Catching Moondrops - a long lost book review!

Last summer, I received an advanced copy of this book to review. I read the book, wrote the review, and for some reason forgot all about posting it! So, here it is, the long awaited review of "Catching Moondrops" by Jennifer Erin Valent.

Jessilyn Lassiter has had a hard life in a community full of racism, but she plans to put aside her past filled with hatred, when Luke Tally comes home. She has loved him for as long as she has known him, and now that she is almost nineteen, it's time to show him how much she has grown up. He doesn't need convincing and soon, a courtship begins.
It's all so fun and romantic until all sorts of trouble happens in town. Jessilyn's best friend is in love with the town's new black doctor, but the rest of the town does not appreciate having a black man stepping out of his place. As the hatred and violence escalate, Jessilyn's heart becomes full of anger and hate too. Will she be able to face what is in her heart in time to save her relationship with Luke, and she is completely engulfed in her rage?

I thought this was a very good read. I did not realize that it was the third in a triolgy though, and I think it would have been helpful for me to read the other books first. It took me a while to figure out who everyone was. Some events from the other books were referred to, and while I don't know exactly what happened, I was able to get the basic gist. It took me a while to get into all the "southern talk" but once I got settled into the story, I was drawn in.  Reading the book alone, I thought the love story jumped in way to strong, too fast, but If I'd have read the others, it probably wouldn't have seem that way. I thought the storyline was excellent though and I would recommend the read!

Thank you to Tyndale House Publishers for a free copy of this book to review.

Book Review: Bathsheba by Jill Eileen Smith

Biblical fiction is a difficult medium to write. We already know what happens in the story and (at least I) tend to watch out for contradictions or inaccuracies. For me, the closer the book stays to the real story, the better and more real it feels.

I thought Smith did a pretty decent job with her retelling of David and Bathsheba. The first section for me, was a bit of a stretch as it was mostly extra-biblical, but I loved when it followed the biblical timeline more accurately in the later sections. It is always good to be challenged to think a little deeper about what the people in the Bible went through, and I felt that this book really made me think about what happened on a more human level. I have to say, one of my favorite aspects of this book was making David's writing of the Psalms really come to life.

I would definitely recommend this one to lovers of Biblical and historical fiction.

Available March 2011 at your favorite bookseller from Revell, a division of Baker Publishing Group.

Thank you to Revell publishers for a free copy of this book to review.

It's a....

This has been posted on facebook for a while, but for those of you who are facebook-less, I thought I'd post it here too so you can see how we shared our news with the world :-)

Fashion Police

Conversations with Eóin this morning:

Eóin: This shirt looks like a daddy shirt (It was a striped button down shirt)
Me: Yes buddy it does look like daddy's shirts
Eóin: But what if the children think I look silly...

I guess now he's decided he cares what others think about his clothes!

Later that morning I was looking for something to wear and pulled out a maternity shirt.
Eóin: Not that one Mommy, it looks like jammies

Oh ok. I did actually pick something else to wear and when I came out in a different outfit, he looked me over for a bit and then says "nice clothes Mommy"

Wow - I'm in trouble when he gets a bit older!

"Sometimes..."

Lately Eóin has been teaching me some lessons on being a boy. Apparently, I must only make him do things he doesn't want to do because I don't understand boys. If I was a boy, I would certainly never ask him to get dressed in the morning because "Mommy, sometimes boys just like to wear pajamas - they don't want to get dressed." Ohhhh - I have been so blind all this time :-)

Here are some other "sometimes" quotes. It also includes some lessons on babies which I must not know too much about either.

"Sometimes, boys like to just watch tv and not clean up their toys"

"Sometimes, boys don't want to go to bed"

"Sometimes, babies aren't very good at praying" (after it was Aidan's turn to pray for dinner)

"Sometimes, boys like to eat lots of treats. It makes them big and strong."

"Sometimes, babies don't like obeying"

I need to start writing them down when he says them, because there are some hilarious ones that I forget when I finally sit down to write about it.

Today, the kids were eating the last of the cookies as Jonathan came home from work. When Jonathan pretended to be sad, Eóin offered him a bite of his cookies "just not the chocolate parts" :-)

Right now, he is outside with Aidan teaching him about writing letters with chalk on the ground and playing with "yucky dirt." Love that kid :-)

Eóin turns 4!

Am I really old enough to have a  4 year old? So crazy! So every year, I have taken a picture on the minute that Eóin was born - this year he was stinker and wouldn't let me get a good pic. He pretended to be asleep first and then made goofy faces! The last one was the best I could do :) Well - shows his personality I guess!  I am posting it so late because we were struck down with the flu actually on his birthday and it's taken a while to re-coop! More to come to Eóin in a later post - he's been saying some funny stuff lately - I'll put it in it's own post :-)

2/15/07 1:40pm

2/15/08 1:50 pm (I forgot that day)

2/15/09 1:40pm 

2/15/10 1:40pm

2/15/11 1:40 pm