Books, Movies, and Chinese Food

This week, the Christian Fiction Blog Alliance is introducing Seeds of Summer Zondervan (May 25, 2010) by Deborah Vogts ABOUT THE AUTHOR: A word from Deborah: If you haven't guessed by now, the books I write are set in the country. I believe my most dedicated readers will be those who live in the country, those who have moved from the country and still hold it in their hearts, or those who have never lived there but long for the simple life it offers. Because of this, I've chosen Country at Heart as my writing brand, which is also the title of my Blog. On Writing: http://deborahvogts.blogspot.com/ I began my first book when I was in high school. In college I studied English literature and journalism. Then came marriage, kids . . . life. During that time, I piddled with my writing but didn't take it seriously until 2002 when I joined a local writer's group and American Christian Fiction Writers. I also joined a critique group, took online writing workshops...

Congrats to winner of The One That I Want by Allison Winn Scotch!

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: Denise Hildreth and the book: Hurricanes in Paradise Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. (May 10, 2010) ***Special thanks to Vicky Lynch of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc for sending me a review copy.*** ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Denise Hildreth is a novelist and international speaker. She has spoken for the last ten years to women's ministries, churches, and for the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. Denise began her career over seventeen ye...

I'm going to be on hiatus for a while from blogging. Without going into detail, there are personal issues that are consuming my free time and not allowing me to blog or even read like I would like to. Scheduled posts will pop up every now and then. I hope to be back soon. Please keep me in your thoughts and prayers. Thanks!

This week, the Christian Fiction Blog Alliance is introducing A Hopeful Heart Bethany House (June 1, 2010) by Kim Vogel Sawyer ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Kim Vogel Sawyer is the author of fifteen novels, including several CBA and ECPA bestsellers. Her books have won the ACFW Book of the Year Award, the Gayle Wilson Award of Excellence, and the Inspirational Readers Choice Award. Kim is active in her church, where she leads women's fellowship and participates in both voice and bell choirs. In her spare time, she enjoys drama, quilting, and calligraphy. Kim and her husband, Don, reside in central Kansas, and have three daughters and six grandchildren. ABOUT THE BOOK Dowryless and desperate, Tressa Neill applies to the inaugural class of Wyatt Herdsman School in Barnett, Kansas, in 1888. The school's one-of-a-kind program teaches young women from the East the skills needed to become a rancher--or the wife of one. Shy and small for her twenty-two years, Tressa is convinced...

Read here for Part 1 and Part 2 of my recap of my trip. Thursday, May 27 - I had a good long sleep after being exhausted from carrying about 10 plus pounds of books around NYC. I swore that I would not pick up too many books today as I was struggling to figure out how in the world I was going to bring all of them home. I wasn't shipping them from the Javits center because it was too expensive for me. My brother in law had offered to ship whatever I couldn't carry media mail (I think he might regret that when he gets back to his place) but I was still worried at how I was going to get around the steps in the subway with a heavy suitcase and bags of books. So the plan was to get less books and do some more networking if possible. Well that would have worked if Little Brown YA Books hadn't have some fabulous offerings throughout the entire day. Seriously I could have camped out at their booth all day and have been completely geeked at what they were offering. Very exci...

Continuing my very long play by play recap of BEA 2010 (Read here for my first post) Wednesday, May 25th - It was the first day of the exhibitions opening at BEA. I left Brooklyn at 8am, and by the time I walked over to the Javits it was around 8:45. I got in a very long line to get into the exhibitions area. While I was standing in line, the guy in front of me saw my blog name and proceeded to have a discussion with me about how social media is not very useful. I told him about how even historians and archivists are now turning to social media to help them with their research but he seemed to disagree about this. When the floodgates opened, there was a mad rush to get it. I, however, started walking into the place with this look of awe and slight confusion. I had a map but I still didn't know really where to start off at. I was on the left side of the floor near the children's side but I just kept walking around, looking at all the booths and seeing what was being of...

T illy Farmer is thirty-two years old and has the perfect life she always dreamed of: married to her high school sweetheart, working as a school guidance counselor, trying for a baby. Perfect. But one sweltering afternoon at the local fair, everything changes. Tilly wanders into a fortune teller's tent and meets an old childhood friend, who offers her more than just a reading. "I'm giving you the gift of clarity," her friend says. "It's what I always thought you needed." And soon enough, Tilly starts seeing things: her alcoholic father relapsing, staggering out of a bar with his car keys in hand; her husband uprooting their happy, stable life, a packed U-Haul in their driveway. And even more disturbing, these visions start coming true. Suddenly Tilly's perfect life, so meticulously mapped out, seems to be crumbling around her. And as she furiously races to keep up with - and hopefully change - her destiny, she faces the question: Which l...

On May 2, 2008, an enormous tropical cyclone made landfall in Burma, wreaking untold havoc and leaving an official toll of 138,300 dead and missing. In the days that followed, the sheer scale of the disaster became apparent as information began to seep out from the hard-hit delta area. But the Burmese regime, in an unfathomable decision of near-genocidal proportions, provided little relief to its suffering population and blocked international aid from entering the country. Hundreds of thousands of Burmese citizens lacked food, drinking water, and basic shelter, but the xenophobic generals who rule the country refused emergency help. Emma Larkin, who has been traveling to and secretly reporting on Burma for years, managed to arrange for a tourist visa in those frenzied days and arrived hoping to help. It was impossible for anyone to gauge just how much devastation the cyclone had left in its wake; by all accounts, including the regime's, it was a catastrophe of epic...

So remember how I wrote this post about how I was scared about going to BEA? Pshaw...it was all in vain. I had a grrrrrrrrrrrrrreat time during my trip to NYC. I'm going to try to see if I can recall the entire trip so this might be a long post. Alas though I have no pictures because my camera broke somehow either before or during the trip. Let's start at the very beginning... Monday, May 24th - I left the DC area Monday afternoon after I got off from work. I parked my car in the Vienna metro station (because if you pick up your car on the weekends you don't have to pay for parking) and got on the Metro to go into Union Station. At Union Station (which I've only been for my two trips to NYC), I waited in line to get on the Bolt Bus. Now for those of you who didn't know, riding the Bolt Bus is a very good and cheap way to get to NYC, Baltimore, Boston, Philadelphia. The seats are comfy, air conditioned, and there's free Wi-Fi and plugs. Plus if you log in...

The Nancy Drew Challenge is a reading challenge for 2010 for readers to attempt to read all 56 original yellow hardbacks that were in the Nancy Drew Mystery Stories. Click here for more information or to sign up for the challenge. At the end of each month, I will put up a post where participants of the challenge can recap how they did during that month. May was a slow month for me and Nancy. I have the books from the library but due to going to BEA and doing a reading challenge AND finishing up papers and exams for school, Nancy was last on the list. I did read five of them this month and they were all interesting reads. I think I"m started to get into territory where I've either NEVER read these books before or at the least I've only read them two times or less. I hardly remembered any of these plots. I KNEW there would be a good reason why I was reading all 56 books in order. The Hidden Window Mystery (no. 34) has almost the exact same opening as Na...

Jericho "J.T." Tucker wants nothing to do with Coventry, Texas's new dressmaker. He's all too familiar with her kind—shallow women more devoted to fashion than true beauty. Yet, except for her well-tailored clothing, this seamstress is not at all what he expected. Hannah Richards is confounded by the man who runs the livery. The unsmiling fellow riles her with his arrogant assumptions and gruff manner while at the same time stirring her heart with unexpected acts of kindness. Which side of Jericho Tucker reflects the real man? When Hannah decides to help Jericho's sister catch a beau—leading to uproarious consequences for the whole town—will Jericho and Hannah find a way to bridge the gap between them? It's always nice when a debut book from a new author becomes a pleasant surprise to read. I actually really enjoyed this read for several reasons. One of them was because I really liked the fashion discussions. Usually most historical fiction that t...