretty amazing story.  Not too many authors are able to pull that off effectively.   Here is a description taken from www.readinggroupguides.com

Lexie Sinclair cannot stay. Enclosed within her parents’ genteel country lawn, she yearns for more. She makes her way to the city, and meets a magazine editor, Innes, a man unlike any she has ever imagined. He introduces her to the thrilling world of bohemian postwar London, and she learns to be a reporter, to know art and artists, to live her life fully and with a deep love at the center of it. She creates many lives --- all of them unconventional. And when she finds herself pregnant by a man wholly unsuitable for marriage or fatherhood, she doesn’t hesitate for a minute to have the baby on her own.

Later, in present-day London, a young painter named Elina dizzily navigates the first weeks of motherhood. Her boyfriend, Ted, traumatized by nearly losing her in labor, begins to recover lost memories. He cannot place them. But as they become more disconcerting and return more frequently, we discover that something connects these two stories --- these two women --- something that becomes all the more heartbreaking and beautiful as they all hurtle toward its revelation.

A stunning portrait of motherhood and the artist’s life in all their terror and glory, Maggie O’Farrell’s newest novel is a gorgeous inquiry into the ways we make and unmake our lives, who we know ourselves to be, and how even our most accidental legacies connect us.

Reader Reader... Bookmark Eater

Those that follow my blog know that I love love love to read!  At present I read mostly Christian fiction as well as secular fiction.  A while back, our book club selection was The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins.  This book is in a trilogy and by far one of the most terrific & suspenseful novels I have read... BAR NONE!  The book is chock full of twists and turns that kept me turning the pages, eagerly anticipating the next twist or surprise.  This novel was a mix of "Survivor" meets "The Gladiator".  Here is a brief description from amazon.com -  In a not-too-distant future, the United States of America has collapsed, weakened by drought, fire, famine, and war, to be replaced by Panem, a country divided into the Capitol and 12 districts. Each year, two young representatives from each district are selected by lottery to participate in The Hunger Games. Part entertainment, part brutal intimidation of the subjugated districts, the televised games are broadcast throughout Panem as the 24 participants are forced to eliminate their competitors, literally, with all citizens required to watch. When 16-year-old Katniss's young sister, Prim, is selected as the mining district's female representative, Katniss volunteers to take her place. She and her male counterpart, Peeta, the son of the town baker who seems to have all the fighting skills of a lump of bread dough, will be pitted against bigger, stronger representatives who have trained for this their whole lives. Collins's characters are completely realistic and sympathetic as they form alliances and friendships in the face of overwhelming odds; the plot is tense, dramatic, and engrossing.  - I absolutely -hands down - LOVED reading this book.  A DEFINITE recommended read for those action & suspense seekers out there!

Since I loved The Hunger Games so very much I decided to jump right in to the second book in series.  Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins.  This book basically jumped right in to where the first book left off.  Boy was this novel INSANE (in a good way, of course)!  Once again, the writer left me enthralled in the never ending suspense as the twists and turn of events left me eagerly anticipating what would happen next.  Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark outsmarted the Gamemakers & won the annual competition described in Hunger Games, but the aftermath leaves these victors with no sense of triumph. Instead, they have become the poster boys for a rebellion that they never planned to lead. That new, unwanted status puts them in the bull's-eye for merciless revenge by The Capitol. Catching Fire maintains the adrenaline rush of Suzanne Collins's series launch.

I am currently reading the last & final book in the series called Mockingjay.  Reviews coming soon! 

The next selection for our book club was Dismantled by Jennifer McMahon. This book was very suspenseful but a little raunchy for my taste.  Containing sexual content, violence and bits of vulgarity.  Introduction taken from goodreads.com - Henry, Tess, Winnie, and Suz banded together in college to form a group they called the Compassionate Dismantlers. Following the first rule of their manifesto—"To understand the nature of a thing, it must be taken apart"—these daring misfits spend the summer after graduation in a remote cabin in the Vermont woods committing acts of meaningful vandalism and plotting elaborate, often dangerous, pranks. But everything changes when one particularly twisted experiment ends in Suz's death and the others decide to cover it up.
Nearly a decade later, Henry and Tess are living just an hour's drive from the old cabin. Each is desperate to move on from the summer of the Dismantlers, but their guilt isn't ready to let them go. When a victim of their past pranks commits suicide—apparently triggered by a mysterious Dismantler-style postcard—it sets off a chain of eerie events that threatens to engulf Henry, Tess, and their inquisitive nine-year-old daughter, Emma.
Is there someone who wants to reveal their secrets? Is it possible that Suz did not really die—or has she somehow found a way back to seek revenge?  Full of white-knuckle tension with deeply human characters caught in circumstances beyond their control, Jennifer McMahon's gripping story and spine-tingling plot prove that she is a master at weaving the fear of the supernatural with the stark realities of life.


Following Dismantled, our book club selection was The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender.  Description taken from goodreads.com - On the eve of her ninth birthday, unassuming Rose Edelstein, a girl at the periphery of schoolyard games and her distracted parents’ attention, bites into her mother’s homemade lemon-chocolate cake and discovers she has a magical gift: she can taste her mother’s emotions in the cake. She discovers this gift to her horror, for her mother—her cheerful, good-with-crafts, can-do mother—tastes of despair and desperation. Suddenly, and for the rest of her life, food becomes a peril and a threat to Rose.
The curse her gift has bestowed is the secret knowledge all families keep hidden—her mother’s life outside the home, her father’s detachment, her brother’s clash with the world. Yet as Rose grows up she learns to harness her gift and becomes aware that there are secrets even her taste buds cannot discern.

The book overall was okay.  It was a little boring and left me a little bewildered.  Needless to say, not one of my favorites.

Our December book club selection was Those Who Save Us by Jenna Blum.  Overall I thought this book was very good.  Set during the days of WW II and the Holocaust, the plot is written through the eyes of a German.  It gives a glimpse into the life of those that weren't persecuted rather those that were of the same race of those that did the persecuting.  The book left me sad, astonished and longing for understanding.  My one word for this book - PROFOUND.  Description taken from readinggroupguides.com - For fifty years, Anna Schlemmer has refused to talk about her life in Germany during World War II. Her daughter, Trudy, was only three when she and her mother were liberated by an American soldier and went to live with him in Minnesota. Trudy's sole evidence of the past is an old photograph: a family portrait showing Anna, Trudy, and a Nazi officer, the Obersturmführer of Buchenwald.

Driven by the guilt of her heritage, Trudy, now a professor of German history, begins investigating the past and finally unearths the heartbreaking truth of her mother's life.

Combining a passionate, doomed love story, a vivid evocation of life during the war, and a poignant mother-daughter drama, Those Who Save Us is a profound exploration of what we endure to survive and the legacy of shame

The Wednesday Sisters

For the month of July, our book club chose to read The Wednesday Sisters by Meg Waite Clayton.  While I enjoyed the book overall, it certainly was not one of my favorites.  The writer added a little spontaneity throughout the book but left so many moments dull.  Some of the chapters just seem to drag on and lull me at times.  Here is an overview take directly from readinggroupguides.com

Friendship, loyalty, and love lie at the heart of Meg Waite Clayton’s beautifully written, poignant, and sweeping novel of five women who, over the course of four decades, come to redefine what it means to be family.

For thirty-five years, Frankie, Linda, Kath, Brett, and Ally have met every Wednesday at the park near their homes in Palo Alto, California. Defined when they first meet by what their husbands do, the young homemakers and mothers are far removed from the Summer of Love that has enveloped most of the Bay Area in 1967. These “Wednesday Sisters” seem to have little in common: Frankie is a timid transplant from Chicago, brutally blunt Linda is a remarkable athlete, Kath is a Kentucky debutante, quiet Ally has a secret, and quirky, ultra-intelligent Brett wears little white gloves with her miniskirts. But they are bonded by a shared love of both literature --- Fitzgerald, Eliot, Austen, du Maurier, Plath, and Dickens --- and the Miss America Pageant, which they watch together every year.

As the years roll on and their children grow, the quintet forms a writers circle to express their hopes and dreams through poems, stories, and, eventually, books. Along the way, they experience history in the making: Vietnam, the race for the moon, and a women’s movement that challenges everything they have ever thought about themselves, while at the same time supporting one another through changes in their personal lives brought on by infidelity, longing, illness, failure, and success.

Humorous and moving, The Wednesday Sisters is a literary feast for book lovers that earns a place among those popular works that honor the joyful, mysterious, unbreakable bonds between friend s. 

The Help

Let me introduce you to my latest read and probably one of my top pick books of all time. The Help by Kathryn Stockett.  This fiction novel depicts the lives of southern women in the 60's and openly gives insight into the ways of the times during that decade.  I absolutely LOVED this book!  Riveting, powerful and definitely captivating.  Each night when I cracked open the book I was lured in more and more and hated having to actually put the book down so that I could carry on with my day.  The story of these women, the lives they lived often had me laughing out loud, crying with sadness and feeling anger & bitterness.  A definite must read for all your fiction junkies out there.

Brief description pulled from www.amazon.com

Be prepared to meet three unforgettable women: Skeeter, Aibileen & Minny
Set during the nascent civil rights movement in Jackson, Miss., where black women were trusted to raise white children but not to polish the household silver. Eugenia Skeeter Phelan is just home from college in 1962, and, anxious to become a writer, is advised to hone her chops by writing about what disturbs you. The budding social activist begins to collect the stories of the black women on whom the country club sets relies and mistrusts enlisting the help of Aibileen, a maid who's raised 17 children, and Aibileen's best friend Minny, who's found herself unemployed more than a few times after mouthing off to her white employers. The book Skeeter puts together based on their stories is scathing and shocking, bringing pride and hope to the black community, while giving Skeeter the courage to break down her personal boundaries and pursue her dreams. Assured and layered, full of heart and history, this one has bestseller written all over it.

The Art of Racing in the Rain

As my turn to choose our monthly book club picks came around, I decided to look up some of the most popular and best-rated books on www.amazon.com.  One book I discovered was The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein.  It turns out this book was actually a New York Times bestseller.  Not particularly one of my favorite books, but definitely a completely different read for me.   I would rate this book 3 out of 5 stars.  Here is a brief description of the book taken from amazon.

If you've ever wondered what your dog is thinking, Stein's third novel offers an answer. Enzo is a lab terrier mix plucked from a farm outside Seattle to ride shotgun with race car driver Denny Swift as he pursues success on the track and off. Denny meets and marries Eve, has a daughter, Zoë, and risks his savings and his life to make it on the professional racing circuit. Enzo, frustrated by his inability to speak and his lack of opposable thumbs, watches Denny's old racing videos, and hopes for the day when his life as a dog will be over and he can be reborn a man. When Denny hits an extended rough patch, Enzo remains his most steadfast if silent supporter. Enzo is a reliable companion and a likable enough narrator, though the string of Denny's bad luck stories strains believability. Much like Denny, however, Stein is able to salvage some dignity from the over-the-top drama.

A Great Read

A few months back at our monthly book club get-together, one of the book choices was Still Alice by Lisa Genova.  Unfortunately for our book club, this great read was reluctantly passed over by another selection.  After reading some really good reviews on the book I decided to add it to my personal to-read list.  I checked the book out at my local library and began reading.  This novel was not so much life-changing as it was an eye opener.  The story is told through the eyes of Alice, a 50's something Harvard professor who is also a wife and mother.  In the book Alice realizes she has early onset Alzheimer's disease.  Throughout the story we see the disease unfolding before Alice's eyes as well as her family, friends and colleagues.  This riveting and emotional journey is taken by not only Alice but her husband, two daughters and her son.  A definite must read for all you fiction novel junkies, such as myself.

More book club picks

Howdy folks.  Yes, yes I know... you've had to wait for yet another update.  Summer has officially begun so I have a lot of blogging to catch up on.  So grab a comfy seat, your refreshing summer beverage and let the reading begin.

For the month of April our book club chose A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick.  Nothing less than a good read involving mystery, a love story and a little suspense.  The story of a desperate man, Ralph Truitt, in search of something he thinks he is looking for yet, when he finally finds it in a mystery woman, Catherine Land, responding to his want ad, his world is taken down a very unexpected path.  
In a nutshell this book is a tale of love, hate, buried secrets, forbidden desires, and a plot with many avenues that twist and turn through pages of riveting characters with many past lives to divulge, as threads of child abuse, murder, lust and greed.

For the month of May, we chose The Glass Castle: A Memoir by Jeanette Walls.  I have to say I really enjoyed this book.  The story is told by Jeanette, herself, and the life she lived with her family.  Throughout the book we learn about the Walls family and their very unorthodox way of living... or shall I say surviving.  Here is an exert from the Editorial Review on amazon.com


From the publisher: The Glass Castle is a remarkable memoir of resilience and redemption, and a revelatory look into a family at once deeply dysfunctional and uniquely vibrant. When sober, Jeannette's brilliant and charismatic father captured his children's imagination, teaching them physics, geology, and how to embrace life fearlessly. But when he drank, he was dishonest and destructive. Her mother was a free spirit who abhorred the idea of domesticity and didn't want the responsibility of raising a family.

The Walls children learned to take care of themselves. They fed, clothed, and protected one another, and eventually found their way to New York. Their parents followed them, choosing to be homeless even as their children prospered.

Final Read in The Mark of the Lion Series

I never thought I would see the day where I would actually finish a series of books and actually enjoy them.  Can I just boast and say how proud I feel.  Teheheheh :)  Never would I imagine reading a series of books that would not only inspire me to live out my faith so purely and  strive to be a better Christ follower with every breath I take.  Just about a week ago, I finished the third & final book in this series,
As Sure as the Dawn by Francine Rivers.

Hands down these are some of best fiction books I have ever read in my life.  I fell in love with the characters, I felt led to really consider my faith and how it reflects in my life and with each chapter I felt drawn to the lives that each character led.  This series is a MUST READ and I highly recommend them.  Here is a description of this book taken directly from Francine Rivers' website www.francinerivers.com/books/sure-dawn

In this final installment of the Mark of the Lion series, Atretes, the Germanic warrior, returns to play a central role in the story.  He vows to move heaven and earth to find his son—the baby he thought was dead, and whose life Hadassah has saved—and take him back to Germania. Only one thing stands in his way: Rizpah, a Christian widow who has cared for the baby since his birth. Atretes has not counted on Rizpah’s fiery resistance to having “her son” taken away, nor is he prepared for the woman’s strength and beauty. From their first meeting, the two are caught in a stormy battle of wills. Marcus and Julia and, finally, Atretes, come to realize that God’s love can heal all scars and bring forth a new dawn.

My reading list

As you may have read in previous postings I have become an avid reader.  I love it!  Those that say "I don't like to read".... well my reply is simple.... You haven't found a good book!  I used to be one of those that only read because I HAD to read.  Now that I received some pretty good recommendations and did some online research I found some great reads.  A few that have been pretty fantastic!  Although I do belong to a fabulous book club I have vowed to read the following books (on my own) by the eve of the new year.  I pulled this list from www.bookclubgirl.com (great website for book clubbers).  Onto yet another reading journey... wanna join me?

1. The Help by Kathryn Stockett (Putnam Adult)

2. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows (Dial Press)

3. Loving Frank by Nancy Horan (Ballantine Books)

4. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (Knopf Books for Young Readers)

5. Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout  (Random House Trade Paperbacks)

6. TIE: Still Alice by Lisa Genova (Pocket Books) and Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay (St. Martin's Griffin)

7. People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks (Penguin Books)

8. Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin (Penguin Books)

9. The Shack by William P. Young (Windblown Media)

10. The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein (Harper Paperbacks)

11. A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

12.  The Friday Night Knitting Club by Kate Jacobs

13.  The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo by Steig Larrson


At present I am reading:

• Jemima J. by Jane Green
• Black by Ted Dekker
• A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick

Faith, Redemption, Forgiveness, and Sacrifice

An Echo In The Darkness - Book #2 (The Mark of the Lion Series) - Francine Rivers


I finally finished this second book of the series and I just have to say, reading these books has literally changed my life.  I view my faith in Christ a little differently these days.  This book was AMAZING.  Nothing shy of a fictional masterpiece.  I have to give props and kudos to Francine on this one.  As you can imagine I gave this book 5 Stars.  I loved it!!  Since book #1 of this series, A Voice In The Wind, literally kept me hanging on to the very last sentence I could not wait to dig in to the second book.  My heart ached, my soul revolted as I read about each character and their lives...most importantly how the Lord was using and molding each one. 
Here's a brief summary: Through the courageous faith of the Christian slave girl Hadassah and the troubled lives of the Roman masters, An Echo in the Darkness continues this moving tale of first-century Rome. Having narrowly escaped death, Hadassah conceals her scars--and identity--with veils. But it is her God-given ability to heal others that brings her to perhaps her greatest trial. God's forgiveness and redemption triumph as this young woman, assumed to be dead, is called to risk her life for the one who would have destroyed her.

I grabbed this review on Amazon.com which says it all:
The MARK trilogy is set in the Roman Empire, shortly after the fall of Jerusalem. Using a Hebrew slave girl (Hadassah) and a German gladiator (Atretes; think the film GLADIATOR) as the main characters, three books are crafted around themes of faith, redemption, forgiveness, and sacrifice. Rivers is one of the best at writing characters and those that she creates here are absolutely convincing -- flawed and heroic on multiple layers, with developmental conflicts that relate to and parallel modern times almost seamlessly. AN ECHO IN THE DARKNESS, the middle book of the series, picks up immediately after A VOICE IN THE WIND's climax. Where A VOICE focused mainly on Hadassah and her struggle to stand for her faith, AN ECHO's main conflicts surround the Valerian family (whom Hadassah served) and their responses to the sacrificial price that Hadassah paid. The resulting journeys towards redemption play out wonderfully and, as the book progresses, become more and more moving. 

Want a little mystery?

Back in February, our Book Club chose another suspenseful novel called:
Look Again by Lisa Scottoline.


I gave this book 3 1/2 out of 5 stars.  A little mystery and suspense kept me hanging on to what will happen next.  Here is a brief narrative pulled from Booklist.com


Ellen Gleeson was balancing life as a single mother and a feature reporter as well as could be expected. She had taken on single parenthood voluntarily, having fallen in love with her adopted son, Will, now three, when he was a very sick infant. A have-you-seen-this-child postcard featuring a child who could be Will’s twin catches Ellen’s attention, and while she should be pursuing her assigned story about the emotional effect of Philadelphia’s high teenage murder rate, she instead becomes obsessed with the missing child and with pursuing more details about Will’s background. Her questions multiply when she learns that, just three weeks after she adopted Will, the attorney who handled the proceedings killed herself. Where is the birth mother, and why doesn’t her family seem to know that she was pregnant? The answer only leads to danger, but Ellen, her reporter’s instincts on high alert, is hell-bent on finding the truth, no matter the cost. In a departure from her wildly popular Rosato & Associates series, Scottoline still sticks to what she knows in this taut stand-alone: female drama, family ties, legal intrigue, and fast-paced action.

Reading frenzy

Boy have I been doing some serious reading.  My love for reading has taken on a whole new level.  Since I began my newfound adventure this past August, I have read nearly 13 books!  I guess you could say I am on a roll.  Seriously, I didn't even read that many books in high school.  At present, I am only reading fiction and although I'm staying in this genre for now I am thoroughly enjoying this crazy reading frenzy.  Just to catch you up...here are my latest reads.

The Weight of Silence by Heather Gudenkauf.


I give this book *** (three stars).  I read this review on amazon and concur - The main character, Callie is a selective mute. Petra is Callie's best friend and acts as Callie's voice. The two girls go missing, and from there the story takes you on many twist and turns while their parents and police look for them. 

The book is told from many different points of views that switch off throughout it. I liked this because you got a glimpse as to what each person was going through and how they saw the events that played out.

-I enjoyed the book and it's crazy twists & turns throughout.  Definitely kept me on the edge of my reading chair!  

Dear John by Nicholas Sparks


I gave this book *** (three stars).  Overall, I thought this was a good book.  For February's book club selection I thought I would throw in a love story in lieu of Valentine's Day.  Throughout, the book I felt the pure and timeless love story unfolding.  As the story progresses you see John maturing and falling deeper for Savannah and then they drift apart, because of the events that took place on September 11th.  Although I enjoyed the book overall, the ending was not what I had anticipated.  A true tear jerk-er, no doubt, but it's also a wonderful story of an impossible yet unwavering love between two people and an even more wonderful story of love and understanding between father and son. If your looking for a cookie cutter happy ending love story this may not be your book, but if your looking for undying, unconditional love this book is worth a try. 

A Voice In the Wind (Book #1 Mark of the Lion Series)
Written by one of my FAVORITE authors Francine Rivers
I gave this book ***** (five stars).  


I absolutely LOVED this book.  Francine Rivers is phenomenal in her writing style.  She is rich with details which allows you to really envision the backdrop, storyline, characters and plot.  Now on to the book - I read this review and concur - I was warned before reading this book that is was a little 'slow' in the beginning but not to give up! I totally agree! I took the warnings to heart and continued on. Thank GOD I did!!! After about the first 40 pages or so the book took off and I could not put it down! Awesome storyline....a MUST read!!! A book about a faithful Jewish slave girl with a servant's heart who never gives up her faith even when faced with death! The Lord is so good and these books just prove how wonderful HE is even though this is fiction.  -Amen to that!


This book will leave you hanging on until the very last sentence.  You basically CANNOT read this book without having the second book on hand - An Echo In the Darkness (Mark of the Lion Book #2)

Just call me Brandy the Bookwork

Reading is something I loved to do when I was younger and for the longest time I put my love for reading aside to focus on growing a family.  Now that my kids are a little older (no longer babies) I have a little more time on my hands so I decided start reading again.  After asking around and getting recommendations I got my list made and began my new journey.  Here are a few books I have read and my personal ratings of each book.  Each book was giving a star rating... * I hated it, ** I didn't like it, *** I thought it was O.K., **** I really liked it, ***** I loved it! 

Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers... *****  loved this book, made me laugh, cry... I felt truly connected to each character.  Excellent book and very well written.

Redemption (book #1) by Karen Kingsbury *** Good book, but rather on the sad and dismal side.  Although it had a somewhat sad storyline it did leave me feeling as though I needed to finish the rest of the books in this series.

The Scarlet Thread by Francine Rivers **** This was a really great story of love, finding love in Christ and renewed love in one self.  One of those books that makes you feel really connected to the characters.  Wonderful book with a genuine and rich storyline.

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho ** A fable about following your dreams.  Not one of my favorite books. A book written in Spanish but translated in English... felt alot of storyline was a bit "lost in translation"

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan **** I really liked this book.  Story of a young Chinese girl and her journey through life with her lifelong friend... aka laotong.  A definite recommended read!