God Gave Us the World ~ Review

There aren't too many things better than having little ones in your lap and reading a story to them...when it is your grandchild well that is the ultimate!! :) Rylee and I enjoyed reading God Gave Us the World Over and Over! What a wonderful book this is! I HIGHLY recommend this to any and all! It is one that will forever be in my library!!

It is time for a FIRST Wild Card Tour book review! If you wish to join the FIRST blog alliance, just click the button. We are a group of reviewers who tour Christian books. A Wild Card post includes a brief bio of the author and a full chapter from each book toured. The reason it is called a FIRST Wild Card Tour is that you never know if the book will be fiction, non~fiction, for young, or for old...or for somewhere in between! Enjoy your free peek into the book!

You never know when I might play a wild card on you!

Today's Wild Card author is:

Lisa Tawn Bergren

and the illustrator:

Laura J. Bryant

and the book:

God Gave Us The World

WaterBrook Press (January 11, 2011)

***Special thanks to Staci Carmichael, Marketing and Publicity Coordinator, Doubleday Religion / Waterbrook Multnomah / Divisions of Random House, Inc. for sending me a review copy.***

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Lisa Tawn Bergren is the award-winning author of nearly thirty titles, totaling more than 1.5 million books in print. She writes in a broad range of genres, from adult fiction to devotional. God Gave Us Love follows in Lisa’s classic tradition of the best-selling God Gave Us You. She makes her home in Colorado, with her husband, Tim, and their children, Olivia, Emma, and Jack.


Visit the author's website.

ABOUT THE ILLUSTRATOR:

Laura J. Bryant studied painting, printmaking, and sculpture at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore. She has illustrated numerous award-winning children’s books, including God Gave Us You, Smudge Bunny, and If You Were My Baby. Laura lives in Asheville, North Carolina.

Visit the illustrator's website.

Product Details:

List Price: $10.99
Reading level: Ages 4-8
Hardcover: 40 pages
Publisher: WaterBrook Press (January 11, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1400074487
ISBN-13: 978-1400074488

Also Available:

God Gave Us You
God Gave Us Two
God Gave Us Christmas
God Gave Us Heaven
God Gave Us Love
God Gave Us So Much – a limited three book treasury


AND NOW...THE FIRST FOUR PAGES...press the pictures to better view them:

The Pirate Queen ~ Review

Back of the Book:
Treasure is Found in the Most Unlikely Places
The envy of all her friends, wife and mother Saphora Warren is the model of southern gentility and accomplishment. She lives in a beautiful Lake Norman home, and has raised three capable adult children. Her husband is a successful plastic surgeon--and a philanderer. It is for that reason that, after hosting a garden party for Southern Living Magazine, Saphora packs her bags to escape the trappings of the picturesque-but-vacant life.
Saphora 's departure is interrupted by her husband Bender's early arrival home, and his words change her life forever. I'm dying.
Against her desires, Saphora agrees to take care of Bender as he fights his illness. They relocate, at his insistance, to their coastal home in Oriental-the same house she had chosen for her private getaway. When her idyllic retreat is overrun by her grown children, grandchildren, townspeople, relatives, and a precocious neighbor child, Saphora's escape to paradise is anything but the life she had imagined. As she gropes for evidence of God's presence amid the turmoil, can she discover the richest treasures come in surprising packages?

My Review:

Pirate Queen by Patricia Hickman is one of those books that for me, caused me great frustration, yet then I would turn the page and be filled with compassion, laugh and then grab the kleenex ~ ever read one of those? The marriage of Saphora & Bender Warren is unfortunately a very common one. Saphora leads an envious life. She is married to Dr. Warren Bender. Although it appears she "has it all" sadly that isn't the case at all! Bender has a wondering eye and Saphora knows it. She decides to leave her cheating husband and as she has her bags packed and ready to leave him he comes home early with news that he has brain cancer. For Saphora there wasn't a question of what she would do, no Saphora just took it in stride and handled it with the grace she had been known to do in most situations.
But, as in life, things don't always go the way we think they will nor do they appear to be what they are in our minds either.
The journey with cancer is never an easy one. The journey with infidelity isn't either. The Pirate Queen shares the joys and hardships of both these journeys and so much more.

I am thankful to have read this book and will recommend this one to soooo many. It is a beautiful story of Love, Family, Faith and seeking God in the most wonderful way.

Heartofabookworm gives Pirate Queen ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥


Thankyou Waterbrook Multnomah and the Blogging for Books program for allowing me this complimentary copy in exchange for my honest reveiw

Ipad App giveaway for all those who LOVE to cook!

My friend and fellow blogger Mikki @ The Not So Perfect housewife is hosting a giveaway! What is she offering you ask? Well, it is an app for your Iphone or Ipad

I just got an Ipad for Christmas and let me tell you.....I LOVE IT! I downloaded the Kindle app and put all of my books onto my Ipad. WOW. I have to say the Ipad is sooo much nicer because it is in color as well as it puts all my books in alphabetical order! The Screen is bigger as well !!! Seriously, I can't say enough about how much I love it!!

The IPad/ITouch APP Mikki is offering as a giveaway is the How to cook anything It sells for $9.99 on Itunes!

Hop on over and enter :) There is going to be 3 yes THREE winners!!

Free Christian Fiction Downloads for your Kindle

Happy Friday everyone! Wanted to pass along some Freebies. These are free downloads from Amazon for your Kindle and some of these books are available for the Ipad or Nook as well !!


Go here for Justice Game



The Potluck Club! Go here



For Happily Ever After go here


This a an awesome series of books!! I've read every one of them. This is the 1st in the Series and I rate this a definite ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ Go here for Danger in the Shadows


Terri Blackstock is awesome isn't she! I look forward to reading this one for sure! Go here


Deeper Water go here



Last but certainly not least: Love on a Dime here




Have a blessed weekend! Happy Reading

What are you reading this week?

A New Year! A new list of books to read....Just makes me giddy thinking about it ~ doesn't it you?



Shelia with bookjourney hosts Mondays what are you reading? Join in and share what's on your list this week :)


This week are all Review books for later this month!

The Pirate Queen ~ started this one yesterday


Cannot wait to get into this one!


This one sounds like it will be awesome too!



There ya go! So what's on your list this week??



Happy Reading everyone!

What are your Favorites this year?

Jamie from the PerpetualPageTurner has this awesome End of the Year Book Survey going on @ Her Blog

1. Best book of 2010? WOW!! This is almost too difficult to answer having read some really AWESOME books this year!
I would have to say.......Crossing Oceans by Gina Holmes



2. Worst book of 2010?
Indivisible By Kristen Heitzmann


3. Most Disappointing Book of 2010?
Nothing really disappointed me this year :)

4. Most surprising (in a good way!) book of 2010?
Lynette Eason's Women of Justice Series books. When I got this book for review I honestly put off reading it based on the cover. It did not look like one that would be good AT ALL! Finally, the time came and I picked it up. Suffice it to say....It was one I could NOT put down


5. Book you recommended to people most in 2010?

Crossing Oceans by Gina Holmes
Choosing To See by Mary Beth Chapman
Patrick Bowers Files by Steven James
Devil in Pew Number Seven by Rebecca Alonzo
Nudge by Leonard Sweet
Outlive your Life by Max Lucado
Predator by Terri Blackstock
Texas Roads and A Path Less Traveled by Cathy Bryant


6. Best series you discovered in 2010?
Patrick Bower Files by Steven James
Women of Justice Series by Lynette Eason
Prescription for Trouble by Dr. Richard Mabry


7. Favorite new authors you discovered in 2010?
Honestly I was RIDICULOUSLY sheltered in my reading! I practically ONLY read Karen Kingsbury before I started reviewing books. NOW.... I am sooooo thankful to have found soooo many NEW phenomenal authors! To name just a few.....

Cathy Bryant
Steven James
Lynette Eason
Terri Blackstock
Richard Mabry
Lisa Tawn Bergren
Billy Coffey



8. Most hilarious read of 2010?
Don't know that I could say "Hilarious" so how about cute/sweet? That would be either:
Christmas @ Harringtons by Melody Carlson
~OR~
Two Tickets to the Christmas Ball by Donita K. Paul

Both Christmas stories :) Hmmm, that's is funny huh!



9. Most thrilling, unputdownable book in 2010?
The Bishop by Steven James


10. Book you most anticipated in 2010?
Unlocked and Take Four by Karen Kingsbury



11. Most memorable character in 2010?
Patrick Bowers



12. Most beautifully written book in 2010?
Crossing Oceans by Gina Holmes


13. Book that had the greatest impact on you in 2010?
Under the Overpass by Mike Yankoski


Thanks Jamie :) This was fun to reflect on all I had read this past year. I am sooo very thankful to be able to read and review sooo many amazing books and meet others who share the love of reading and blogging as well! My family has been reading more as well and that always makes a momma happy :)

What about you? What were your Favorites this year???

Facelift ~ Review

About the book:

Kaye Redmond, a "can do" kind of woman, has the magical touch when it comes to staging houses to attract buyers. Her ability to make things "perfect" has served her well in her career. If only it could transform her personal life as well. With a failed marriage, an angry teenage daughter, and an ex-mother-in-law who is no fairy godmother, Kaye's life is about as imperfect as it gets.

But sometimes.....


Blessings come in the strangest packages. Like her ex-mother-in-law landing on Kaye's doorstep after a botched facelift. Could caring for the impossible woman help Kaye get what she wants most: her husband back? Isn't that what God would want and what her daughter needs? But no fairy princess ever faced such obstacles: and ex-husband's surgically enhanced mistress, hormonal teenagers, and -- worst of all-- an extra handsome prince! How's a woman supposed to find happily-ever-after with all that going on?

My Review:

I have to say I had a love/hate relationship with this story line. The story of Kaye Redmond caring for her ex-mother-in-law was more than frustrating for me to read. Marla (the ex-mother-in-law) is verbally abusive & very condescending to say the least. Cliff, Kaye's ex-husband and Marla's son, manipulates Kaye into caring for HIS mother after she has a botched facelift. Kaye wants nothing more than to have Cliff come home and have her family back together so she is willing to do anything to make that happen. (And I mean ANYTHING!) At times, I thought the book should have been titled "The things we do for love!"

Izzie, Kaye's daughter is going through her typical teenage years but even Izzie sees clearly that her mother needs to stand up for herself when it comes to her grandmother as well as her Father. Izzie has a great heart and as the storyline unfolds, she matures into a precious young woman and her relationship with her mother becomes quite special.

Jack, a man who needs Kaye's assistance to "stage" his home so he can get it ready to sell. Jack is very handsome and quite charming! He knows all the right things to do and to say, but she wants her ex back afterall ....right??


Facelift, I would have to say is a story of finding yourself. Each character, from Kaye all the way to Marla are in a place that they don't quite know what or who they are, or that life's hurts have taken over and their behavior clearly shows that! They think they know who they are and for some, they think they are doing what God would want. This Journey takes this family on a path to finding out some things about themselves, some things about life as well as reminding themselves who they are in Christ instead of who the world thinks they are.

Facelift is a good read and one that reminds us that no matter what changes and challenges life brings us the only constant is the Lord. HIS Love is Unconditional! HE is with us ALWAYS and will NEVER leave us.

Heart of a Bookworm rates this ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

Thanks to Julie @ B&H books for this complimentary copy in exchange for my honest review!
For more information, visit pureenjoyment.com OR leannaellis.com