For The Love Of Books

 By now I think you can tell I am binge reading Melanie Dickerson’s Hagenheim series!! 🥰 The Captive Maiden is Melanie’s retelling of Cinderella with her own spin on it. I love how a lot of her books have someone related to the others in her previous stories!! It is neat to be able to catch a glimpse of how their lives turned out after the last page of their novels.  I’ve already started her next novel of the series and can’t wait to finish it!!

The Fairest Beauty is another one of Melanie Dickerson’s Hagenheim novels. This one is based on Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. Melanie has done an excellent job of taking the fairy tale and putting her own spin onto it! I think my favorite part of this book was trying to match the “seven dwarves” up to their fairy tale names. Amazing work!!

The Merchant’s Daughter is the second book in the Hagenheim series by Melanie Dickerson, and it is based on my absolute favorite fairy tale (ok, honestly I’ve never read the original fairy tale - I should though!!! I love the Disney movie - both old and new ❤️). The only obstacle I had to overcome was Beauty’s hair and eye color. It took me a while, but that did not take away from the story line at all. Amazing work done!

I’ve had been reading a lot of new to me authors lately, and this is another one! I was absolutely floored by this book!! I normally can cut off reading a book by midnight in order to get some decent sleep. This book had me awake until after 2am because I just couldn’t put it down!! Fantastic imagery and Kristy Cambron really has a way of allowing you in to a period of a times past. I may have became obsessed with all things early 1900s and circus related after reading this book

Wow! This is one book that really had (still has??) my brain wheels turning! While the soundtrack for the book was the reason I decided to try it out because, hey, I love music. However, I love so much more about it this book! The author has researched in depth an intiricate network of information to pour into this book. I am floored and still keep thinking about hidden pieces and the mysterious way it left off a week after finishing it. I can’t wait until the sequel comes out this year!! I was given a complimentary copy of this books with no strings attached. The author did not require a review and all opinions expressed are my own, honest opinion.

This was my introductory novel to this author and I am in love!! It took me a tad to get into the story line (I am like that for almost all historical novels), but once I caught on to it, I was hooked and couldn’t put it down!! I love how the author switches viewpoint allowing us to see more of the story and not one character’s thoughts alone. I can’t wait to read the second in this series that just came out last month!

Since I have read every other book of Jill Eileen Smith’s (including her newest The Heart of a King that I was on the launch team for!), I was excited to see that she had written a nonfiction book. When Life Doesn’t Match Your Dreams was wonderful. Jill took 12 women from Genesis and wrote a fiction section, then a nonfiction, then back to a fiction, then nonfiction, and finally reflection questions. She does this for each woman. When we hear stories of these women in the book, a lot of times we reflect on them as just that - stories. It is hard to wrap our minds around how it can relate to us in our current culture. Jill brings this and more as she helps guide us in applying lessons learned from these women.

I had never heard of this book or author until a friend was on the launch team. I just knew I had to check it out! I listened to the audiobook of this one also, and it was mind blowing! So many reasons to not worry about the long term plans always. You don’t always have to know the end of every choice. You just have to do the next right thing. One step at a time. The author wrote in such a way that was a major encouragement to me at this point in my life. Just keep pressing forward and doing the next right thing. ❤️

This book was absolutely fantastic!!! I listened to the audio book read by the author and it was as if she was pouring a healing balm over my soul! Somehow Jamie C Martin got into my head and heart and wrote a book telling me that I am not alone, and there are ways to cope. From the very first part until the final word, I hung on to her every word. She does not downplay anything about being an introvert, but rather explains with actual real life situations what is going on, why, and how it is okay to give yourself time to recoup. This is probably my favorite non-fiction read this year!

While I follow Julie Bogart in social media, I have never really used her curriculum nor listened to her podcasts (not that I was against them, but I just haven’t gotten around to it yet). When I was recommended this book, I figured “why not? I need to read more nonfiction.” This book was full of interesting ideas that I plan to start implementing in our home. How to catch kids attention and help guide them into learning on their own? How to spark curiosity and creativity? And the why’s? Yes, please! This book is definitely recommended to help get your creative juices flowing, mammas!

I absolutely loved this book (as with all of Mesu’s stuff to date!)!! It took me longer to get through than usual because I started out on audiobook, and it is always difficult for me to finish audiobooks. I ended up getting the book and finished the final 100 pages in just a bit over a day. I stayed up late bawling my eyes out and finishing the book actually.  I loved this book because it makes you think. We know Daniel was a prophet. We know he was there at the time of his friends being thrown in the fiery furnace. We know he got thrown in the lion’s den. BUT, there was so much of his story that the Bible doesn’t spell out for us (if it spelled everything about everyone  out, I don’t think I would be able to carry it around!! 😉). Mesu does an excellent job of reading between the lines of scripture. She thoroughly researches and doesn’t write contrary to what the Bible says, but rather complimentary fiction to what may have been.