Trisha Priebe

This devotional collection should have been right up my alley as a mystery fan, but it failed to meet my expectations. Most of the devotions were weak in application, which is really the whole point of a devotional. Each selection is headed by a short quotation from one of the Holmes stories or novels. It seemed reasonable to expect that the story quoted from would be related to that meditation, so I made an effort to read the Holmes story before reading its connected meditation. I soon discovered that some of the devotions are connected to a different story than the one from which the quotation is drawn. Some of the beginning quotations are drawn from previously used stories, so at this point I’ve only read about half of the Holmes canon. (Actually, I listened to LibriVox recordings for most of them.) I’m enjoying it so much that I’m going to finish the rest of the stories.… (altro)

I was provided a copy of this book by the publisher and Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

"The king is growing old and is concerned about who will replace him. His new wife wants to produce an heir to the throne. The only problem? The king’s first wife gave birth to a son, and no one knows for sure what happened to him. Rumors swirl throughout the castle. The solution is simple: dispose of all orphans in the kingdom. Except, it isn’t that easy. Avery and her friends won’t go quietly. And what they’ve discovered could blow the kingdom apart."

The Glass Castle proved to be a great late middle grade/early YA read. Netgalley has listed it as "middle grades", however, I've included early YA readers due to the mild romantic overtures between several of the characters and the fact that the book does include the death of a very minor character. Throughout the book, I got the sense that even though the main set of characters are 13 years old (this is mentioned clearly several times) they talk, act, and respond as older children. Having teenagers myself, I would have put their age to be more along the line of 15-16 years old. This bothered me somewhat, as the book is being published as a work of religious fiction. As a Christian mother, I would prefer books geared towards my 13 year old to have little to NO romance and was surprised it was included in a religious fiction book for that age group. It would be more appropriate if the teens in the book were slightly older.

As for the religious aspects of the book, I felt that for the most part they were included in the book in a great way without feeling forced or awkward.

The plot of the book is fast paced with quite a few suspenseful scenes that kept me on the edge of my seat and made for a very long night of reading, as I was having trouble putting the book down.

Overall, I felt that even despite the slight oddity of the characters ages versus their behavior, I enjoyed the book immensely and look forward to reading the next in the series.… (altro)