Posted on

Death at Thorburn Hall – Review

I received this book free for purposes of my review. All opinions are my own.

I thoroughly enjoyed Julianna Deering‘s latest mystery, Death at Thorburn Hall. This is number six in the series and does not disappoint. If you’re looking for a great murder mystery series the Drew Farthering Mystery series is terrific.

Once again Drew Farthering, Madeline Farthering, and their friend Nick find themselves right in the middle of an adventure.

The three friends are visiting for a fun weekend at the British Open only to find themselves confronted with a puzzling murder.

The police are as puzzled as Drew. At first it looks like there are no suspects and then everyone is a suspect. Who did it? Why did they do it? and can Drew get to the bottom of this mystery before someone else is killed?

This book was easy to read, and hard to put down. Perfect for when you just want to relax with a good book.

Posted on

ESV Illuminated Bible – Review and Giveaway

I received this Bible free for purposes of my review. All opinions are my own.

About

The ESV Illuminated Bible places the full ESV text alongside over 500 elegantly hand-lettered gold ink illustrations by renowned artist Dana Tanamachi. Printed on thick cream-colored paper, the Bible’s single-column text setting and wide margins provide generous space for additional notes, prayers, and designs—inviting readers to creatively engage with and reflect on the beauty of God’s Word.

• 9-point, Lexicon

• Black letter text

• 2-color printing

• 64 full-page, custom book opener illustrations

• 50 full-page verse illustrations

• 250+ hand-lettered margin verses

• 100+ other illustrations throughout

• Illustrated by Dana Tanamachi, whose work has been featured by Google, The Wall Street Journal, Random House, USPS, and Target

• Thick, cream-colored paper

• Wide margins

• Single-column, paragraph format

• Smyth-sewn binding

• Packaging: Permanent Slipcase

• Dana Tanamachi is an American lettering artist, graphic designer, and illustrator whose exquisite typographic murals ignited the worldwide chalk-lettering trend. She has been commissioned by clients such as Instagram, Target, Google, Time Magazine, Nike, and West Elm.

IMG_20171117_213735

Review

I have trouble writing in books but this Bible encourages you to write in the margins. I like that there are illustrations already there, so I’m less intimidated at the thought of making notes in my Bible. I love that this Bible is ESV, since that is my favorite version, and while I just haven’t convinced myself to write in the Bible yet, I’m getting close. In fact, I may let my 9 year old break it in for me since she loves to highlight, underline, and make notes when she reads.

In my opinion, this makes a great family Bible where everyone is encouraged to make notes, illustrations, etc for the entire family to enjoy.

The paper is thick so it’s designed for writing on. The illustrations in the Bible are gorgeous. Even if I never end up writing in it, it’s still a beautiful book to read, and I just love beautiful books. Because of the thicker paper it’s a bit too heavy to easily carry to Church with me, so it’s more of a family Bible or study Bible.

I’m just loving this ESV Illustrated Bible and the interaction it encourages!

You can purchase these at Amazon or check out the Illuminated Bible website.

How We Made the ESV Illuminated Bible from Crossway on Vimeo.

And I get to give away a copy of this ESV Illuminated Bible to one of my readers! Enter below for your chance to win.

Posted on

Where We Belong – Review

I received this book free for purposes of my review. All opinions are my own.

Where We Belong by Lynn Austin was an intriguing read about two sisters who grew up in Victorian age American but preferred adventure and travel in defiance of the expected social rules of the day.

In this story of adventure and challenge you follow two sisters, Rebecca and Flora as they search for an important manuscript. You’ll learn about why they’re here, how they got here, and be inspired by their love of adventure.

This book reads a lot like a historical fiction, which I found confusing at first until I found out that the author was inspired by a true story of two sisters who found an important manuscript. While this book is not historical fiction and really only takes the topic from actual history, it’s still very fun to think about how those women may actually have discovered things.

I enjoyed reading about Rebecca and Flora’s journeys to different places, and the dangers, the friends, and the adventures they encountered on their way.

This post does contain affiliate links.

Posted on

Crown of Souls – Review

I received this book free for purposes of my review. All opinions are my own.

Crown of Souls – Ronie Kendig

This book is the 3rd in Ronnie Kendig’s Tox Files series and is my favorite of the three. Gripping from beginning to end, this book was fun and entertaining to read.

The book starts with Tox being shot and the action just continues from there. Tox is forced to face his personal conflicts all while hunting down a deranged killer and keeping his team alive.

When an old army friend goes rogue, Tox and his team have to find him and stop him. Can Tox find him in time, can the team stop what he’s doing?

As they pursue, Tox learns more about himself than he really wanted to know. And he has to make hard decisions about how to protect his team and those he loves without becoming the monster that he is trying to stop.

I enjoyed this book and am looking forward to reading number four of the Tox Files when it comes out.

Posted on

How to Listen so People Will Talk – Review

I received this book free for purposes of my review. All opinions are my own.

How to Listen so People will Talk – Becky Harling

I don’t know about you, but I have a problem with not listening to people and then being frustrated when people aren’t listening to me. I have a couple of friends who are really good listeners and I’ve really been observing this year and trying to figure out what makes them people that I want to talk to.

I was excited that I got to review this book, because I really wanted to know. How do I listen so people will talk to me. My friends, my kids, my husband, even the random lady at the grocery checkout. Yes, all my life, random people will literally tell me their life story. Though, these past couple of years, having multiple kids seems to slow that down a little. And I started wondering if it was actually the kids, or is it me. Have I just gotten bad at listening?

I picked up several really good tips from this book. Though, my favorite was the section on “listen to another’s story”. Just thinking about how I listen and framing it around listening as they tell their story – because everything in life is a story – has really helped me actually stop trying to talk and just listen. It’s all about developing better listening habits. Want to know more about what it means to listen to someone’s story, you should buy the book.

There were several other really great tips in this book, and combining them with my focus of listening to another’s story is working really well for me. I’m not sure if my kids and husband are comfortable talking more, or if they’re talking the same and I’m just paying better attention, but I do feel like I’m hearing more of what they say, more of their story. And I’m happy to be hearing more from the people that I love.

This post contains affiliate links.

Posted on

The Assault – Book Review

I received this book free for purposes of my review. All opinions are my own.

The Assault: Cycle Two of the Harbingers Series by Bill Myers, Frank Peretti, Angela Hunt, and Alton Gansky.

This is Book two of the Harbingers Series. A while back I reviewed book one and liked it so I was excited to receive book two to review as well.

This book was much like the first, with each author writing a section from their person’s point of view. I do find it a bit jolting at times when I switch authors. Mainly because the book is more like 4 mini stories and not one large story, but also the switch between characters when I switch authors always takes me a second. I have to re-orient myself to whom is telling the story – since the stories are told in the first person, and each author writes for a different person.

As the darkness grows with these 4 gifted people be able to stay ahead of it or will it overtake them? The continuing story line is interesting and exciting to read. Because of the 4 different authors it’s a bit unpredictable what will happen to the 4 friends next and what the outcome will be, so it keeps me guessing. Which is always great for this type of book.

This book is easy and quick to read and very entertaining. I enjoyed reading it, and plan to read cycle three as well.

 

Posted on

Praying for Girls – Review

I received this book free for purposes of my review, all opinions are my own.

Praying for Girls by Teri Lynne Underwood – Asking God for the Things they Need Most.

If you have daughters and don’t really know how to pray for them, this book is perfect for you. The author has suggestions for praying for your daughters both young and older across 5 different areas of her life.

Each section has several chapters that break down the topic, and each chapter has suggested verses, prayers, and activities for you and your daughter so that you can pray and press into these topics with your daughter and pray some more.

The ideas for engaging with your daughter are simple, practical, and great conversation starters for pressing into some of the more difficult areas of growing up.

For my girls, they’re young, so I think just now beginning to think about their purposes – which is one of the areas covered. There are some great prayers and conversation starters for me to use to begin digging into this a little bit now and then I can add on as they get older.

Praying for Girls was easy to read and is a great book for me to continue to refer to as my girls get older.

Posted on

Threads of Suspicion Review

I received this book free for purposes of my review. All opinions are my own.

Threads of Suspicion (An Evie Blackwell Cold Case) by Dee Henderson

This book is about Evie Blackwell, an investigator who is great at cracking cold cases.

She’s such a great investigator she gets appointed to the Illinois Governor’s Missing Persons Task Force.

Evie gets to pick her own case and gets one that is truly puzzling and proves to be harder to solve than she expected.

With lots of twists and turns along the way. New friendships, old friendships challenged, and unexpected events. This book was a great mystery.

The author, Dee Henderson did a great job of keeping me guessing all the way to the end. Who did it? Where is the missing person? And how will Evie keep up with it all and her personal life at the same time?

A great mystery!

This post does contain affiliate links.

Posted on

Invitation – Book Review

I received this book free for purposes of my review. All opinions are my own.

Invitation – Harbingers Cycle One – by Bill Myers, Frank Peretti, Angela Hunt, and Alton Gansky.

I read my first book by Frank Peretti when I was a young teen and never read another one. So, I really was reluctant to try out an entire book by Peretti. However, since he wrote this book in cooperation with 3 other authors I thought it was a pretty low commitment way for me to give him another try.

I’ll be honest. He’s still not my favorite author, but definitely better than I remember him. Before this book I had just finished the Wing & Wing by James Fenmore Cooper (think older english text, like Charles Dickens). So switching over to this book, I honestly felt like I was doing some super simple reading. I sat down and in under an hour and a half (with interruptions from the kids) I was already 1/3 of the way through the book.

I’m not complaining about the authors’ styles. I was just a shocking contrast to the larger, older words I had just waded through. All that said, this book was a remarkably fast/easy read. If you’re traveling, it would be perfect for on the plane or in the car when you want to read something that you can just pick right back up if you get interrupted.

Invitation is in four sections. There are 4 main characters. Each author wrote one section from one character’s perspective. A rather interesting way to write a story. Their styles are all similar enough that switching through the authors wasn’t a problem.

The story is interesting and entertaining to read and was a nice break from the heaver reading I had just been doing. If you like any of these authors, you’ll enjoy this creative collaboration and may even find a new author that you like.

Posted on

The Very Hungry Caterpillar Craft

HungryCaterpillar

The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle is a well loved favorite in my house. Even my 8yr old still loves it!

So, naturally, when I told the kids we were going to do a fun caterpillar craft, we had to read the book, about a doze time, before we could get started crafting.

We had so much fun making these cute little caterpillars. My girls even made some to take and share with friends, because, honestly, they’re so cute!

These little caterpillars are also fast, and easy to make. For your littles, just have them line up their little pompoms in the order they want them and you do the gluing. My 8yr old was thrilled with the prospect of using the hot glue gun so she insisted on making her own.

WormSupplies

Supplies:

PomPoms
Googly Eyes
Hot Glue Gun

Sounds easy so far! Now, just line up however many pomPoms you want, in whatever color order you want and hot glue them together. After the glue has dried (which is super fast in case your toddler is wondering) you can hot glue gun or stick on the eyes. I prefer the glue because they stick better.

Just look at this cute little caterpillar!

GreenWorm2