Books, Movies, and Chinese Food

It is time for a FIRST Wild Card Tour book review! If you wish to join the FIRST blog alliance, just click the button. We are a group of reviewers who tour Christian books. A Wild Card post includes a brief bio of the author and a full chapter from each book toured. The reason it is called a FIRST Wild Card Tour is that you never know if the book will be fiction, non~fiction, for young, or for old...or for somewhere in between! Enjoy your free peek into the book! You never know when I might play a wild card on you! Today's Wild Card author is: Jeannette Windle and the book: Veiled Freedom Tyndale House Publishers (May 6, 2009) ABOUT THE AUTHOR: As the child of missionary parents, award-winning author and journalist Jeanette Windle grew up in the rural villages, jungles,and mountains of Columbia, now guerilla hot zones. Her detailed research and writing is so realistic that it has prompted government agencies to question her to determine if she has received classified informat...

Jeri McKane is a sixth grader at a boarding school who's a reporter for the school newspaper and also thinks of herself as an amateur sleuth. One day her detective skills are put to the test when a bus carrying a load of students, including Jeri's roommate, never returns. Clues lead to something sinister happening. Can Jeri fend off nosy reporters and snippity headmistresses to find out what really happened to her friends? This is a new mystery series that is aimed at the tweener set and revolves around the lives of girls at the Landmark School for Girls. It's set a a boarding school location, which I adore because for some reason, I find boarding schools to be fascinating. Jeri is a character that is dealing with her parents divorce and feeling that she's not an important factor in her lives. Therefore she throws herself into her life at school to forget about those problems. Her character is very dimensional and grows throughout the story. She's very likab...

Jessie Stone has spent thirty-five years fantasizing about marriage proposals, wedding dresses, and falling in love. She’s been a bridesmaid eleven times, waved dozens of couples off to sunny honeymoons, and shopped in more department stores for half-price fondue pots than she cares to remember. But shopping in the love-of-her-life department hasn't been quite as productive. The man she thought she would marry cheated on her. The crush she has on her best friend Blake is at very best…well, crushing. And speed dating has only churned out memorable horror stories. So when God shows up one day, in the flesh, and becomes a walking, talking part of her life, Jessie is skeptical. What will it take to convince her that God has a better love story than one of the thousands she’s cooked up in her journals? Will she trust Him with her pen when it appears her dreams of being the bride are forever lost? A romantic comedy with a spiritual twist, Never the Bride is what it means to lose co...

Congrats to the winners of Twenty Boy Summer (your emails have been sent, please respond within one week) Elizabeth Belinda Molly RJB etirv

At 35, Paige Kelley is feeling very "in between." She's still working her temp job after two years, still not dating three years after her divorce, and still melting at every chubby-cheeked toddler she sees while her biological clock ticks ever louder. Paige even moves back home to help her ailing, high-maintenance mother.It's not exactly the life she'd dreamed of! When her Getaway Girls book club members urge Paige to break free and get on with her life, she's afraid. How will her mother react? How can Paige honor her widowed mother and still pursue her own life? The answers come from a surprising source. A trip to Scotland and a potential new love interest help launch an exciting new chapter in her life, and lead Paige to discover that God's plan for her promises to be more than she ever imagined. This latest release in the Getaway Girls collection delivers a smart, funny, and warm account of one woman's challenge to reconcile who she is - a dutiful ...

This week, the Christian Fiction Blog Alliance is introducing A Bride In The Bargain Bethany House (June 1, 2009) by Deeanne Gist ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Deeanne Gist, the bestselling author of A Bride Most Begrudging and The Measure of a Lady , has a background in education and journalism. Her credits include People magazine, Parents, and Parenting. With a line of parenting products called "I Did It!® Productions" and a degree from Texas A&M, she continues her writing and speaking. She and her family live in Houston, Texas. Since the debut of those novels, her very original, very fun romances have rocketed up the bestseller lists and captured readers everywhere. Add to this two consecutive Christy Awards, two RITA nominations, rave reviews, and a growing loyal fan base, and you’ve got one recipe for success. ABOUT THE BOOK The Wedding Is All Planned... Someone Just Needs to Tell the Bride In 1860s Seattle, redwoods were plentiful but women scarce. Yet a man with a wife could...

After spending spring break in Mexico with her grandparents , Carly Aragon can't wait to get back to school at Spencer Academy in San Francisco. With Lissa Mansfield and Gillian Chang by her side, she's ready for anything . . . except a new roommate. Lady Lindsay MacPhail, flamboyant daughter of the Earl of Strathcairn, quickly becomes Carly's worst nightmare. "Mac" not only swoops in and steals Carly's privacy, she's also dating Brett Loyola--Carly's biggest crush! But when Mac starts receiving strange, threatening e-mails, she and Carly must come together to figure out who's behind them and why. In the end, the fate of one girl will lie in the other's hands. Will the two learn to trust one another and trust God? Everytime I read a book in this series, I really wish I could have gone to boarding school for my high school years. At the very least, I wish I could have lived the live the girls at Spencer Academy get to enjoy. It sounds majorl...

It is time for a FIRST Wild Card Tour book review! If you wish to join the FIRST blog alliance, just click the button. We are a group of reviewers who tour Christian books. A Wild Card post includes a brief bio of the author and a full chapter from each book toured. The reason it is called a FIRST Wild Card Tour is that you never know if the book will be fiction, non~fiction, for young, or for old...or for somewhere in between! Enjoy your free peek into the book! You never know when I might play a wild card on you! Today's Wild Card author is: Allison Bottke and the book: You Make Me Feel Like Dancing: A Novel (Va Va Va Boom Series) David C. Cook; New edition edition (June 1, 2009) ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Allison Bottke spent 17 years as a professional fund-raiser before her personal journey prompted her to create the best-selling God Allows U-Turns anthologies. Now a popular speaker and author of hip-lit fiction as well as nonfiction, Allison was one of the first plus-size models ...

This summer My Friend Amy is hosting a Summer of Hitchcock , where we watch a selection of Alfred Hitchcock movies and discuss them on our blogs and twitter. This week we watched North by Northwest. I first saw this movie a few years ago during my Into to Film class in college. I had never seen a Hitchcock movie before. My dad is a HUGE fan, he's seen almost everyone one of his movies at least twice. However I just had never got into any of them myself. After watching this one back in college I greatly enjoyed it. Re watching it again was fun too. I've discovered that I LOVE the older movies that were filmed in Technicolor. I don't know what it is but it makes the movie seem grander and more colorful to watch. I love how Cary Grant is a smart aleck. The scene when he first walks into Van Damm's house after getting kidnapped the first time and he's trying to figure out why he's there and who Kaplan is has him back talking and making smart quips. The aucti...

As the last season of Family Affair comes to a close, prime-time teen star Kaitlin Burke is no closer to deciding what she wants to do after the show ends. Struggling with career choices and bummed over a ridiculous catfight with her BFF, Liz, Kaitlin is so mixed up she even starts to semi-bond with her archnemesis, Sky. Worst of all, she falls in with two of Hollywood's biggest party fiends when one of them asks her, "Don't you ever do what you want to do?" Shopping sprees and the Tinseltown nightlife seems fun at first, but soon Kaitlin realizes that being a paparazzi princess just might be her downfall. I've learned so much from reading this series. All the secrets that are told in this book really gives an insider's look to the Hollywood industry. This time the reader learns what needs to be done when an actress is making a change in her career and the steps that must be done to keep that career going. I felt that this book showed Kaitlin as more of a H...

Whether you’re a dad looking for an insightful read, a wife looking to recommend a great book, or a kid looking for a book to read with your dad this Father’s Day, one of these books will appeal to you. In Sir Dalton and the Shadow Heart , Sir Dalton, a knight in training, seems to have everything going for him. Young, well-liked, and a natural leader, he has earned the respect and admiration of his fellow knights, and especially the beautiful Lady Brynn. But something is amiss at the training camp. Their new trainer is popular but lacks the passion to inspire them to true service to the King and the Prince. Besides this, the knights are too busy enjoying a season of good times to be concerned with a disturbing report that many of their fellow Knights have mysteriously vanished. When Sir Dalton is sent on a mission, he encounters strange attacks, especially when he is alone. As his commitment wanes, the attacks grow in intensity until he is captured by Lord Drox, a massive Shadow Warri...

As faithful readers of this blog know, I am a HUGE Star Wars geek. I have never sat down and watched a full episode of Star Trek in my entire life. I've got bits and pieces of the original series, Next Generation and Enterprise. But for some reason they never seemed to capture my fancy, they seemed rather cheesy to me. So when I heard they were rebooting the series with a movie version with a younger version of the original cast, forgive me if I didn't sound too excited. But then I heard JJ Abrams of Lost was going to be directing the movie. And then the cast was going to include John Cho , Simon Pegg and Karl Urban. My interest began to peak. Then I saw the teaser trailer. I started to get excited and was thinking about seeing it over the summer. But it wasn't until the reviews and the reactions starting coming in that I really wanted to see it. I mean both my sisters saw it twice and were raving about it. Finally one weekend, I caved and saw it. I LOVED IT. Seri...