News & Updates: The Rocket that Flew to Mars

Hi! I’m back again, very briefly.

So...

...without ever coming here to mention it, I’ve got another book done, and it’s finished, formatted, up for sale, and everything. I'd like to get some of my old novels back on my project list at some point, but it's been easier to focus on short projects. And, realistically, I don't have have the time to run two separate blogs right now, so it’s unlikely I’ll be back here for a while. Which means that if you want to know what I’m up to, you can find me one of these places:

Facebook page: www.facebook.com/aesauble
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/audreysauble
Website: www.aesauble.com
Email list: http://eepurl.com/cADKCH

And my book? It's another picture book--this one a proper space-age nursery rhyme. It's patterned after the poem 'The House that Jack Built,' but it tells the story of a a rocket, a robot, a 3D printer building the first biodome for the first colony on Mars, with a surprise at the end.

I do have a giveaway running for this book, if you want to check it out and enter. I'm giving away three hardcover copies of the book. Hope you'll take a look!

a Rafflecopter giveaway


Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07664Q5MC
Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/ebook/the-rocket-that-flew-to-mars

"Who" Giveaway!

It's out--check it out on Amazon! (For the next couple of days, the ebook will be free, plus getting the book lets you claim an entry in the giveaway down below.)

Who Laid the Egg: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B06VYGVVFT

¿Quién Puso el Huevo? http://www.amazon.com/dp/B06WRXK5QH

(I've also got a rehash of this on my website, plus a couple of coloring pages just up yesterday.)


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Book updates

Just quick note this time:

First, my author website is up. You can visit it over at 'Audrey Sauble'. In fact, I've got a new post up this morning, with an update with a little info more about "Who Laid the Egg" and how the book happened (http://www.aesauble.com/2017/02/about-who.html). I'll have to do a longer one someday with all the weird details about getting ready for publication, because that is an extremely complicated process, especially for a picture book.

Second, "Who Laid the Egg" will be released this weekend. I'm planning a small launch party with a giveaway and an ebook sale to celebrate. I'll post here when that happens, but you can also sign up for email updates on my new site, since I will be posting more book details there as well.

Third, my plan for now is to keep writing/story posts over here, while starting an occasional series about kids' art projects at my new site. Again, I've got a form there if you want to follow that. I'll try to avoid duplicating posts on the two sites as much as I can.

Finally, on a different topic, I just got my review copy of Jill Williamson's newest release in the Kinsman series, King's Blood. I haven't written my review yet, but I'm planning to get that up at some point next week.

See you in a few days!

Who Laid the Egg?

Changes are coming...

I haven't updated since late November, but since then I've started working on a children's book. It's almost done now.

The book started with the munchkin helping me cook up some eggs for breakfast one morning. He's been terribly fascinated with eggs and counting them out for me. He's also fascinated by breaking them open for me. The only challenge is slowing him down enough for me to keep up.

Munchkin has also helped collect eggs with his aunts, so we naturally started talking about...

Who Laid the Egg?

Sneak preview of one answer over on the right:

Ostrich!

I've been working to finalize the book the last few days, and I'm almost ready to put it out, starting with paperback and Kindle version, and possibly a hardcover as well, if people are interested. I'll update you as that happens.

With that said, I've posted on this blog for a lot of years. I may keep it around and post occasionally, but I'm in the process of setting up a new Internet home. If you currently use my www.aesauble.com domain to get here, that's going to change in the next couple of days, and you will need to use www.theloremistress.blogspot.com once again.

Puppy Observations

Back in college (over five years ago now), I spent one class reading, re-reading, and generally analyzing short sections of Scripture. The goal was to come up with as many observations as possible.  If you spend enough time on a project like that, you can come up with quite a lot.

And, as it happens, you can make quite a few observations on children’s books too, after multiple re-readings—especially when you start with the basics, such as:

1. This is a book about puppies.

2. There are five puppies in this story (not counting the mother).

3. These are very unusual puppies, because they get chocolate custard for dessert.

Then there are the more subtle observations, and the various inferences you can draw from them:

4. Four of the puppies, on three different occasions, have to look for the fifth, the pokey puppy.

5. Even after finding the pokey puppy in the green-grassy space twice before, the other puppies don’t think to look there first when he disappears again.

6. If the puppies see a strawberry while on a walk, they get strawberry shortcake for dessert.

7. The puppies see six other ‘creatures’ on their walk, besides the desserts.

8. Five of these creatures, including a toad, a grasshopper, and grass-snake, are pictured in the book.

9. Only one creature, the “big black spider,” is not shown, suggesting that it must have been a truly terrifying spider, unfit for the pages of a children’s book.

Also:

10. If you listen carefully, you can identify chocolate custard by the sound a spoon makes as it is scraped over the side of a bowl.

11. The pokey puppy is a dog (presumably), and yet he manages to eat five servings of chocolate custard with no side effects.

12. And, even after eating 10 servings of dessert over the previous two days, the pokey puppy is still able to squeeze through a wide place in the fence that the other puppies have heretofore overlooked in their escapades.

If you really want to know what to take away from this story, though, just remember that the pokey puppy is the arch-villain here.

I mean—he lures the other puppies out under the fence and abandons them while he waits to discover what dessert will be. Then he ‘lets’ the other puppies arrive home before him. Once they are safely dispatched to their beds, he sneaks home to devour the dessert himself. 

But—in his final attempt—the other puppies accidentally foil him, saving the dessert! (For themselves, of course.)

#####

Oh, and I might be back next week with a more serious book review.

King's Folly: Review

Between the earthquakes devastating Armania, his father’s mad attempts to save his crumbling, kingdom, and the strange magic from across the borders, Sâr Wilek hardly knows where to turn.

The Five Woes are coming; the end of Armania is at hand…

Like my blogging in general, this review is long overdue. I was actually supposed to post it about a month ago. The reason for the delay actually goes back to March—I got an email from Bethany House with their list of review books for the month. Right at the top of the list was Jill Williamson’s new fantasy novel, King’s Folly.

I was excited to see Williamson starting a new fantasy series after reading a few of her more recent dystopian/sci-fi YA stories. So, of course, I requested a review copy and made it onto the list.

Unfortunately, this happened about a month after moving and changing addresses. Since I didn’t get my address updated in time, my review copy floated off to someone else. (I do hope he or she enjoyed the book as much as I did.)

After waiting over a month, I started investigating and found out what had happened. The result was that I ended up buying my own copy and waiting—again—for it to show up.

Was it worth the complications? I think so.

King’s Folly, the first in Williamson’s Kinsman Chronicles, is a massive, ground-shaking (pun intended) story.

As the King’s oldest son, Sâr Wilek mainly wants to survive the castle politics long enough to be declared his father’s Heir. He’s accompanied by half-a-dozen other major characters, each with their own quest, but all of the action revolves around Wilek.

Wilek is supposed to be the king’s main supporter. If he carries out his role well enough, Rosâr Echad might just anoint Wilek as his heir, and Wilek would be able to change his father’s superstition brutality for a milder rule. The kingdom, however, is falling apart around them as earthquake after earthquake shakes the realm.

Rosâr Echad believes that only sacrifices to the gods can save Armania, but the real secrets and the real corruption lay much deeper in his court than he or Wilek can dream. It will take all of Wilek’s allies to unravel the mystery, and even then they might be too late.

The book does start off a little slow. The first third of the novel focuses mainly on setting up the cast and some of the background to the main story. I actually skipped over the character list at the beginning of the book, since I don’t like reading off a bunch of names before meeting the characters. For this book, that didn’t really matter. Williamson’s first introductions are strong enough to carry the characters through the rest of the story. Everyone was important too, and Williamson makes good use of the various characters’ story-lines, but be warned that there are a ­lot of characters.

Two small caveats:

First, the specific format may be a little confusing—the Kinsman Chronicles is a trilogy, but each book will have three parts. King’s Folly is the first book in the trilogy, but it was released in three individual ebooks, before being released as a full novel. The first of these ebooks, Darkness Reigns, is available on Amazon for free here. The fourth part, starting off the second novel, will be released in early July.

Second, there is also a lot of sexuality inherent in the plot. None of it is graphic, and Williamson specifically notes that she’s modeling this story after the corrupt kings of Israel, which is a fair comparison for the story. If you’ve read Williamson’s Safe Lands trilogy, you know about what to expect. It is there, though, and I wouldn’t recommend the book to younger readers as a result.

With that said, I did enjoy the story. It met my expectations for a complicated, well-built fantasy novel, while keeping the adventures strong and filling the world with a mix of interesting, believable characters. A few of the characters border on stereotypes—faithful bodyguard, independent female sidekick, etc.—I found the world wonderfully complicated and unique.

I’ll be looking forward to reading what happens next.

[My thanks to Bethany House for sending me a review copy. My address should be correct and up-to-date now, for any future reviews.]

  

One, Two Buckle My Shoe...

Over the summer, I've returned to a very old form of literature. It's also a very simple form of literature--in some ways.

No, it's not "See Spot run!" But that's a good guess.

I guess it's something that happen when you have a toddler in the house--you start reading books you first heard twenty (or more) years ago. It's an interesting experience. You start noticing things about the books that you never noticed as a kid.

The stories can be fairly innocuous at times.

Kids don't know much about the world yet, so it's easy to introduce them to new things. "Look! This is a strawberry. Strawberries are red. And caterpillars turn into butterflies."

Sometimes the stories make you scratch your head and ask why. Not, "Why is the world this way?" Rather, "Why? Why did anyone thing that was okay to write?"

I mean, if you were a mother bird bringing breakfast back to your just-hatched chick, and your chick started telling your about this cow and the dog and a hen and a thing called a Snort, wouldn't you start squawking bloody murder? If that happened to me, I know I'd want all the how-comes and where-fores.

I won't even get started on the stories that are all about the message--You can do it, if you try. Don't talk to strangers, or else. Don't be a greedy pig. Be nice to the kitty. It's going to be okay.

Good messages all of them (usually), but they can be overwhelming when they're rammed right down the throat of an innocent storybook.

Some of the stories are just devious.

One of the books we read recently was about a little old man who couldn't read. He could make beautiful wooden toys, but he only survives because his wife (who can read) handles the shopping...and the rest of his business, presumably.

Then she goes off on a trip and tells him what he needs to get at the store for his next few meals. As a kid, of course, I just thought this was part of the story. Trips are a normal part of life, right?

As an adult, however, I totally get it. If all she really cared about was his food, why didn't she just buy the groceries for him and leave them on the counter at home? She knew he couldn't get through the shopping trip without being able to read--she was setting him up for failure.

Then there's the entire Suess canon. I think we shall return to that topic when it's time to learn about alliteration, repetition, and rhymes.

Still, I would like to know--what if you do try the green eggs and ham...and you don't like them, even then?

Rewriting Monsters

Have you ever met a good ork?

They're about as rare as a duck sitting on a rooftop, aren't they?

Recently, I read Rick Riordan’s House of Hades, and a small part of that story got me thinking about another book by Donita K. Paul. I don’t remember which book specifically, but it was one of the later books in the DragonKeeper series.

Both books—and both series as a whole—have several groups of characters who start out entirely bad. Riordan’s villains are the Titans and Gaia’s monsters in general; Paul’s are the seven low races of Amara. Partway through both stories, a character shows up who belongs to one of the ‘bad guy’ groups, but isn’t actually bad himself.

Now, my initial reaction was—“That’s odd, why would an author suddenly decide bad characters can be good?”

Oddly enough, I happened to run across two different articles on the topic soon after reading House of Hades, while I was still pondering the question.

The first was Rebecca LuElla Miller’s post on Speculative Faith, where she discusses why so many stories and movies want to reinvent the villains from older stories. Miller argues that this sort of story tries to erase the reality of evil by explaining the story behind it: “The problem, as I see it, with this kind of thinking is that evil is in the eye of the beholder. In fact, there really is no evil—just evil circumstances or evil influences.”

Evil is real. We can try to understand why someone would want to commit murder, but even understanding doesn’t change the fact that some people murder because they can and they like to do it.

Like Miller, I don’t really like the idea of explaining away evil, so at first I wanted to extend that line of thinking to Bob the Titan. If a group of characters are functionally orcs—their role in life and their nature is to attack humans—how can one of those characters suddenly be not an orc?

That line of thinking didn’t quite fit, however. Miller was writing about stories like Malificent (which I haven’t seen yet), with a misunderstood villain. My issue was with good characters belonging to villainous races such as orcs or trolls or Titans. The real question was whether those characters might be heavily influenced, but not trapped, by their background.

I found a better answer in another blog post—this one about portraying cultural drift in fantasy cultures. In this article, Hannah Emery, a sociologist, suggests developing fantasy cultures realistically with a full range of skills, opinions, personalities, styles, and motives. She points out that American culture—from McD’s to homesteading—is bigger than just one stereotype, so why can’t dwarf or orc cultures be the same?

The challenge is that you have to treat the characters as individuals—not as stereotypes or a chip of the cultural monolith.

Even Tolkien did this, I think. There may not be any good orcs in The Lord of the Rings, but Tolkien suggests that some characters fight on one side or another simply because that’s what their culture taught them to do. Some of his orcs fight humans because that’s what orcs do, but some would rather just get away from the bigger, meaner orcs, back to their nice, cozy, stinky orc dens.

Of course, that's the challenge with writing any character—even if the guy is evil, despicable, and thoroughly rotten, you still have to develop his personality. It’s not okay just to say “And this dude is evil, despicable, and thoroughly rotten” and leave the story at that.

Well, it might work if you are writing a parody of some kind—as with Lemony Snicket’s Series of Unfortunate Events. Even in that series, though, the villain has a very distinct personality, motives, and methods.

That’s where I think Paul actually failed, while Riordan succeeded. Paul’s redeemed character felt like a side to the main story. His presence forced the other characters to reconsider their view of the low races, but he himself left very little impression on anyone.

Riordan, on the other hand, produces someone with a background and a personality, someone who is confused and struggling with the idea that he’s supposed to be bad but maybe wants to be good. He’s something more than a showpiece, and his presences makes a difference in how the story plays out. Plus, there are hints that maybe Bob is not the only one with a conscience.

Maybe it’s not so much about rewriting monsters as suggesting that the old stereotypes are more of a guideline than anything else. After all, ducks do sit on rooftops sometimes.

Speculating from the Bible: WWBJD?

Imagine the comments Mary must have gotten.

“How long does he sleep at night? I hope you know how lucky you are.”

“Wow, does that baby never cry?”

Okay, I know this isn’t Christmas, so it’s not really the time for a discussion about baby Jesus and “Away in the Manger.” Jesus was a baby for a lot longer than Christmas time, though.

We aren’t told how he acted as an infant, since that’s not part of the story being told in the Bible. Still, it makes for interesting Speculative History: What Would Baby Jesus Do?

Let’s think for a minute about how the perfect baby would act... 

That means perfect not as in “never cries,” but as in “never sins.” 

We know Jesus wept over other people’s pain. We also know he sweated in agony before his crucifixion. Obviously, Jesus cried as a baby, right?

The general consensus in child development books seems to be that newborns cry to express a need. They aren’t aware enough of their surroundings to realize that they can manipulate people by crying. That seems pretty simple. No sin in asking mom for a snack if you're hungry, so no sin in crying to get fed as a baby. As a newborn, Jesus might have cried primarily to communicate that he was hungry, or because he was tired or he needed his diaper changed. 

The question gets trickier with time, however. Older children occasionally learn that they can get what they want by crying. As a perfect toddler, Jesus wouldn’t try to manipulate his mom into giving him an extra cookie after she said no. That would be ‘disobedience to parents.’

But what if Mary put him down for a few minutes, while she took the bread out of the oven? A normal toddler doesn’t understand why mom is worried about burning the bread, and he cries because it’s significantly more lonely on the floor than in mom’s arms. Besides, it’s a scary thing—not knowing if you’re ever going to see someone again.

But perfect love casts out fear. So, as since Jesus was fully God, and God is love, would Jesus have been frightened as an infant or a child? Would he have cried because he startled himself awake at night and didn’t know where his mom was until she picked him up?

And pain—since Jesus was able to heal other people’s disease’s, maybe he never got sick himself? Or, perhaps because he took on humanity with all of its weaknesses and temptations, he also felt normal illnesses and had the flu as a child. Maybe he was also susceptible to colic as an infant.

As an older child, say about seven, it might be easy to imagine Jesus patiently putting up with the flu and having mom tell him to stay indoors. As an infant with colic? It’s not a sin to ask for help, and crying is the only way babies can ask. Perhaps Mary had some sleepless nights after all, rocking Jesus and trying to sooth her baby’s collywobbles.

Still, there's that manipulation issue again, and Jesus wouldn't have thrown a fit because Mary told him to shake his bedroll out and put it away. Would he have cried because he lost the rattle Joseph made for him? I don't know, but I doubt an older Jesus would even have cried because his sister took his toy sword away.

(Imagine the pressure his siblings must have gotten.)

Photos & Progress

It was a long hike last weekend, and it's been a long week. Productive, yes--but long.

 I haven't touched my current novel in a couple of months, so I set a challenge to write at least 500 words this week. It helped to have a small goal--one I could break out into 100-word chunks if necessary. Even better, I actually made it with a couple hundred words to spare, thanks to some extra time this evening.

Next goal: write the same again next week until it gets to be a habit. Also, I really need to figure out why the crazy, great ideas only show up at 2 a.m.

Strait of Hormuz: Review

Everyone has a friend who needs help occasionally. Marc Royce’s friend just happens to be Ambassador Walton, a very old friend and a top intelligence official.

It also just happens that Marc’s friend needs help with a very serious problem. The US was tracking a shipment from North Korea to Pakistan when nine containers on the shipment disappeared. US officials believe the containers are headed to Iran, with the missile parts that could increase Iran’s firing range to reach the US. Within a week, the containers will have time to reach Iran, and meanwhile, the US’s best solution is also the worst—to stop ships entering the Strait of Hormuz and search them for the containers. Doing so may stop the attack, or it may give Iran an excuse to declare war.

Marc’s role is to find a way out—specifically, he’s supposed to track the money and find out what really is going on. Unfortunately, his first search effort uncovers a booby-trap instead.

And then Kitra, the Israeli nurse Marc met in Rare Earth, walks onto the scene.

In the background, waits a shadowy, but intriguing, cast. There’s the wealthy backers who can send agents anywhere in the world or to any five-star hotel at a moment’s notice, as well as the underground house-church with members from enemy cultures and a mission to protect believers in hostile countries.

Bunn started the Lion of Babylon series in 2011, introducing freelance intelligence operative Marc Royce. The middle novel, Rare Earth (which I reviewed last summer), won this year’s 2013 Christie Award for Suspense Fiction. And now, Strait of Hormuz marks the end of the series.

Even as the last book in the series, Strait of Hormuz stands on its own, telling Marc’s latest adventure separate from his previous missions. As with Rare Earth, I would have no problem picking up the action from the first few pages. At the same time, this being the second book I’ve read from the series, I noticed more that Bunn doesn’t spend a lot of time on character-development. I was able to connect fairly well with Marc and Kitra, but part of that was from having met them before.

I’m not sure whether I would classify Strait of Hormuz as a slow-paced spy story or a fast-paced romance. It has elements of both—Bunn balances a race to save the world fairly well against Marc and Kitra’s struggle to understand their emotions and their relationship.

Bunn does well at both, but I found the background characters with their range of motives and backstories to be the best part of the story. They were also, in some way, easier for me to connect to than the story from Rare Earth. So, while Strait of Hormuz ranks 4 out of 5, I liked it better overall than Rare Earth, and I’m not sure I was ready for the series to end.

If Strait of Hormuz sounds interesting, you can read the first three chapters here, or check out…

The Grand Prize Sweepstakes:

To celebrate Strait of Hormuz's release, Davis Bunn is offering a Grand Prize giveaway—the winner will receive a grand prize of 'His & Hers' Luxury Swiss Watches, while a runner-up will receive a $150 Amazon Gift Card. You enter by following the link, and gain more entries by sharing the contest on Facebook and Twitter: http://woobox.com/ipi8wk.

 

The winner will be announced November 30, on Bunn's blog.

Until then, you can find out more about Bunn and his writing through his blog or his Facebook page. And remember that the first book in the series, Lion of Babylon, is available for Kindle free during November.

 

 

[My thanks to Bethany House Publishers for providing me with a free review copy of Strait of Hormuz, in exchange for my honest opinion of the book.] 

Bleeding Heart: Review & Giveaway

Get out your china and pour a cup of tea—it’s time for a blog tour with a romance novel...

On second thoughts, maybe you shouldn’t. Amber Stoke’s Bleeding Heart isn’t tea parties and roses, to say the least.

Bleeding Heart is a wild-west story, set just after the Civil War, with Virginia City’s silver mines and Californian logging towns instead of cowboys. When Sally Clay first arrived in Virginia City, the silver mines were a lure to a new life. Three years later, the place becomes a trap after she loses her questionable line of work and someone won’t take no for an answer. Sally will do anything to escape—anything that means a new start. Unfortunately, that means avoiding one man while trying to get another man’s attention.

From there, the story develops slowly through a series of twists and surprises. It’s the story of a woman who goes from runaway to castoff, an outsider who can never be free from her disgrace and only wants to escape the man she fears.

It’s the story of a two men learning to love again after pain and loss.

It’s the story of a man who knows he can’t have the girl he loves, but wants her to have flowers for her wedding day—even if it must be a marriage of convenience.

It’s also the story of a man who has lost a few too many times and just can’t learn when he should give up.

If that sounds like a lot going on—it is. Some parts of the story felt a little clunky, especially the number of names thrown into the first chapter. All the characters mentioned are important to the story, and reappear later with more explanation, but the oblique references to them seemed to muddy things at first. Still, the main event—Sally trying to get out of town—was very clear, while Amber’s characters and settings felt vivid and alive throughout the story. For that alone, it’s worth the read.

For me, though, Bleeding Heart was a fun read in more ways than one—I met Amber back in college and heard bits of her writing then. After following her blog the past couple of years, it’s been exciting to watch Amber’s work in publishing her first novel and to be able to review a copy of it for her. She's already working on other projects, including a prequel and possible sequel, as she posted about yesterday. So—congratulations to Amber! 

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As part of Bleeding Heart's tour, Amber is offering a "Journey to the West" giveaway for US residents. The giveaway includes:

• A signed copy of Bleeding Heart, once the paperback edition becomes available.
• A deck of playing cards with pictures of the Pacific Northwest
• A redwood bookmark
• Falk's Claim: The Life and Death of a Redwood Lumber Town, one of Amber's research sources for this novel.
• A wooden train whistle
• A postcard which Amber will send to the winner with a personal message.

Amber will announce the giveaway winner August 31st, at the end of the tour. Meanwhile, you can find out more about Amber and Bleeding Heart by visiting the novel's website, or at the blog tour's home page. You can also find Bleeding Heart on Amazon (Kindle Edition for now).

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Dreamlander: Review Link

In Dreamlander, a world exists which anyone can find in their dreams. Only a few—only the chosen—are able to travel between our world and that world. Only one Chosen can possibly make the journey during a Searcher’s lifetime, but Chris becomes the impossible second Chosen...

(You'll have to go here, for the rest of the review.)

Fearless: Book Review

Fearless or daredevil? The biography of Navy SEAL Adam Brown, Fearless is the story of a man without fear, who never stops, never hesitates. His story nearly gets derailed along the way, which becomes a major emphasis in this book.

Unfortunately, my biggest reaction to this book would be a minor rant about marketing. Fearless includes the rather lengthy subtitle “The Undaunted Courage and Ultimate Sacrifice of Navy SEAL Team Six Operator Adam Brown.” This, with the cover of the book and the general emphasis on Adam Brown as a Navy SEAL, suggests that the book is a military story. 

Author Eric Blehm, however, starts off his prologue by attempting to set this story apart as something different in its genre. Blehm suggests that this is not about a story about “Tom Clancy fiction”—the battle-scenes and behind-the-scenes thriller usually associated with military stories. Fearless is a good story, reasonably told, with plenty of military flavor, but don’t expect much inside info on Navy SEALs or their operations.

Rather, expect a different sort of behind-the-scenes story—one which tells Adam Brown’s journey through love, addictions, restoration, failing, struggling, and determination.

Fearless is actually the story of an Arkansas boy, who grew up in a great family, messed up big, found redemption, found an awesome girl, became an incredible husband and father, and incidentally was driven by his determination to join the Navy SEALs, and then to become an elite operator even within that elite group. To accomplish this, Adam Brown moves past injuries and weaknesses that most people would consider career-changers.

I do have to add a small caveat—parts of the story include strong language and crudities, but nothing an adult or mature teen couldn’t handle. Much of the rest carries a tone of hero-worship even when Blehm tackles a less-than-heroic story. I also found some frustration in the fact that the stories are all third-hand accounts from family and friends, but you can probably get a better sense of the book from the prologue and first chapter available here.

You can also find out more about Fearless online here. It might not be the best told story of the year, and I doubt it would have been written given a different ending to the story. But it is a story of incredible courage, determination, and redemption.

[My thanks to Waterbook Multnomah Publishing Group for providing me with a digital review copy of Fearless in exchange for my honest opinion of the book.]
 

Les Misérables, Radio Theatre style

Three CDs, nearly three hours of recording—yet it’s only the cliff notes version of Les Misérables.

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been listening to the audio recording of Victor Hugo's novel produced by Focus on the Family’s Radio Theatre, available from Tyndale House Publishers here.

In this adaptation of Les Misérables, the story starts with a smoldering, resentful Jean Valjean, ex-convict, released from prison after 19 years of hard labor, caged in by the fear and prejudice of everyone he meets. His last, hopeless attempt to find shelter brings him to the Bishop of Digne. And, when the Bishop challenges Valjean to change, the ex-convict starts on a new journey, helped along his way by the Bishop's silverware and candlesticks. In this recording, the Radio Theatre cast does a fantastic job of voicing the characters—from Inspector Javert’s rigid determination to pursue the ex-convict, to innkeeper and ruffian Monsieur Thenardier’s bullying whine, to Valjean’s anger, pain, and gentleness.

 As usual, this cliff notes version has sparked my interest in reading the original. Sadly, I’ve read Les Misérables only once. I also haven't watched the musical or any of the movies, while the book has had to wait for a reread since high school, so I can’t say much about how well the recording has interpreted the story.

Over all, though, I suspect that this version of Les Misérables can’t really compare with the original. It also falls short of another Radio Theatre production that I am more familiar with—Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol (also available from Tyndale here). That seems only natural, of course, since Hugo’s novel is so much more immense and complex than a three-hour adaptation can convey.

For someone who isn’t familiar with Les Misérables, this version does seem a good introduction. And, for someone who just wants an idea of the novel, listening to this recording is certainly less intimidating than reading the massive story it follows. As for the story itself, it might be time to reread Les Misérables.

[My thanks to Tyndale House Publishers for sending me a complimentary review copy in exchange for my honest opinion of this recording.]

A Sudden Glory: Book Review

How does God pursue us? How does he lavish His love on us? How can we feel His presence? What does it mean to abide in Christ?

Pick up the nearest Christian book catalogue, and you will find plenty of authors to explain their improved study techniques, their ideas for increasing your involvement, their ways to improve your prayer life, and so many other keys to changing your life. All of them, of course, want you to do something or change something about how you approach life. And if it sounds too intimidating to do all that? Don’t worry! There’s always another, more enlightening book on time management techniques…

I’ve had my share of busyness and failed goals over the years. I’ve had joys, letdowns, and plenty of opportunities to feel that I should be doing something more. I'm also—in spite of goals and busyness—rather inclined to distrust people who say you or I must do thus and such in order to achieve some higher level of spiritual knowledge.

Thus, I was intrigued recently to find a very active, very involved conference speaker, ministry leader, and women’s author who thinks that we just might be trying too hard.

In A Sudden Glory, Sharon Jaynes argues that we’ve got the wrong picture—we have projects and goals and lists and agendas all designed to move us closer to God. We might know we can’t actually reach God through our own efforts, but we live as though we can. We check all the little commands off and worry about weekly Bible studies, church programs, and daily devotionals, while forgetting God’s call for us to be still and just spend time with Him. According to Jaynes, we’ve forgotten how to stop.

This isn’t a book to be read in one sitting—I’ve sat down with it a couple times so far, and I suspect it will take a couple more times to get through everything Jaynes has to say. This is, however, a timely reminder for just about any stage of life. A Sudden Glory shows much about what it means to trust God, to raise our expectations in light of God’s power, and to choose intimacy over routine. And, I would recommend the book just for the stories Jaynes shares of her own encounters with God along the way, as well as the reminders of His incredible glory.

Most importantly, Jaynes calls for us to be more aware of God’s glory in our lives and in the world around us. For Jaynes, a sunbeam at dawn becomes an image of God’s face shining upon her. A lesson on ballroom dance with her husband becomes a lesson on trusting God’s leading in life’s surprises. And, in her first chapter here, a few minutes of silence away from busyness become a lesson in being still and knowing God.

You can find out more about Sharon Jaynes on her website or through Waterbrooks Multnomah.

[My thanks to Waterbook Multnomah for sending me a free review copy of A Sudden Glory in exchange for my honest opinion of the book.]