Book Review: An Acceptable Time (Time Quintet #5/O'Keefe Family #4) by Madeleine L'Engle

The final book in the Time Quintet series deals with Meg and Calvin's daughter Polly.  It is also book four in the O'Keefe Family series.  I have not read the first three books in that series and do not feel I missed anything to carry this story along.  Polly mentions things that probably took place in previous novels, but nothing felt spoiled if I plan on reading that series.  As this story deals with time travel akin to the four previous Time novels, it accurately fits in the quintet.


Polly comes to her grandparents' place for schooling.  She has lived with her parents and siblings on a small island and they decide it is time for her to get a better education.  Perfect.  What better place to do some time traveling than around the star gazing rock and the fields that created time travel for Meg, Charles Wallace, Sandy, and Denys?

Walking around the Murry land Polly visions a man and his dog near a tree.  Later, when she's swimming in the Murry's new (since the last book) pool, she recieves a visit from a girl.  At one point she accidentally visits the time of the man and the girl.

Dr. Louis is a friend of her grandparents.  Currently living with her is her brother, Bishop Nason Colubra.  He has made trips 3000 years into the past, the time of the people Polly has seen.   No one really believes Bishop and Polly, but they do not want Polly time traveling.

A friend of Polly's visits her and lays upon her some bad news.  This news makes him want to go back in time himself.  Polly has promised that she would not go, but she follows her friend for an adventure.

I love how the story mixes science and Christianity.  It doesn't ignore one for the other.  Neither seems more important or dominant.  They work together.  I love that about the series.  This doesn't make the series Christian fiction or anything like that.  It just, in my opinion, makes it real.  Science and Christianity can and do work together whether we realize it or not.

I read this book for pure pleasure.  All opinions are my own.  I recommend reading this series.  It took me until I was an adult to read the stories for no real reason, but I think it's great for older elementary and middle school children to enjoy.

Book Review: True Light (Restoration #3) by Terri Blackstock

It is winter in the electricity deprived town of Oak Hollow.  A pulsar has caused the electricty to go out in the entire world.  Winter is upon the inhabitants of the northern hemisphere and it is not creating a very hospitable living environment.  This is the third book in the Restoration series by Terri Blackstock.

A boy, a child, has gone hunting for his family and managed to knock down a decent size deer.  Someone else comes along and decides he wants that deer for himself.  Food is hard to come by in these times.  He shoots the boy. It is the duty of the sheriff and the town to find out who did it.

The Brannings become attached to the case through their daughter Dani and their kind hearts.  Mark Green's father kidnapped Dani and dealt in pornography.  He had a bad reputation around town before his death and it spread to his son.  Mark is nothing like his father and formed a very meaningful friendship with Dani.  His reputation and the fact that he hunted down a sizeable deer the morning of the shooting leads many in town to believe he is guilty.

Again Blackstock has done a great job of creating the atmosphere of the inhospitable environment created by the pulsar.  She writes believable characters.  Each character has their own identity and go through their own trials and tribulations.  Beth, Dani's younger sister, deals with starting a new local home school for kids her age as well as witnessing brutal fighting between neighbors and Mark.  How it affects her is not the same as how it affects Jeff or Dani.

Mark's character is amazing.  He has taught me so much about what it is to be a Christian and how one should live.  He makes me want to be a better person.  I don't know what else to say.  He's amazing.  He can forgive and do for others what they do not deserve because he knows in his heart that it is what God wants. His tale is the moral of this story.  Tragedy does strike him and leaves us with a cliffhanger at the end.

I've been drawn in from the very beginning and I cannot wait to see what the final book in the series has in store.

I checked this book out of my local library and read it for pure pleasure.

Book Review: The Bridge by Karen Kingsbury

Release date: October 23, 2012

A bookstore of love. ;)

The Bridge isn't really a bookstore of love.  It's a used bookstore, a dream for the owner, Charlie Barton, in Franklin, Tennessee.  It also happens to be the place where Molly Allen and Ryan Kelly met.

Molly and Ryan met in the bookstore and fell in love, but it was not meant to be.  Both college students had commitments to people back home.

Five years after they last saw each other, their favorite bookstore is in trouble.  After a devastating flood, the store is left with nothing to sell, and Charlie Barton is left with rising debts that will cause him to lose the store.  Due to the stress and struggle, Charlie considers taking his own life.

From the Goodreads.com description (which I think accurately describes the function of the bookstore for the town of Franklin better than anything I could say):

"For thirty years, Charlie and Donna Barton have run The Bridge, providing the people of middle Tennessee with coffee, conversation, and shelves of good books—even through dismal book sales and the rise of eBooks."

Karen Kingsbury knits together a wonderful tale of lost love.  If you are a fan of Karen Kingsbury you will enjoy this book.  It is set around Christmas and the cover is Christmasy, but it isn't so much a Christmas tale.  Christmas just plays the scene setter, if you will.

One funny tidbit that I noticed: Molly has a male first name as her last name and Ryan has a female first name as his last name.

I read this as a review request from Netgalley.com on my laptop using Adobe Digital.  All opinions are my own and I was not compensated for this review in any way.

Teaser Tuesday

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading.  Anyone can playing along!  Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) "teaser" sentences from somewhere on that page
• Be careful not to include spoilers! (make sure that what you share doesn't give too much away!  You don't want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title and author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR lists if they like your teasers.

He was thinner than last time.  If he was clean and shaved, then he probably wasn't living on the beach.
Kindle Loc. 913-914 Kicking Eternity by Ann Lee Miller 

Book Review: I Feel Only You by Cadence Donovan

The marriage of a movie star and a non-famous non-celebrity girl.  Jackson, the movie-star, has kept his marriage under wraps, hidden from the prying eyes of Hollywood.  He's managed to keep his wife, Chalice, and his daughter, Claire, as well as Chalice's older children from a previous marriage, hidden for five years, at Chalice's request.

This is Chalice's coming out party.  She lives in Texas with her daughter while her husband makes movies.  She wanted to be out of the spotlight, but felt it was right for Jackson's career to let herself be known to his fans.

Chalice and Jackson have a very Christian marriage.  I love the Christianity throughout the story.  It isn't in your face, but it is there on almost every page.  I did, however, feel that some things were too explicit and pulled away from any intended Christian message.

The major problem I had was with Claire.  She's three years old in this story but acting like she's 25.  I get that she is mature and smart.  She is being shown beyond the levels of Dakota Fanning and Emily Mae Young.  She's not written well.  She is only three, so while she may be very mature and very smart, I feel there is so much she should not be able to do at this time.  It's okay for her to be able to sing and play the violin like nobody's business.  She can read novels on a fifth grade level.  She keeps up with her mother's schedule better than she does and that includes eating the right kinds of  cereal for breakfast.  It's not so much that she doesn't allow herself such-and-such cereal.  It's how she presents it.  She feels too grown up.

I digress.  While I say it's a major issue, it's really minor in the scheme of things.  The story wrapped me up.  I wanted to know what would happen next.  There's one bit at the end that I think was overly dramatic.  Chalice suffers from an accident and I feel the result doesn't match up with the incident, but it creates tension and a good cliff hanger for what I think will be a sequel (this is, after all, labeled Shared Senses #1).

I read this as a review request using the Kindle app on my laptop.  All opinions are my own.  I was not compensated for this review in any way.

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Book Review: The Scent of Cherry Blossoms by Cindy Woodsmall

Annie Martin is a Mennonite not getting along with her mother or her wayward brothers.  Her mother sends her to spend some time with her grandfather who lives near and is business partners with the Amish.  Going back she rekindles a friendship with an Amish boy, Aden Zook, as she helps him with the diner his father co-owns with Annie's grandfather.

Mennonites and Amish are not allowed to date each other, especially if they made a vow to their church as Annie has.  Annie and Aden have to keep their relationship a secret lest her grandfather find out and pull his funding from the diner.

The Amish cannot use electricity.  State code does not allow a restaurant to be open without electricity.  The only way the Zooks can have the diner is if they partner with a Mennonite.  If Moses, Annie's Daadi (grandfather), pulls out from the diner, the diner loses electricity and the Zooks lose the diner.

Will Annie and Aden find a way to be together and not lose the diner?  Will Aden's brother, Roman, learn to get past the accident that left him in a wheelchair?  Where do the cherry blossoms play into all this?

Cindy Woodsmall has created a short, sweet, romantic story of two people from the same side of the tracks and yet so far away.  The side story of Roman (whom I kept wanting to call Ronan) was appealing as well.  A farming accident caused him to not be able to properly use his legs.  He used to feel higher than his brother, but now he feels unworthy.  His struggle was very real and honest.

Usually with stories like these it's an Amish girl and an English boy (English is what they call non-Plain folks). It was refreshing for both of them to be Plain, but just different faiths: Amish and Mennonite.

I read this Blogging for Books Review Request using the Adobe Digital app on my laptop.  All opinions are my own and I was not compensated in any way for this review.