It's BLOGMANIA Time!

WELCOME TO BLOGMANIA !

My Blog is 82 of 122

You’ve arrived at exactly the right time to explore lots of new blogs, all of which, ARE GIVING AWAY A VERY SPECIAL BLOGMANIA GIVEAWAY (For One Day Only – April 30th) .

We’ve done all the work for you. No hunting or surfing. Each blog will have a number and each new blog link will have a number. These numbers will allow you to keep track of which blogs you’ve visited and how many are left to visit. Why not take a moment to make a list of blog numbers 1-123 and check off the blogs as you go.

I know you’ll want to visit as many blogs today as you can. So, if you see something that interests you on any of our participating blogs, why not bookmark that site. Later, when you have more time, you can discover all its fabulous treasures.

CLICK! CLICK! CLICK! Seize the Book Blog GIVEAWAY and RULES:
 
I am giving away several books to FOUR winners:
 

First prize: Bundle of Terri Blackstock books: Last Light, Night Light, and True Light (first three of the Restoration Series)

 

Second prize: Scattered Petals by Amanda Cabot

Third Prize: The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards

Fourth prize: The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith

 

All you need to do is leave a comment on this blog (be sure to give me your email so I can contact you if you are a winner!).

 

Will ship to US addresses only. Winners will be announced and contacted on Monday, May 2nd.
 
After entering on this blog, go to another one on the list below (or see the master list of BLOGMANIA blogs here). Have fun!
 
(Blog- 1 – HOST OF BLOGMANIA) Between The Pages - http://betweenthelinesandmore.blogspot.com/

(Blog -2 – CO-HOST OF BLOGMANIA) The Black Sheep Dances - http://www.theblacksheepdances.blogspot.com/

(Blog-43 - CO-HOST OF BLOGMANIA) Books, Books Everywhere - http://bookywooks.blogspot.com/

(Blog-101) Sarah's Blog of Fun - http://sarahsblogoffun.blogspot.com/

(Blog -89) Crush - http://crushblog10.blogspot.com/

(Blog-15) Survey Junkie - http://surveyjunkiegiftguide.blogspot.com/

(Blog-44) The Neverending Shelf - http://www.theneverendingshelf.com/

(Blog-17) Tairon’s Image - http://taiyonsimage.blogspot.com/

(Blog-115) The Whatcom Marine Mammal Stranding Network - http://wmmsn-blog.blogspot.com/

(Blog-24) Shelley’s Swag - http://shelleysswag.blogspot.com/

Book Review: No Greater Love by Kathi Macias

I had never heard of Kathi Macias before, so when I saw this book, I wasn't sure if I would like it. Well, after reading it, I can say: I LOVED IT! I can't believe I have picked up so many first novels lately that are so good. There's The Help by Kathryn Stockett, A Distant Melody by Sarah Sundin, and The Yellow House by Patricia Falvey. Since these books have been so good, I'm looking forward to seeing what they will come up with next. Lots of talent out there!

No Greater Love by Kathi Macias takes place in South Africa, 1989. Apartheid is a fact of every day life, affecting the lives of all the blacks and colored people of that country and causing untold tragedy to many. I learned so much about this time in history while reading this book, yet it was by no means a dry historical novel. Mrs. Macias wove the facts into the story seamlessly and crafted characters who were interesting as well as "real". I didn't want to put this one down!

This is book #1 of the Extreme Devotion Series. I will be reviewing #2, More Than Conquerors, next month. I'm sure it will be just as good as this one. Kathi Macias is an author to watch!

I received this book from Pump Up Your Book! for a blog tour.

(I received no monetary compensation for writing this review. All opinions expressed in this review are strictly my own.)

WWW Wednesdays

WWW Wednesdays is a meme from Should Be Reading, where we answer three questions: What are you currently reading? What did you recently finish reading? and What do you think you'll read next? If you want to participate, answer the three questions, then put your link on the Should Be Reading Blog in the comment section. Happy reading!


What I am currently reading:
 
Still Missing by Chevy Stevens - I got this book from the publisher, St. Martin's Press. I'm really getting into the story. Apparently, there has already been lots of positive reviews for this book. To be released July 6, 2010. I'm hoping it has a happy ending.






What I just finished reading:

No Greater Love by Kathi Macias - Great book! I will be reviewing this one on Thursday for Pump Up Your Book! blog tours.








What I will probably read next:

Radical by David Platt - I've actually already started this one because I am going to be writing a review for it next week. Sent to me by Waterbrook/Multnomah for review.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
What are you reading? Send links to reviews if you'd like. Tell me what have been your favorite reads these past few weeks.
 

Book Review: How Do You Tuck In a Superhero? by Rachel Balducci

This is one of those books that was annoying to the rest of my family, because as I was reading it, I would bust out laughing and, of course, they had no idea what I was laughing about. Finally two of my children asked me, "What is so funny?" So I read some of the paragraphs to them. Like this one:

"One afternoon, eight-year-old Charlie was standing in the doorway of the laundry room. Suddenly, he turned his back to me, stuck out his behind, and loudly passed gas. Before I could chide him for such rude behavior, he invited me to do the same.

'Do you think you could do that, Mom?' he asked.

'Charlie,' I said, 'mothers don't play that with their sons.'

'Do they play it with their friends?'

I'm not sure how long it will take until this boy learns that most ladies don't roll like that. I hope he won't be too disappointed."

You can see how I was greatly entertained by this book.

Mrs. Balducci has five sons. Five boisterous, crazy, adventurous, funny and fearless sons. Their world consists of Legos, Calvin and Hobbes, water balloons, Star Wars, Boy Scouts, and (my son's favorite) Chuck Norris. They love watching Walker, Texas Ranger and, when they are not gathered around the TV for that, you can probably find them in their backyard digging hole after hole, having competitions to see who can dig the biggest, deepest, or perhaps, the most.

Their mother takes it all in stride (mostly). She smiles when she hears other mothers of only girls marvel at her mothering skills and her ability to remain calm when her boys are climbing the walls (literally!) or jumping out of windows. She responds well to chaos:

"'Are there any odd goings-on?' asks six-year-old Augie as he walks into the room.

Well. let's see, I think to myself. There's your baby brother who keeps climbing on the dining room table trying to swing from the chandelier. There's Charlie tied up in a blanket, being dragged by Elliott, who is declaring him the victim of a very large, deadly spider. 'He has been stung by She-lob,' says Elliott sadly. And where is Ethan? Oh yes, he is standing in the front room trying to spin a plate on a skinny wooden stick.

'Nope,' I tell Augie as I survey the scene, 'no odd goings-on. Nothing out of the ordinary here at all.'"

I saw many similarities between her boys and mine (I have two):

"One morningwhen Augie was four, he had field day at his preschool. Children were encouraged to wear red, white, and blue. Easy enough, I thought. I surveyed my son's wardrobe and honed in on a crisp red T-shirt and newish blue soccer shorts. 

But the morning of school, he came downstairs wearing a two-sizes-too-small Atlanta Braves T-shirt and some worn-out shorts. The oversized shorts hung well below his knees, while the T-shirt didn't even cover his belly button."

The one page chapter on comparing her life to living in a frat house, entitled It's All Greek to Me" is worth the price of the book alone. (I won't share it here. You'll have to get the book.)

There are "tender" moments in the author's life as well:

"One day we were discussing the life of Jesus and how he left his grand home in heaven to come to earth. Instead of being a king in a grand castle, he spent his time on earth in a very humble environment.

'Why do you think the King of the entire universe came to earth and was born in a stable?' I asked them.

'To show he could take it,' said one of the boys, 'kinda like Chuck Norris.'"

But one of the most telling statements comes near the end of the book:

"A boy's life in a three-word chapter: 'I'm bleeding again.'"

Enough said. Go buy the book. Read it. Then buy one for all your friends and celebrate God's great gift of boys.

Rachel Balducci can be found on the internet at http://www.testosterhome.net/. (By the way, she just had her sixth child. A girl! See her picture on Mrs. Balducci's blog. She's beautiful!)

How Do You Tuck In a Superhero? is available April 2010 at your favorite bookseller from Revell, a division of Baker Publishing Group.

(I received a complementary copy of this book from Revell for the purposes of this review. I received no monetary compensation. The opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own.)

Citizen Dick by Richard Arneson (Book Tour) - GIVEAWAY

Citizen Dick by Richard Arneson (click on cover to purchase at Amazon)

Dick Citizen, an unambitious, twenty-five-year-old with an obsessive hatred for his first name, an uncanny ability to hit a golf ball long and straight, and a bizarre skeleton in his closet, stumbles backwards into the last place he should be—Corporate America; more specifically, he stumbles into a PR position at CommGlobalTeleVisa, the 3rd largest telecommunications corporation in the United States, its name synonymous with ineptitude and shoddy, C-level leadership.


For Dick, boredom soon sets in, so he writes farcical press releases—to pass the time and for the enjoyment of his co-workers—about outrageous, bogus product offerings CommGlobalTeleVista has in the works.

But when one of the press releases gets leaked to the press, Wall Street responds favorably to the moribund corporation for the first time in several years. And when Noble Tud, the sleazy, hirsute, golf- and prison-obsessed CEO discovers Dick is uncannily lucky—he’s had fourteen holes-in-one—he decides to carry out the press release’s claims that CommGlobalTeleVista is about to take over a large meat company. And if doing so edges their stock price north of $75/share, Tud will receive a $100M bonus.

About Richard Arneson

Richard Arneson’s thirteen years working in corporate America drove him up a tree—literally. Once he escaped the telecommunications industry after ten years of service, he built a tree house—ostensibly for his two young sons—installed electricity and cable TV, and set out to fix himself, deciding that dealing with the memories of working in the goofy-as-hell world of corporate America could only be accomplished by getting them down on paper. Citizen Dick is the result.

Arneson is currently working on his next novel, The Tree House, which, ironically, is not being written in his tree house but in the cab of his 1950 Chevy pickup truck. He lives in Dallas, Texas with his wife and their two sons. He has plans to build a second story on his tree house in early 2010, one large enough to accommodate a baby grand piano and two dental chairs.

Visit his website at: http://www.citizendick.com/

GIVEAWAY:

If you would like to win a copy of Citizen Dick, please leave a comment below and be sure to include your email address! (I would also appreciate it if you followed my blog, but it is not required for the giveaway) I will receive entries until midnight April 30th (EST). (Available to US addresses only)

(I received a copy of this book from Pump Up Your Book!. I received no monetary compensation.)

Mark Your Calendars - Blogmania's Coming!

Book Review: The Bride Collector by Ted Dekker

Ted Dekker is one of my favorite authors. He skillfully crafts each novel with sharp insight in human nature and his ability to convey prounds truths from his experiences as a Christian. Although there was one of his books that I didn't really like, all the others I have read have been excellent. And Bride Collector is probably one of his best so far.

Here is a descrption of the book from the author's website:

He loves them because they are beautiful. He kills them because he loves them.



A virtuoso killer is carving a path of death across the west, intent on killing only the most beautiful women, all in the name of love. He has claimed six victims and slipped through the FBI’s fingers, each time leaving behind a handwritten note and a bridal veil.


Now, with the help from an unlikely group of four, special agent Brad Raines must enter the killer’s deadly game. But the Bride Collector is supremely gifted and he has a distinct advantage over them all: this is his game.

The title character in The Bride Collector is truly an evil man. At the same time, Dekker gives us other characters who are good, moral people with their own character flaws. I like how he used the "mentally ill" as illustrations for the insanity that lies inside all of us. Here is an excerpt from the book that demonstrates this:

"He'd met victims at CWI (the mental facility), not perpetrators capable of heinous murder. But there had been more, this haunting that was slowly creeping into his mind.

In their eyes, he'd seen a small part of himself."

And the more Brad saw in these people that was different, the more he saw that he was just like them - afraid and alone and in need of someone who cares.

Here's another excerpt:

"Who was the skateboarder practicing on the walls by his condo, really? A young man who was ready to begin really living because he wasn't yet satisfied with who he was? Life for him was still practice for some real test, which lay a month or a year or maybe five years away. When he passed it, his peers would truly appreciate him. Cherish him even. He would find his significance.

Problem was, that day would never arrive. Everyone was still either telling themselves it was all just around the corner, or they were living with the haunting suspicion that the pot at the end of the rainbow was all a fantasy. That in reality they were alone in a jungle and the rainbows were just illusions.

So then, life was really just a mind game, wasn't it? And most people really were handicapped. Mentally."

I enjoy reading suspense books. Maybe it's because I am fascinated with the study of the human mind and what makes us do the things we do, or perhaps it's because I like the science of forensic criminal investigations. But when I come across a good novel that combines these things, I will devour it quickly, especially when the author is a Christian writer. Because the Christian worldview is (to me) essential in interpreting all that we observe in this world.

And possibly no one does this better when he writes than Ted Dekker. I am amazed at how he can tell a good story while at the same time communicate eternal truths. His observations of the world in which we live are incisive.

Consider this quote from the book:

"Ninety-eight percent of the world's six or so billion inhabitants could apply common sense to the most fundamental, obvious observations of human existence and conclude that a higher power existed. Yet few of the self-proclaimed experts called psychiatrists could see the same thing. So then, were the six billion mentally ill, or were the few psychiatrists mentally ill?"

Something to think about. And just a small taste of why I give this book a resounding five stars!

(I received this book from Hatchette Books for review. I received no monetary compensation. All opinions expressed in this review are strictly my own.)

Blogmania Coming Soon!

Coming - April 30, 2010 - Blogmania!

WOW! Aren’t you the lucky one! You’ve arrived at exactly the right time to explore lots of new blogs, all of which, ARE GIVING AWAY A VERY SPECIAL BLOGMANIA GIVEAWAY (For One Day Only) .

You literally have the chance to win hundreds of prizes. We’ve done all the work for you. No hunting or surfing for just the right blogs. Every blog you visit will have more links for you to follow, all of them with a special BLOGMANIA giveaway and just waiting for you to drop by.

Each blog will have a number similar to this (25 of 106) and each new blog link will have a number. These numbers will allow you to keep track of which blogs you’ve visited and how many are left to visit. Now really, isn’t this the easiest thing ever! AND SO MUCH FUN…

I know you’ll want to visit as many blogs that day as you can. So, if you see something that interests you on any of our participating blogs, why not bookmark that site or become a blog follower. Later, when you have more time, you can discover all its fabulous treasures.

Remember! The special Blogmania prizes are only available for one day, April 30th. The number of prizes you could win is only limited by the NUMBER of blogs you visit.

So, come join us on April 30th!

Book Review: Guest House by Barbara Richardson (and GIVEAWAY)

Guest House by Barbara Richardson

Synopsis:

Melba Burns, a divorced real estate agent living in Portland, Oregon, sees a bicyclist hit by a truck one afternoon as she is drivng home from work. The incident profoundly affects her life and causes her to re-evaluate. She quits her job and moves into an old farmhouse. Then follows a series of unusual guests who completely change Melba's way of thinking and cause her to do things she never would have done before. She soon sees how her life has truly been enriched as a result of taking these new friends into her life and home.

Review:

Barbara Richardson is a talented writer. She has a unique style that I found refreshing. I loved (most of) her characters and even identified with a few. The story was funny and, at times, somewhat depressing as the characters went about their pitiful lives hurting one another and themselves in their attempts to find meaning and happiness. The more I read, the more I just felt sorry for these people and their sad circumstances and ways of coping with those circumstances.

I have read several positive reviews of this book and although I agree with some of what is in those reviews, I cannot say I completely enjoyed this book. I have to confess I didn't even read all of it. I couldn't. There comes a point where I, as a reader, must consider whether it is worth my time to finish a book in which I am not taking pleasure. I must move on.

So, I move on. And I say, may this review be taken with a grain of salt and remember, it is only one person's opinion. There are others who loved this book. Here are just a few:

Rundpinne
Book Retreat
Confessions of a Bookaholic

If any of you would like my copy of the book, I'll be glad to mail it to you so you can read it for yourself. Who knows, maybe you'll like it! Just let me know in the comments and if I get more than one of you who wants it, I'll have a drawing. I'll wait until Tuesday (April 27) to give you a chance to request it.

Tolle Lege!

WWW Wednesdays

WWW Wednesdays is a meme from Should Be Reading, where we answer three questions: What are you currently reading? What did you recently finish reading? and What do you think you'll read next? If you want to participate, answer the three questions, then put your link on the Should Be Reading Blog in the comment section. Happy reading!

What I am currently reading:

How Do You Tuck In a Superhero? by Rachel Balducci - I started this one today. Fun book! (The poor woman has FIVE boys!)

What I recently finished reading:

Pearl of China by Anchee Min - I will be reviewing this one. Good read. Makes me want to get The Good Earth and read it again.

What I will probably read next:

Citizen Dick by Richard Arneson - I will be reviewing this one for a Pump Up Your Book! Book Tour next Monday. Looks interesting.

That's my lineup! What are you reading? I REALLY want to know!