'Angel of Wrath' by Bill Myers

I think it’s no secret by now that I am quite taken with Christian fiction. And if it was an unknown fact for some, it’s no longer so. I enjoy reading this genre for many reasons, one of them being my faith (duh). However, this type of fiction has many sub-genres, including historical, mystery, thriller and contemporary. Some are mildly Christian, others quite hard-core I should say. I happen to like the hard-core ones the most. Because I am also a thriller fan, reading books about gory murders and evil characters is my favorite activity. Add to it the God and faith factor and I am lost in a book until it’s over. Now, I hope you’ll know why I loved Angel of Wrath by Bill Myers.

Angel of Wrath is apparently a sequel to another book by Mr. Myers but I couldn’t tell I was missing anything from the previous installment and can safely say that it can be read independently. We have three major characters here: Charlie Madison who is a retired Special Ops agent, Lisa, Charlie’s friend and a retired FBI agent, and Jaz, Charlie’s niece who even though deaf, can hear and sense a lot more than others. These three end up in Lisa’s childhood town to help her brother, pastor Thomas stop the chain of ruthless murders. The murdered are members of Thomas’s rapidly growing church and their bodies are always accompanied with an appropriate verse from the Bible referring to their specific sins. Parallel to the murders, a group of teenagers who believe themselves to be a New Age satanists, worship both the love of God and the wrath of Lucifer to bring about a new world order. This coven of teens quite stupidly and inadvertently releases a horrifying creature into the world. And so the murders and the terror of this hellish entity are what the whole town has to face up to before everyone gets destroyed.

First of all, let me just say that putting the fact it’s a Christian book aside, Angel of Wrath is quite a thriller. The action was very rapidly developing and it happened to be the first book in a long time that I managed to read within one day (and not even a whole 12-hour day). I honestly could not concentrate on doing anything else and had to drop all other activities just to know what happened in the book. My attempts at forgetting about Charlie, Lisa and their families for a while so I could concentrate on my own were futile. The best part of it all was that the killer was not really a secret and still it wasn’t about who kept murdering all those people but why and who would be next. On top of all the action and really fast writing, I can now add the Christian factor to it which, in my opinion completed the whole book. Mr. Myers wants a reader to think deeper about the little and big sins we commit and about the power of forgiveness and love which are really at the core of Christianity. Need I say that I was moved to tears at the end of the book? I suspect that I may be more sensitive than others when it comes to reading Christian fiction, but it’s just such a surprise to read a great thriller and yet find myself thinking about all the good things, including the redeeming power of love.

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Special Thanks to Miriam P. from Hachette Book Group for sending me a copy of this book.

If you want to find out more about Bill Myers, visit his official site which has a lot of interesting info.

I'm basking in the glamour of my blogging friends' appreciation!

The past two weeks have been really fruitful in terms of awards. I have been awarded several times by wonderful blogging ladies out there. It's taken me quite some time to share the news but better late than never. Most importantly, I am giving all the girls who've bestowed the awards on me a huge hug and a big, big thank you!

And now on to the awards. Melissa from Melissa's Bookshelf , Blodeuedd from Book girl from Mur-y-Castell and DeSeRt RoSe from DeSeRtRoSe Booklogue awarded me the 'You Don't Say' award which has the cutest panda ever! Thank you girls so much!

"We give and get awards for having a great blog and being a good friend. What I want to award is those people whose comments have meant THE WORLD to me. It takes time to visit a blog and leave a comment ... I wanted to recognize some special bloggers whose comments have made such an impact on me. The “You Don’t Say?” Award is awarded to these special bloggers in hopes that they will pass the award along to 5-10 of their best commenters!"

Here's the thing, I honestly would include these girls on my list of bloggers to get the award if the weren't the ones who gave it to me. they are great commenters and always write something nice. However, I also have a few other wonderful ladies, who appreciate my posts enough to read them and leave comments. Here they are:

1. Drey from drey's library.

2. Bev from Merry Weather

3. Alaine from Queen of Happy Endings

4. Teddyree from The Eclectic Reader

5. Cindy from Cindy's Love of Books

On to the next award. Cathy from Kittling: Books, Alaine from Queen of Happy Endings, DeSeRt RoSe from DeSeRtRoSe BoOkLoGuE and Amy from Passages to the Past awarded me with Friendly Blogger Award. I have to admit that it was a long coveted by me award ;-). The name says it all and I, in return, am giving it to:



1. Cecilia from Epic Rat

2. Jo-Jo from Jo-Jo loves to read!!!

3. Anna from Diary of an Eccentric

4. Blodeuedd from Book girl of Mur-y-Castell

If that wasn't enough lovely Mishel from mis(h)takes gave me the One Lovely Blog award.

And I am passing it on to Smash from Great Books and Fresh Coffee.

And Teddyree from The Eclectic Reader deemed me worthy of receiving the Lemonade Award. Just perfect for the summer.

1) Put the Lemonade Award logo on your blog or post.

2) Nominate at least 10 blogs that show great attitude or gratitude.

3) Link to your nominees within your post.

4) Let the nominees know that they have received this award by commenting on their blog.

5) Share the love and link to the person from whom you received your award.

This one is difficult since all the bloggers I got to know show really a great attitude and gratitude.Here are some of them:

1. Cathy from Kittling:Books

2. Shelburns from Write for a Reader

3. Softdrink from Fizzy Thoughts

4. TexasRed from TexasRed Books

5. Beth F. from Beth Fish Reads

6. Diane from Bibliophile by the Sea

And last but not least, Blodeuedd from Book girl of Mur-y-Castell gave me the Your Blog Is Enchanted award. I love Tink on it.

The only requirement for this award is that you shared it with whomever you like, sharing the love is always a good thing. The blog has to show only one characteristic, caring. So, start sharing this enchanted award with five other bloggers. Let your bloggers know they have received this enchanted award. (Remember, fairies are fickle wee things, don't incur their displeasure by ignoring their gift.)

1. Michele from Reader's Respite

2. Melissa from Melissa's Book Shelf

3. Julie from Joyful Days

4. Mishel from mis(h)takes

5. Desert Rose from Desert Rose BookLogue.

6. Teddyree from The Eclectic Reader

Okay, I am overwhelmed by all these awards and greatly humbled actually. I never realized that my blog was liked and appreciated by so many. THANK YOU!

'The Pursuit of Perfect' by Tal Ben-Shahar

For the past few years I have noticed a bothersome tendency in me. At some point I realized that there were a whole lot of issues in my life and problems I have with myself and that a few self-help books might help. So I started reading these books obsessively. The tendency I mentioned is that I do not have enough determination to actually stick with any of the techniques I read about in the self-help books. Another thing is, I become frustrated with the mixed messages I get while reading and that just adds to my quick disenchantment. I honestly thought that would be the case with The Pursuit of Perfect by Tal Ben-Shahar but after having read it, I think there might be actually something more to it.
The main thought throughout the book is how trying to live a perfect life, to have perfect looks and perfect careers is actually ruining our lives. Shortly said, perfectionism is bad. On the other hand, we, the people obsessed with the perfect, should instead try to attain a state of optimalism, a term Mr. Ben-Shahar came up with. Tal Ben-Shahar is a perfectionist and he noticed long time ago that trying to have it all and avoiding failure, negative emotions and get the goals no matter what was making his life miserable. He had done a lot of research to find a way out of his misery and the outcome is The Pursuit of Perfect, in which we are presented with a solution: a middle ground and acceptance of our human nature. The book offers some simple, yet great exercises which do not require a lot of time or effort, and most importantly leave some space for error, since they need not be done perfectly. At the core of the whole book is that our society shuns pain, sorrow, unhappiness and requires us all to be always at our best behavior, always smiling, always being nice to customers and fellow employers and if there is a shadow of anger or sadness lurking about, we run to doctor’s for pills and therapies, because these emotions are absolutely unwelcome. Ben-Shahar argues that as humans we are equipped with tools within ourselves to deal with negative emotions and one of these tools is “going with it”, instead of burying a specific feeling we have and we don’t want to have, be it fear, jealousy, anger and so forth. The more we deny ourselves these emotions the more persistent they will be and sooner or later they will resurface making us miserable.
I have to say that despite my doubts about a self-help book ever working for me, The Pursuit of Perfect appealed to me a lot. First of all, even if perfectionism was never one of my many vices, I realized that I was too among the hordes of people trying to live up to societal expectations of the perfect. From the first pages I could tell that this book had a potential of opening my eyes and also giving me permission to just act according to my human nature, to be simply ‘good enough’ and not necessarily ‘better than’. Mr. Ben-Shahar’s writing is very accessible and quite persuasive. To give you an example, I have always been a person who would suddenly feel envy towards somebody else and then immediately I would scorn myself for feeling this horrible emotion, put it aside and in the end beating myself for the rest of the day about how I must be a bad human being for feeling envy towards somebody that most likely doesn’t deserve it. A few days ago, I was sitting in a public place, waiting my turn to be serviced and reading the part of the book which talks about not suppressing our negative feelings but instead accepting them. And wouldn’t you know, there comes a drop-dead girl, wearing sexy clothes and attracting stares of every male specimen in the room. I immediately start being jealous and think of all the reasons why she really is looking ridiculous and completely overdressed and how she truly is screaming for attention. But instead of suppressing these emotions of jealousy and low self-confidence, I decided to just stay with them and take a closer look at the girl. I allowed myself to feel the negativity, I accepted the fact that I indeed was being jealous and went back to reading my book. Hours later, when I left the building, I all of a sudden realized that I completely forgot about that girl, didn’t beat myself up for being jealous and I had a fairly good, relaxing time as opposed to being literally devoured by envy. So there you have it. It worked and I have a strong feeling that if this one worked, others might too.

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Special Thanks to Anna S. from FSB Associates for sending me a copy of this book.

Also, don't forget to visit Tal Ben-Shahar's website to get more info on his books.

It's Monday and it's time for...Borrowed Words

I think that since I posted a review of the book that has to do with Jane Austen, it would be fitting to also quote her today. Jane Austen was very clever and her humor lasts generations. We all know her books and all are familiar with her most famous quotes. The words written by her posted below are probably ones said by many people, many times and that's the beauty of it all. On a side note, I happen to agree wholeheartedly with these words. Without further ado, I give you words borrowed from Jane Austen:

"The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid." (Northanger Abbey)

'What Would Jane Austen Do?' by Laurie Brown

I have to be honest here. When I was presented with an opportunity to read and review What Would Jane Austen Do? by Laurie Brown, I considered myself a romance novels’ skeptic. I also was a little anxious to read another Jane Austen-esque book. Well, all my doubts were dispelled shortly after having read just a few pages of this greatly entertaining book.

What Would Jane Austen Do? introduces us to Eleanor Pottinger, a Jane Austen die-hard fan and a self-made 19^th century costume designer. Her adventure starts in England where she travels to join a Jane Austen festival but it certainly does not stop there. Thanks to two, very endearing ghosts she is transported back in time to prevent a duel which, without her help, will have a deadly end. And here the fun begins. Eleanor experiences living in the Regency era to its full extent: dances, soirees, intrigue, courting, hot romance and a thing she wished for the most: meeting Jane Austen. Miss Brown very skillfully introduces the reader to this romantic part of history and really gives us a chance to have a good look into what life must have been for Jane Austen contemporaries.

Eleanor is a delightful character, very funny, clever and most importantly believable. Numerous times I found myself identifying with her or thinking that I would behave similarly in certain situations. The book is a perfect summer read. It is light, very funny, it has time travel, ghosts, suspense and romance. What else can you ask for?

Every woman, every fan of romance and historical novels should put this title on their summer reading list. It will provide a great escape into fantasy with a lot of extra laughs. And to all those skeptics like I used to be, What Would Jane Austen Do? is a perfect choice to be a skeptic no more. If there is a sequel to this novel, I will be the first one to buy it.

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Special Thanks to Danielle J. from Sourcebooks, Inc. from sending me a copy of this book.