Month: January 2015

Review: Dubiosity by Christy Barritt

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Barritt rocks at setting up the suspense in Dubiosity. I was on the edge of my seat the whole ride.

Savannah is taking a break, grieving a personal loss, but she can’t let go of the investigative reporter side of herself. Add Clive, the mysterious newcomer who needs a place to stay, and we’ve got amateur sleuthing in the making.

But the mystery is no joke. Migrant workers are disappearing – and dying. Savannah and Clive come at the crimes separately, but their investigations bring them to the same place. I did guess the culprit mid-story – but it was only a guess. And I was pleasantly satisfied when my guess was confirmed. 🙂

Dubiosity mixes a little romance in with the suspense, and a little God-guidance, too. I liked the variety, the characters, and the wide-eye-inducing scenes.

Christy Barritt, I’ve read a few of your books, and this won’t be the last!

-calliope
buy DUBIOSITY

Review: Carrots by Colleen Helme

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@@1I absolutely loved this book. Every word of it. I’ve found another series to make me laugh out loud. The characters were so much fun.

Basically you have a stay at home mom that takes a hard knock to the head and can suddenly read everyone’s thoughts. She finds herself involved in all sorts of mischief….including police investigations, murder attempts, mob bosses, and all sorts of other shady characters….including a young work associate that is trying to entice her her husband away. All the while she is trying to NOT read everyone’s thoughts….especially those of her husband’s and children’s’!

No, this isn’t a great masterpiece that will have you thinking about it for weeks after. It’s not complex and won’t keep you up pondering life late into the night…..But it will provide you some great entertainment and will let you happily escape *real life* for a few hours. It’s a quick, entertaining read…and I am looking forward to reading the rest of the series. From my understanding, they just continue to get better and better, and as I mentioned before…I absolutely loved every minute of this one…..

Come on….give it a try….it’s a brand new year and what better way to start then with a funny new series?

Until next time…

Urania xx

Buy it now Carrots by Colleen Helme

Review: All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven

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18460392I’ve read many “Wow” books in my lifetime, a great number of them in the past year alone. So it’s common for me to read a new book that makes me want to recommend it to people, to push it on others even. But when a story still has me thinking about it weeks later, and ALMOST makes me cry, well that’s a pretty big deal.

So where to start with this amazing book? At its very heart, it’s a love story, the story of Theodore Finch and Violet Markey. But love is never easy, and each is dealing with their own issues. Theodore is obsessed with death, and he spends his days thinking of ways to die. Each time, however, life interferes and gives him a reason for living. That “reason”, one day, comes in the form of Violet. She’s grieving the death of her sister. With Theodore’s help, she begins to move on and to actually think of the future. As she’s moving forward, though, Theodore is spiraling downward. Will love be enough to save them both?

This book jumps right in to a very real, very “taboo” subject. Suicide and mental illness in young people are a far too common occurrence, one that is often swept under the rug out of shame or denial. We cannot continue to file it under the category of “normal teenage angst” hoping it will go away by itself. Normal teenage issues do tend to resolve themselves while mental illness does not, often with very real and very tragic consequences.

I still think about this book several weeks after finishing it. It was that good. It’s a story of grief, of hope and resilience. It’s the story of young love and how far it can carry you as well as its limitations. Pick this one up and settle in with a box of Kleenex close by (maybe!).

~Thalia

Buy It Now:All the Bright Places

Review: Love Gently Falling by Melody Carlson

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Love Gently Falling is a love story – but not just a typical romance. In this wintery tale, Rita returns home from her west coast stint as a hairdresser to the stars. She learns to appreciate her family, finds the opportunity to strengthen an old friendship, and befriends a former classmate.

I liked that as the book progressed, Rita gradually changed her mindset from focusing on worldly and material bounty to appreciating relationships and lovingly serving others.

Johnny was a perfect gentleman, generous of heart, encouraging, and candid. He may have showed a little sap here and there, but for the most part he was a good example for Rita to follow.

My favorite parts of the book were when Johnny was really loving Rita as another human being, before a romance even began.

Would that we all would take an opportunity to serve others, today and everyday.

-Calliope

buy LOVE GENTLY FALLING

Review – Edge of Eternity by Ken Follett.

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You know the term “book hangover”? Well, suffice to say that I’m now experiencing it after finishing the final book in Follett’s The Century Trilogy. 3000 pages, countless characters, many different countries and time periods later, I have come to the end of this literary tour de force.
In the third installment, Follett allows us to experience life between 1960 and 1989 for all the different families. Pretty much every major event is covered, albeit in different levels of detail (I think it is fair to say that Follett’s interest in WWII is more apparent than his interest in the Vietnam War). We see the characters develop with the times, and indeed how their offspring handle various stumbling blocks in similar, or different ways than the previous generations.
As stated above, this series does run in at about 3000 pages. Don’t let that scare you though. Yes, it does seem to consume all your time, and you will become very invested in these characters. At the same time though, you will find that you fly through it and you’ll then find yourself wanting so much more.
The best way to describe how I’m feeling, and this will be a feeling many of us have shared, is that of knowing when something is so perfect that it has to end. That holiday romance that is full of passion, that meal at a once in a lifetime restaurant, that week on a tropical island… You don’t want it to end because it is perfect, but you also want it to stay a perfect memory, so you know it has to end…
I’m not sure how my brain is going to function without being in Follett’s world everyday, but I know that I’ll get over it and that it will always be a great memory.
Let yourself get swept away and give this series your undivided attention!

You can get all 3 books for about $20

The Century Trilogy (3 Book Series)