Agents of the Apocalypse

Rarely do I read anything unfolding the book of Revelation that helps me understand what it is all about.  This book however, does just that. It is subtitled A Riveting Look at the Key Players of the End Times which describes it well.  Dr. David Jeremiah has laid out the major themes in Revelation that we all know of but may not understand well.  This book is arranged so that each chapter begins with a story for the prophecy that makes the subject matter more real.  The author then follows that story with a section he calls “The Scripture Behind the Story” in which he brings to light the real-world application of each end-times prophecy.  All of the key players are here, from The Exile to The Two Witnesses to The Dragon, The Victor , The Judge, and more.  This is a chilling call to awareness and accountability.  The thought comes to mind that this is Revelation for Dummies-and I say that with all due respect.  This book gives the reader no reason to think that they cannot understand what is happening in the Revelation as given to John the Apostle on the Isle of Patmos;  which also calls us to let no excuse keep us from fulfilling the Great Commission, as we are commanded to do.  Agents of the Apocalypse is a call to be ready for the end times.  I give this book five stars!

Visit Dr. Jeremiah at his website David Jeremiah.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher, Tyndale in exchange for my honest review.  These words are my opinion.

Escape Under the Kenyan Moon

Carol Myrick has truly been tested and refined.  God has a way of doing that when you seek Him out for total dependence on His strength.  She was a typical mid-western young woman at a large University during the time the story she relates to us took place.  She tells of meeting a man she fell in love with, and continued to love for many years, even through the nightmare of domestic abuse.  This is her life simply and beautifully written much as she would tell you if you were sitting down to have coffee with her.  The beginning of what would eventually be her Escape Under a Kenyan Moon was really in 1976, when she met her future husband.  Carol writes with a clarity and completeness that can only come from personal experience.  She met and fell in love with Otieno Habembe while they were students at O.S.U.  Otieno came from Sigulu Island, a small primitive island in Lake Victoria in East Africa.  He was given a UN scholarship to come to America to study and obtain a degree, which he did in Food Science and Nutrition.  She married him causing a rift between her and her family.  They moved to Africa and he accepted a job at Kenya Canners, a company owned by DelMonte.  All was well for a time and then his growing dissatisfaction eventually evolved into physical abuse of Carol.  She continued to love him and hope that he would not release his temper on her.  She realized, through the candid and loving declarations from close friends, that she must leave or she would lose her life.  She began to pray and God began to work.  Through a series of truly miraculous events, her friends, an American couple who were missionaries, helped her obtain all necessary paperwork to leave the country in an unbeliveable 48 hours, and this was no easy task!  Only with God's divine intervention was she able to take her children and board a plane to come back home.  Her flight from Africa came in March of 1982.  This is a heart-wrenching account of heartbreak and hope, of despair and miracles.  Escape Under the Kenyan Moon is easy to read and written with everything necessary to complete the story for the reader, making it a truly good book.  I wholly recommend you pick this up and read it.  I give Escape Under the Kenyan Moon five stars!
Visit Carol at her website Carol Myrick

Kill Alex Cross

James Patterson is a New York Times bestselling author.  I can see why.  This was my first experience with one of his novels.  Kill Alex Cross has the things that make a good political thriller.  It opens up with kidnapping, then leads into a terror plot.  Along the way we get to see the family drama of the main character, Alex Cross.  There are two separate story lines that are not interrelated but that does not hurt the plot line as a whole.  This book was easy to read but deep enough to be interesting.  Just what I like in a good read.  The copy I read was a loaner from a friend who reads pretty much all of James Patterson.  I will be reading more of his work.  I enjoyed seeing how the character of Alex was all cop but his human foibles were evident too.  That made him a likable person.  The drama is set in Washington D.C. which is a prime location for a political  thriller and just added to the excitement.  I enjoyed this book and I give Kill Alex Cross five stars!  If you have not read it, you should.  I highly recommend!

Keys to Successful Living by Derek Prince

If I could re-name this book I would call it, Getting Back to Basics.  Derek Prince has shown us how to study the Word deeply, and yet simply.  In this age of getting more and better, he takes us to the Scripture in a way that encourages the reader to simply take it the way it is written. The keys he speaks of are taken from the book of Hebrews.  For example, Key number 3, "Let Us Hold Fast Our Confession",  is taken from Hebrews 4:14 which says, "Since then we have a great High Priest which has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession.  Stand by your confession and do not be distracted by the many choices in the world.  Or, Key number 1, "Let Us Fear,"  from Hebrews 4:1, Therefore, let us fear lest, while a promise remains, any one of you should seem to have come short of it.  The author relates it this way, "This is the attitude of reverent respect for God and His requirements.  Let me be clear: This is not slavish fear-God has not given us a spirit of slavish fear.  Instead, this is an attitude of reverence and respect for God, the opposite of self-confidence and presumptuousness..."
This is a well written book, with good information.  It is simple and timely in this age of choices and distractions we find ourselves in;  even within the church.  We have "boatloads" of books that interpret the Word for us, tell us what it means, tell us how to live it out every day, tell us how to apply it, tell us how to get motivated and "on fire for the Lord,"  tell us what the writer meant when he said such and such a verse, help us with context, describe the culture in the world when a certain book of the Bible was written, who it was written for.  Honestly, need I go on?  Everything we need is already there.  It is not rocket science, our Heavenly Father made sure of that.  God has preserved his Word through the generations so that even today, we may read it and understand.  We sometimes over-analyze in our zeal to obtain the most accurate meaning from a verse, from God's Word as a whole.  I recommend you get this book, clear your mind and just read it.  It is a much needed and refreshing read.  I give Keys To Successful Living five stars!

I was given a copy of this book from the publisher, Chosen, free of charge, in return for my honest review.  These words are my opinion.

The Story Keeper by Lisa Wingate

Jen Gibbs is a successful editor at Vida House publishing in New York.  She has just taken this job and is looking forward to continued success.  A manuscript mysteriously appears on her desk that she tries not to read, but cannot keep herself from looking at it.  It is twenty years old and she is certain that it comes from the “slush mountain”, a huge pile of unsolicited manuscripts that are destined never to be published.  As she begins to read, she becomes aware that it is from the Appalachian Mountains that she was raised in and called home until she went to college.  As she is drawn into the story, only eight chapters are in the manila envelope with no author’s name, she feels compelled to find the author and read the rest of the book and possibly get it published.  She makes a convincing plea to her boss, the intrepid George Vida.  Off she goes to the mountains, perilously close to her hometown where her family still lives.  She is in pursuit of just a few minutes of time with the man whom she believes to be the author of the novel.  The ensuing happenings that take place during her stay are the meat of the story.  The Story Keeper is filled with the connection between her past and the history of the characters in the manuscript.  Jen is pulled into the story of Sarra, a mixed-race Melungeon girl and Rand Champlain, the preacher who takes her safety to heart, which is also the heart of the story.  It was difficult for me to get into this book at the start.  It is an interweaving of the old manuscript and Jen’s modern day story.  The Blue Ridge dialect was difficult for me to read and understand.  I felt myself losing interest since I was not getting the full meaning from the parts with the dialect in them.  The hook came for me several chapters in when the story became personal for Jen.  As I read on, the dialect became easier and the writing more compelling so that, by the end of the book I was thoroughly involved and ended the story with a lump in my throat.  An excellent story, well told was my reward for staying with it.  Lisa Wingate has also given us a profound glimpse into the lives of the Appalachian people.  I give The Story Keeper four stars!

I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher Tyndale, in exchange for my honest review.  These words are my opinion.

The Secret Life of Bees

Novels set in the south in times past are one of my favorite types of novels to read.  The Secret Life of Bees is just that.  Lily Owens is a motherless child.  She has foggy memories of the late afternoon her mother was killed.  Who she is and what her life is about is shaped by viewing that tragic end to her mother's life.  She is left with a father who is steeped in bitterness and cannot let go of the past.  Lily's story takes place in South Carolina in 1964.  Racial tension abounds with integration having been recently legislated, but not accepted in Sylvan, North Carolina; as in most of the South.  Lily's father has a black female employee whom he has handed over Lily's daily care to.  She insults the most racist man in Sylvan and is thrown in jail.  Lily decides that she and Rosaleen must escape.  She plots Rosaleen's escape from the hospital after being beaten by the man she insulted.  They run to Tiburon, S.C.  There is where Lily finds her mother's history and is taken in by an eccentric family of female beekeepers.  She lives and works with them and they employ Rosaleen as well.  Sue Monk Kidd is the author of this tale and she spins it well.  It seems just like the type of thing that could have happened and she writes is with a grace and beauty that make this book a good read.  The author does a good job of describing the interaction between characters as well as their surroundings.  Describing Lily's thought she writes "Sunset is the saddest light there is.  We rode a long time in the glow of it, everything silent except for the crickets and the frogs who were revving up for twilight.  I stared through the windshield as the burned lights took over the sky."   I can imagine being in that scene.  This book is a good escape but still has an absorbing story line.  If you haven't read it, pick it up and do so.  I recently took this on vacation to read and it was an excellent choice.  Five stars for The Secret Life of Bees.  FYI, this has been made into a movie also, so you can read and then watch, or vice versa, whichever you like.

Stay tuned for my next review on the newest release from Lisa Wingate, The Story Keeper.  See you soon!
Jeri~

With Every Breath

With Every Breath will leave you breathless!  That is no exaggeration.  From the cover, this book looks like a mild romance-not that the cover isn’t beautiful.  It is.  However, it belies the intrigue, mystery and passion that are between the pages of this book.  Simply put, I loved it!  Kate Livingston is a government worker in Washington D.C. and she is hoping that she can someday do work that fits her intelligence and talent.  Never able to attend college, she helps out at her parent’s boarding house when not working her day job at a government census bureau.  She accepts a job working for her old high school rival whom she had hoped to never see again.  He has become a doctor and she cannot turn down the opportunity to do important work helping him find a cure for tuberculosis.  Need I say more?!  I will leave you to watch this story unfold.  A word to the wise; set aside a few uninterrupted days to read this.  Seriously!  I finished it in three days and that was because I could only put it down to sleep-and barely that!  Ms. Camden writes with a style that makes reading an easy enjoyable journey while at the same time having the ability to write complications to the plot that are a natural outcome of the characters’ personalities and quirks.  The story fits the characters that she draws-she knows her story, fits her characters to that story and transports the reader to that time and place.  This was my first time to read a novel by this author but it will not be my last.   Well done, Ms. Camden!  I give With Every Breath five stars!

I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher, Bethany House, in exchange for my honest review.  These words are my opinion.