90 Days to a Fantastic Marriage is divided into twelve weekly sections that make-up the 90 days of reading that this book offers.  Each week focuses on a certain action topic for self-improvement – by changing our own attitudes and approach to our marriage, much can be done for the health of a married union (very true).

Each topic begins with a troubleshooting checklist with signs that you might need to focus hard on the topic given if you display the behaviours listed.  Advice, personal experience, and teaching follows, with a “Weekly Quiz” and “Putting it Into practice” section wrapping up the week’s reading.  The weekly sections are somewhat longer than most non-fiction chapters are, so you may want to read them in several sittings.

I’m always up for a good marriage book.  Unfortunately 90 Days to a Fantastic Marriage is only a mediocre one.  Though published by Tyndale, a Christian publisher I highly respect, Hawkins seems to rely more on regurgitating pop-psychology self-help books than he does the Word of God or even his own clinical practice.

Personally, I find that highly annoying.  It smacks of a lack of depth, and a easy-spoon feeding sort of approach to marriage and relationships.  Somehow Hawkins’ style and reliance upon these secular-type advice vendors rubbed me the wrong way.  I was actually relieved to finish reading this book, which is unusual for me.

Still, there is good advice to be gleaned from this book.  Quite a few of the lessons included are those that my husband and I learned through very painful and difficult trials, so for me, it was a reaffirmation of what personal experience has proven.    If you are newly married and haven’t read many relationship books, then there are certainly lessons to be found here that will save you pain and build a more joy-filled marriage.

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The Handkerchief Quilt by Carol Crane is based upon a true story from her mother’s life, one in which her small school was flooded during the ‘50s and many books and school supplies were lost.  In an effort to bolster her school and re-supply it, the teacher in this work of fiction that is based on true life – Miss Anderson – takes it upon herself to transform the many handkerchiefs students have given her over the years and transform them into a community quilt.

Illustrator Gary Palmer’s muted watercolors lend this lovely picture book an authentic vintage feel, and the story itself is touching.  As a homeschooling family, this title doesn’t suit us well with it’s subject matter, but it is heart-warming and would make a perfect gift for a beloved primary school teacher or addition to a school library collection.

Like many Sleeping Bear Press titles a free online teaching guide is available for extension activities.

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Wow; can that single word suffice as a book review?  Ted Dekker and Erin Healy’s co-written mystery/thriller Kiss kept me glued to its pages over the course of two days.  If it hadn’t been for so much laundry and housework to do I’m sure I would have finished it in a single day.

I’m not generally an avid fan of mysteries, but Kiss hooked me early on with the mystery of the heroine Shauna’s memory loss and the mystery surrounding the events leading up to and following the car crash that seems to have caused it.  Not only must Shauna struggle to decipher the world around her with a memory gap of six months, she also needs to stay out of jail, stay alive, and learn to deal with a mysterious new ability to access the memories of others.

The suspense of not-knowing the answers to Shauna’s dilemma and situation was maddening, expect this one to keep you up late at night as you read-on to discover what lies behind the incongruities in Shauna’s present – answers that can only be found in a past that is missing.  Mixed with the high-octane suspense Dekker and Healy provide a dose of romance that sweetens the pot without hi-jacking the storyline.

Kiss is most definitely delightful reading, and is perfect for losing yourself in a good story.  Dekker and Healy subtly weave in some faith elements as well in an understated way, though there isn’t an emphasis on redemption.  The themes the writing team explores instead tend towards the value of remembering God at work in the past, and the presence of God with us in challenging situations.

This is a brisk-paced story that will have you running along behind it, trying to keep up.

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As a mother of three on the ground and one on the way, stories about others who have more children than the norm (is it 1.25 these days?) always pique my interest.  When the story of a husband who suddenly found himself the father of quadruplets was published, and with a Christian slant, I was very interested to read Stephen Simpson’s experiences.

Truthfully though, Assaulted by Joy wasn’t quite what I expected.  Much of the book is devoted to Simpson’s life as a self-proclaimed “jerk” – his teenage angst and rebellion (most notably marked by his experiences with music and how they didn’t jive with his youth group), his dissatisfaction with life in general, and so forth.

Readers may also want to note that Simpson and his wife struggle with the decision to carry all of their children for as long as they can – there isn’t a distinctly pro-life stance presented here in the preservation of each tiny baby’s life.

There just doesn’t seem to be a lot of joy to go around in this book.  Even after the birth of his children the books emphasis is on feelings of overwhelm, medical challenges etc.  Maybe I missed the joy somewhere along the line?

Of course, this memoir is realistic for that reason – many of us struggle with feelings of overwhelm, angst, and frustration, especially when we try to run our lives on our own instead of surrendering all those details to the Lord.  Well, let’s be honest – sometimes even when we’re doing our best to hand these things over to the Lord.

I suppose I was expecting something more definitively joy-filled that distinctly celebrated children rather than being mired in the many struggles and discontent moments of life.  If, like me, you’re looking for a deeply inspirational read, this title won’t likely fit the bill.

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I’ve had my eye on Adopted for Life for some time now, and having been offered to review the audio book version by Christianaudio.com I can say that author Russell Moore has more than met my expectations.

For the past two weeks I’ve listened to the author’s voice reading his own work warmly, with a depth and authenticity that his own journey through adoption has lent to his work.  I’ve wept tears into my dishwater as I’ve let myself be absorbed by his thoughts, both theological and practical on the nature of adoption and its important to Christians.

Our family has had a heart for adoption for sometime, but various circumstances in our life have temporarily (I hope) placed it outside of possibilities for our family.  It’s my prayer that God is only preparing our family for a time when we too can add children who are currently fatherless into our own household.

Whether you are like us, or are wondering how to support and understand adoptive families in your church or family, are struggling with infertility, want to spearhead an adoption ministry in your church, or just want a clearer image of how physical adoptions mirror the spiritual reality of our own spiritual adoption – then this is a book for you.

Though only seven-hours in length, there is an immense wealth, breadth, and depth of information contained in this work – you won’t find agency recommendations or country-specific regulations here, those change too quickly, but you will find nearly everything else.

Incredibly inspiring, incredibly moving, and incredibly convicting, Adopted for Life is a title I highly recommend for everyone, whether an adoption is imminent in their near future or not.

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Little Critter has been a standard installment on the bookshelves of children since my own childhood, and it’s a rare child who can resist his unique brand of innocent exploration.

Where is My Frog is a classic lift-the-flap book that features Little Critter and his search for his pet frog who escapes on a family fishing trip.  The text is simple “Is the frog in the log?” followed by a page with a log incorporated into the illustration, complete with a flap children can check behind to see if the frog is there.

There’s a happy, feel-good ending, and the short book text makes this a great pick for toddlers through preschoolers.  My two-year-old is in love with flap-based books, so this is a perfect introduction to Mercer Mayer’s illustrations and storytelling for her.  Of course, my older children (4, and 7) also like to listen in when mom reads this one.)

While the flaps are quite sturdy, and so are the thick pages, parents should of course keep in mind their specific child’s tendency to rip and tear, because flaps are always vulnerable.  Our book is thankfully (and surprisingly) still intact!

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Though I’ve read many of Jane Austen’s novels, and several works of historical fiction based around her life, Jane Austen by Peter Leithart, part of Thomas Nelson’s Christian Encounters series of short biographies is the first formal biography I’ve read of Austen’s life.

Jane Austen was a so-so read for me.  It did touch upon Austen’s rather subdued, formalized Anglican faith, and the outward demonstrations of it in her good works, but the author’s main thrust was rather to present his portrait of Jane, which he feels is a correction from the idealized one generally presented.  In that, he succeeds.  However, in some way I found his work unsatisfying.  It is certainly competently written, but it aroused no great interest or passion in me, and left me feeling rather neutral.

Leithart also very rapidly introduces Jane’s extensive family connections in the book’s first chapter, and it is difficult to keep up with all of the names and family ties.  Because of my previous familiarity with Austen’s life through historical fiction, some of these ties were already established in my mind, which certainly helped, but even so, it was too much, too soon.

In conclusion, I can’t particularly recommend Jane Austen, but neither can I recommend readers avoid it.  In the end I don’t have much of a stand to take on this brief (153 pages) biography, but if you are looking for a short introduction to one of the world’s most beloved novelists, you may want to consider this title as an option.

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Just Like You is a strikingly beautiful picture book from Zondervan that celebrates the births of babies all around the world.  Each baby is given a two-page spread that describes the arrival of the baby in a different culture and geographical location.  The unique baby-welcoming traditions are shared, and the joy that new life brings into the world is clearly expressed.

The gentle message that God loves babies everywhere and sees them as a precious gift is clearly conveyed.  The child that is being read the story is also specifically celebrated and referenced through the many “just like you” statements throughout the book, and more specifically in the mother who is narrating the story thanking God for the blessing of her new child.

This is definitely a book for mothers to read their beloved children, and – I’ll be honest – it’s a bit of a tearjerker.  I simply can’t read about the joy and delights of babies being born without shedding a few tears.  After reading the book through by myself first, I wasn’t sure if my children would really enjoy it.  But they did. 

Beautiful artwork of cute babies was enough to convince my three little girls that this was a book worthy of their attention.  Illustrator Lin Wang has provided such lustrous, textured paintings of babies from around the world that the artwork alone is worth the asking price.

Just Like You would make a wonderful gift for a new mother (and her baby), and also serves as a very gentle introduction to some of the similarities and differences of regions around the world in both their geography and culture.

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Maia Peters has had an unusual upbringing.  As the child of two prominent paranormal investigators her life has been filled with first-hand experiences of ghost-sightings, but she’s hoping to put that behind her as she moves on with her chosen course of study in college.  She is dragged back into familiar territory when a Jordin Cole, a wealthy student at her college enlists her help in exploring the paranormal for herself first-hand.

When Jordin appears to Maia as a spectre at a new amusement park, Maia realizes that something has gone dreadfully wrong and embarks on an investigation alongside Jordin’s fiancé (and aspiring pastor) to discover Jordin’s fate.  Told in an alternating flashback manner, the search for Jordin is interspersed with Jordin and Maia’s past adventures “ghost-hunting”.  In all honesty, the search for Jordin was more compelling than the ghost-hunting scenes, which tended to become repetitive after a while – more of the same, more of the same.

Robin Parrish writes in some of my target genres, so I was excited to see that his latest release – Nightmare – held potential to fall squarely within one of my top reading areas; Christian supernatural suspense.  I’ve enjoyed some of Parrish’s writing in the past (Offworld), and while I find his tendency to spin some pretty improbable conclusions to require a bit too much suspension of disbelief, I was looking forward to his latest read.

Nightmare is a lightning fast read, it’s written in very simple language (which I believe is written to mirror the thinking/speaking style of the main character Maia), but which also lacked descriptive depth due to its straightforward simplicity.  This is the sort of story that keeps readers going with the promise of a mystery unfolding – and there’s certainly that in spades.

I’m disappointed however that Maia’s perception of the paranormal seems to trump that of a Christian worldview, hers is written much more strongly, and though she claims belief in God, we really don’t see a lot of evidence of that in her life.  Coming from a background in the occult, I tend to be wary of stories that glamorize communication with spirits, or that could develop a fascination with the subject.  While I won’t say that Parrish has gone that far, he’s definitely treading on the line, and I’m definitely not comfortable with that.

As a result, I won’t be recommending Nightmare to anyone.  There is far too much emphasis and fascination surrounding ghosts in our culture already.  I was hoping that Parrish would come down with a decidedly more biblical point of view in this novel, but there’s just too much room for distraction and being led astray within its pages.

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Generally speaking, I don’t read a lot of romantic suspense, but fiction that focuses tightly upon the ever-escalating threat of child trafficking and prostitution always tugs at my heart.  With Deliver Us From Evil Robin Caroll brings us a tale of high-adventure that revolves around this ongoing issue.

Brannon Calahan (a female search-and-rescue helicopter pilot) finds herself drawn into a dangerous attempt to uncover a child trafficking ring when U.S. Marshal Roark Holland’s helicopter crashes in her area while transporting a donor heart to a government witness whose survival is vital to the government’s case. 

Divided almost neatly into two main segments, the first portion of this novel deals with Roark and Brannon’s struggle to survive and deliver the donor heart safely after the helicopter crash, while the second delves more deeply into the intrigues behind the child-trafficking ring and their ongoing attempts to uncover it from beneath the layers of secrecy surrounding it.

Brannon is a woman of strong faith (who is also somewhat bull-headed), Roark on the other hand is a man who feels he’s been burned by God, but when confronted with Brannon’s own difficult past, and views her strong character, he’s in turn driven to re-examine his own beliefs as he is drawn nearer to her.

Interspersed with Brannon and Roark’s adventures are the heart-breaking experiences of the young girls who’ve been led astray and forced to work in the ring of brothels operated by the child-traffickers.  These passages manage to convey the horror and unwillingness these girls experience as well as the breaking of their spirits without unduly explicit writing.  Still, these interludes were difficult to read, and are meant to be.

Caroll kept me reading through this brisk-paced suspense novel, though its conclusion seemed somewhat predictable after a certain point.  Fans of the genre will no doubt enjoy this solidly written title and the romantic interplay between its two strong-willed characters while having their awareness raised about the horrors that surround us.

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