"Setting Time Free" by Sarah Everest

Each installment in the Untouched serial series is more taut and exciting than the last!

Breaking Triviality was a fun adventure.  Sifting Through Chaos turned serious fast.  And Setting Time Free was so suspenseful that I read the second half of the book in one sitting!

In this third and final installment, modern-day teens Marit and Cas are still trying to help 1940s Dutch teen Anneliese and a few new friends survive in newly occupied Rotterdam.  The Nazis have overrun the city and are an ever-present menace.  Anneliese's new friend Bastiaan and his resistance buddies try to help Marit and Cas find the mysterious locket that could return them to their own time.  But there are enemies on all sides, more even than Marit and Cas really realize.

Even more so than Sifting Through Chaos, this book brought to life the heartbreak and horror of war.  There are on-page deaths and some realistic descriptions of the struggle to find food and remain humane in the midst of scrabbling for survival.

As a whole, this serialized trilogy is a thrilling, suspenseful adventure story for teens that I very much enjoyed.

This book releases on Tuesday, August 11. I was privileged to be selected to read an advance copy from the publisher, but I was not requested or required to review the book; all opinions are my own.

Particularly Good Bits:

It was as though someone had cut a hole in my stomach and pulled everything out, leaving me a hollow cocoon, my butterfly soul having flown off to chase the light of my handsome prince (Marit, chapter four).

It would have been easy to slip back into the fearful girl I had once been, but I was not that girl anymore.  I had walked through the fire and felt the devil nipping at my heels.  And despite all the evil we had witnessed, the words Betje had sent us off with rang true.  The Lord was with us, no matter how dark the night (Annelies, chapter eight).

He had stepped out of the pages of my life as quickly as he had entered them, leaving the story unfinished (Annelies, chapter seventeen).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-13 for wartime violence, including on-page shootings and death.  No cussing or smut.

"Sifting Through Chaos" by Sarah Everest

Book two in the Untouched series picks right up where book one (Breaking Triviality) left off.  That's a great thing about a serialized series -- you aren't left wondering what happened between books!  I appreciate that.

In Sifting Through Chaos, modern-day teens Marit and Cas have time-traveled back to 1940s Rotterdam right when the Nazis were overrunning the Netherlands.  They meet Annelies and her family (who were in the split-time first book too) and work together to escape the bombings and take shelter at the family's farm cottage outside the city.  But that cottage isn't meant for living in, and they must find another solution.  

Along the way, they've acquired an elderly woman and an orphaned toddler to care for as well.  That gives Sifting Through Chaos some found-family elements, which I always appreciate.  The bulk of the book is about figuring out how to keep these people safe while also searching for a way to get Marit and Cas back to their own time.

Marit has had a crush on Cas for years, and she finds her feelings growing deeper as she gets to know him.  Cas has a girlfriend back home in their own time, but they have been drifting apart for a long time, and he begins to wonder if he should break things off with her if/when they return to the present.  This is partly because he is developing feelings for Marit, but also because he realizes his girlfriend is not someone he wants to spend the rest of his life with.  Meanwhile, Annelies realizes she is falling for her knew Dutch soldier friend Bastiaan.  All of this is handled with believable teenage emotions and ways of thinking.

Sifting Through Chaos doesn't end on quite as much of a cliffhanger as Breaking Triviality did, but it definitely makes me eager to read book three, Setting Time Free, which will release in August.

This book releases next Tuesday, July 14. I was privileged to be selected to read an advance copy from the publisher, but I was not requested or required to review the book; all opinions are my own.

Particularly Good Bits:

So many crushed dreams were scattered around my feet (Cas, chapter nine).

...there was just no right way to tell a three-year-old phoenix she would rise from the ashes and become the best, warmest, most understanding grandma a girl could ever ask for (Marit, chapter twenty-one).

Tears of defeat threatened to overflow, but a surprising defiance welled up inside me.  I wouldn't give the enemy the pleasure of stealing my hope (Annelies, chapter twenty-eight).

My entire world had been shuffled into ruin and nightmares (Annelies, chapter thirty).

Minutes ticked by to the steady rhythm of our feet (Cas, chapter thirty-five).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It:  PG-13 for wartime violence and an incident where a German soldier attempts to haul away a teenage girl and rape her (the word 'rape' is not used, but his intentions are clear, as is her growing fear of what could happen).  No gore, no bad language, and no smut.  

"Of Pastries and Vengeance" by Amber Lambda and Lydia Mae

Another great addition to the Games of Greed and Ruin series!  Of Pastries and Vengeance focuses on one character from the first book, One Must Die, plus adds a new character, while also expanding the world in which the series is set.

If you read One Must Die, you probably remember Maple, the sweet baker whose peach scones gained her several friends, though they didn't convince quite everyone in the deadly Sky Manor game that she was a good person. As I recall, several people were sure she was not as pure and uncomplicated as she wanted to appear.

And they were right.  Maple has a big secret: she may bake delicious cinnamon rolls and peach scones and other bakery delights now, but she was once a notorious and feared member of the city's underground no-holds-barred prize fighting circles.  Not only that, but she believes her father was murdered during one of those illegal fights.

Maple meets Rory Evander, a brand-new law enforcement officer who is intent on capturing a killer.  No matter who that killer may be.  Rory and Maple team up, albeit with reluctance on both their parts, and begin hunting for clues.  And start to develop feelings for each other in the process, as you might expect.

Since I love a good murder mystery, I really enjoyed this.  There were enough surprises to keep me guessing and enough clues to keep me satisfied.  I look forward to seeing where these two characters end up in the next book.

Like the other books in this series, this is Christian fiction, though the Christian themes are maybe a bit less overt in this than in some of the books.

This book WILL make you hungry...

Particularly Good Bits:

I cringed.  This guy was going to stick out like a burnt tea biscuit (p. 31).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-13 for scenes of hand-to-hand violence and non-gory descriptions of murder.  No smut and no cussing.

"Breaking Triviality" by Sarah Everest

Are you fascinated by abandoned places?  I know many people are, including me.  I love looking at photos of them online, and even have several coffee table books about specific kinds of abandoned places, such as Old West ghost towns.  But I've never had the temerity (or good opportunity) to explore inside abandoned places... except one.  Which I'll share photos of at the end of this post.

Three of the characters in Breaking Triviality by Sarah Everest are "urban explorers" -- they like to explore abandoned buildings.  While some people enter abandoned places because they want to hide a criminal activity, or because they want to deface someone else's property with spray paint or whatever, urban explorers are different.  They're usually motivated by curiosity about the past, or by the thrill of seeing places that are rarely entered by others, or simply by the desire to explore.  

Marit and Zander's parents encourage their teens to plan adventures.  For Marti's 17th birthday, their parents let her plan a trip to the Netherlands to meet a famous urban explorer called Cas so he can show them around some amazing ruins in Rotterdam.  Marit and Zander have Dutch heritage, so they are eager to learn more about the land of their forebears.  Plus, Marit has had a crush on Cas for a long time, thanks to his YouTube videos.

That's what half of the book is about, because this is a split-time novel.  The other half is about a Dutch teen named Annelies who lives in Rotterdam in 1940, right when the Nazis are first occupying the Netherlands.  We get to see her living in and visiting buildings that, in the present day, those urban explorers are wandering around as abandoned spaces.  Annelies's mother has died, her father is at a loss as to how to deal with the invasion, and her brother is angry about everything, but especially about not being allowed to join the Dutch military.  Some Dutch soldiers are quartered in their large home, and Annelies makes friends with one of them, bonding over a dangerous situation he helps her with.

And, at the very end of the book, time travel enters the picture.  I quite enjoy time travel stories, so I am excited to see what happens to these teens next, in both eras!  Sarah Everest draws realistic teens who are more than halfway to adulthood but still sometimes do heedless or immature things, like all the real teens I know.  The urge to show off for someone you have a crush on, the inner conflict between trying to find out if someone likes you and not wanting to know just in case you'll get rejected, the desire to be seen as capable and mature even when you're not sure if you're either one -- those all made these teens feel very real and likeable.

Also, I'm half Dutch, so I really loved all the Dutch words, food, and history woven into the book!

This is the first book in a trilogy of Christian YA novellas, and it releases next week, June 16.  I was privileged to be selected to read an advance copy from the publisher, but I was not requested or required to review the book; all opinions are my own.

Particularly Good Bits:

But for some reason -- only understood by every single girl who has ever met their semi-celebrity crush in person and been one hundred percent overwhelmed by how exactly he met every expectation -- I couldn't make my mouth form words. (Marit, chapter one)

A shiver zipped through my body, but it was the good type, like when a song is so entirely right on every level that the hairs on my arms stand on end. (Marit, chapter six)

For the life of me, I had no idea how, in one day's time, I'd gone from being a politely behaved young lady to sneaking out of my house without permission during a war, making friends with the neighborhood witch, aiding an enemy soldier, and flirting with a young man I barely knew.  (Annelies, chapter twelve)

Her cool palm reminded me of an old saying of my oma's about how cold hands represent a warm heart. (Annelies, chapter nineteen)

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-10 for some scary wartime scenes, light descriptions of a wartime wound, and a tense chase scene.

Now, about that ruin I have explored!  It's called the Chapman-Beverley Mill, and it stands beside a highway at the edge of my county here in Virginia.  It was a grist mill built in 1742, and it ground grain to make flour for the US Army for every war from the American Revolution on through Desert Storm... and then some villainous villain set fire to it in 1998 and burnt the whole thing down.  Except its stone exterior.

The mill site is currently closed to visitors because they are doing some stabilization and restoration to the structure, but we have visited it a couple of times, years ago, when it was open and you could just wander around inside the mill, plus a couple of outbuildings.  (How long ago?  Well, the two little tykes you see in the above photo are now 14 and 16...)

It's so amazing to see this piece of history in person, even though knowing that it could still be operational and useful breaks my heart.  

I don't have lots of photos from this that don't show my kids' faces, but here's one -- I'm stepping in through that doorway where you can see my husband standing in the second photo, and he and two of our kiddos are already inside.  

Obviously, we weren't exactly doing "urban exploring" because this place was open for people to check out when we went there, with a parking lot and signs explaining the history of the mill, what different buildings and objects were used for, and so on.  But it's the closest I've come.

"A Name to Remember" by Hannah Hood Lucero

This is my first Hannah Hood Lucero book, but it definitely will not be my last!  Wow.  I get the hype now, fam.

Compelling and befriend-able characters?

Check.

Alluring North Carolina small town setting?

Check.

Horses?

Check.

High, yet believable, stakes?

Check.

Suspenseful climax?

Check.

Made me cry multiple times for happy and poignant reasons both?

Check.

Made me laugh aloud?

Check.

Yup, I'm a fan :-D

(I've actually met Hannah, and she is a whimsically maniacal delight to hang out with, so I was already a fan of her as a person before this, but now I am a fan of her writing as well...)

High school senior Isobel Lee gets recognized everywhere she goes, but not for a happy or fun reason: her Army medic dad recently died in combat overseas, and strangers and acquaintances alike all want to either thank her for her family's sacrifice or tell her all the reasons they disagree with American military operations like the one that killed her dad.

Isobel and her mom move in with her grandmother in a small North Carolina town.  Gran owns horses and is a sass-master extraordinaire, but also sweet and kind and warm and everything a grandma should be.  

Her first day at her new high school, Isobel makes friends with Hank Olsen, though she doesn't realize who he is when she befriends him.

Hank Olsen is also famous in their small town, but not for good reasons either.  His dad went to prison for murder and his mom is a druggie, and Hank is considered to be trailer trash just like his parents.  But that's not what Isobel doesn't realize about him -- she doesn't realize at first that he is the sweet boy she got an instant crush on five years earlier, when she and her parents were visiting Gran one summer.

Isobel and Hank both feel sparkage toward each other, but they first build a solid friendship before moving on to holding hands and kissing and inviting all the warm fuzzies of young love into their lives.  They both have some emotional issues to grapple with, and some real-world problems as well.

This small NC town is plagued with fires every winter, and the fires all seem linked to Hank somehow.  Most of the town suspects he's a firebug, and when new fires break out, soon there are people calling for his arrest or banishment or both.

Man, this book was so good!  I inhaled it in just a few days, and now I want to read Lucero's book Cathey's Creek Road, which is also YA and also set in the same basic area.  In fact, I ordered a copy as soon as I finished A Name to Remember, so it should be hitting my doorstep pretty soon!

One quick theological note: there's definitely some decision-based theology in this book, which some of my readers will want to be aware of.

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-13 for violence, portrayal of mental illness in teens (including self-harm and violence toward others), mentions of military violence and PTSD, and romantic yearning between teens that acknowledges temptation/desire to do more than kiss.  No cussing; no smut; no gory violence.

"The Least" -- My New Story in "Sparkler"

Are you or someone you know on the hunt for clean fiction that is appropriate for teen readers?  If so, then you definitely need to check out Sparkler, a brand-new online magazine!  Sparkler is devoted to connecting readers in search of clean YA fiction with authors who write exactly that.

Authors like me :-)

In fact, I have a flash-fiction story in their debut issue, which dropped today!  It's all about a young man striking out on his own who has taken what he was told is a shortcut, and he finds something unexpected along his chosen trail... something that forces him to make a difficult decision.  It's called "The Least," and you can read it right here. 

My short story is historical fiction, a cozy Christian western just like you'd expect from me :-)  But there are lots of genres represented in this magazine, including fantasy, contemporary, and sci-fi.

"Or Give Me Death" by Ann Rinaldi

Whoa.  How is it I've never read an Ann Rinaldi book before?  I guess our small-town library must just not have had any of her books, even though her first book was published the year I was born, because I would have devoured everything of hers I could find.  Historical fiction has been my jam for as long as I can remember, and I read all the historical fiction in the teen section of our library.  Sometimes repeatedly.

Well, you can bet her books are going to show up on this blog after this.

Or Give Me Death is a novelizational look at several very hard years in Patrick Henry's family life, seen through the eyes of two of his daughters.

Did you know Patrick Henry's first wife battled mental illness?  Did you know the family had to eventually lock her up in a suite of rooms they set up in the basement so she couldn't harm the children or herself?

I mean, this sounds like something out of a Charlotte Brontë novel.  Except it's totally true.  While reading Or Give Me Death, I kept looking things up and discovering that, yup, that new-to-me sad or strange fact was true.  Over and over.

The first section of the book is told from the perspective of Patrick Henry's eldest daughter, Patsy.  It begins in 1771, with Patsy gradually realizing her mother is mentally unstable and becoming dangerous.  It shows how much weight descends on Patsy's shoulders as she has to take over mothering her younger siblings and running the household.  She grows up very quickly once they have to confine her mother Sarah, and marries young.  She and her new husband take over running the family estate because Patrick Henry is often away either practicing law or debating revolutionary things with other important leaders.

The second half begins in 1773 and is from the perspective of a younger daughter, Anne.  Anne resents how bossy Patsy has become, resents being told she must grow up and stop living as a carefree child, and resents how many secrets she must keep for the various members of her family.  She has to grow up too quickly and suddenly, but unlike her sister, she has a harder time resigning herself to this.

I felt a lot of sympathy for both sisters, and wished often in the second half of the book that Rinaldi had not made Anne quite so stridently antagonistic toward Patsy.  They are both enduring a really hard reality, as are the rest of the members of the family.  I'm not sure how much of the sibling discord is factual, though I do know that there's a note at the end from Rinaldi saying that Patrick Henry and his family left very little by way of a paper trail, so she had to work mostly from things written about them by their relatives and friends and contemporaries, and extrapolate a lot from what would be common parts of life in Colonial and Revolutionary Virginia.  

While I found the sibling antagonism less than pleasant at times, I still very much enjoyed this book.  And I didn't find that antagonism unrealistic, I just... would have preferred less of it, because then the characters would have been happier, and I generally just want characters to find ways to be happy!  But that's not always realistic or feasible.

Particularly Good Bits:

Dark, unexplainable things happened all the time in the outlands of Virginia (p. 7).

"Ah, we all could do with a little divine vengeance at breakfast," Pa said.  "What better way to start the day?" (p. 51)

When do you keep a secret, and when do you tell?  Do you tell the truth, knowing it will hurt someone?  Or tell a lie to keep from hurting them?  How much does keeping it inside cost?  Eventually it will come out, won't it?  And hurt the person you are trying to protect, anyway (p. 117).

"Our family is broken, Anne.  It happens betimes with families.  So what we must do is know that while other families get to enjoy the whole, we can only enjoy the pieces.  But don't hold them too close.  broken pieces have edges and can hurt.  Look outside the family for your happiness" (p. 164).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-13 for some non-gory violence, scary scenes involving children in peril, descriptions of madness and mad behavior, talk of ghosts and 'second sight,' and a horribly cruel death inflicted on a slave girl (off-page and lightly described, but thoroughly awful).  Definitely a teen read, not for kids.

This has been my first book read from my #RevolutionaryWarReads list!

"The Golden Road" by L. M. Montgomery

My kids and I enjoyed The Story Girl so very much when I read it aloud to them last year that we decided to read the sequel together this year.  Happily, I still remembered all the voices I had given the characters, even though I had read a couple of other books aloud to them in between.

This was a lot of fun, and we laughed a great deal over the little magazine that the kids put together periodically, simply called Our Magazine.  We all looked forward to those chapters because they were sure to set us howling with laughter.  But there were poignant things here too, like the repeated foreshadowing that one character would not live long past childhood.  Happily, none of them died during the story, but you knew that one of them was going to in the next few years.

The ending is also bittersweet, as the gang of friends breaks up and goes their separate ways.

We need more children's books like this where it's just a lot of fun adventures had by a group of kids who are friends.  Nothing truly awful happens to them, or anything unbelievable.  They just get into and out of a bit of mischief here and there, have some adventures, have quarrels and make up, and so on.  I love slice-of-life books like this, and you never know, I might write one someday.

Particularly Good Bits: "Nothing is ever lost to us as long as we remember it" (p. 257).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: G.  Good, clean, wholesome fun.

This has been my 46th book read and reviewed for my fourth Classics Club list.  Getting so close to finishing off another set of fifty classics!!!

"Of Masquerades and Fame" by Candice Pedraza Yamnitz and Claire Kohler

Book three in the Games of Greed and Ruin series does not disappoint!

Of Masquerades and Fame picks up the story of two contestants from One Must Die, Camilla and Rupert.  After surviving the deathly games of the first book, Camilla has vowed to change her ways.  She no longer makes and sells poisons, but has a legitimate (if boring) job.  She and Rupert are tentatively heading toward getting engaged, but Camilla is worried that Rupert will feel ashamed for not being able to support a wife, and she thinks he might do something desperate to change his fortunes.  So she does something desperate instead:  she accepts an invitation to a masquerade ball from a man she knows is evil and wants to manipulate her into poisoning someone.

Meanwhile, Rupert has a big and important secret that he is hesitant to share with Camilla.  He worries that if she finds out he's not actually poor anymore, she'll only agree to marry him to get at his money.  He has to learn to trust her before he can propose -- and he is so far from trusting her, he's having her followed and all her activity reported on.

Both Camilla and Rupert have a lot of growing up to do over the course of this short book.  The bulk of the book takes place all in a single night, during the masquerade ball.  The story has lots of disguises and masks and secrets, a dangerous hedge maze, and a very stunning conclusion that left me eager for the next book in the series.

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-10 for some violent deaths (lightly described), lots of danger, and a scary hedge maze sequence.

"Comets Fade with Summer" by Amber Lambda

I didn't know quite what to expect from this book.  A teenage girl is falling in love with her imaginary best friend?  What?  I got it as a gift from a friend who was confident I would like it, and they were right!  I did.

Halley has to move to California right before she starts the next year of high school.  She'd worked so hard to fit in with the coolest girls in her old high school, and now she has to start all over... but how?  She's not actually cool herself, she's just really good at blending in and pretending she likes all the things the cool kids do.

Someone unexpected greets Halley when she gets to her new home: West, her childhood imaginary friend.  He's sixteen now too, and a compelling mixture of sweet, kind, supportive, and hot.  How is Halley supposed to resist West?  Too bad he only exists in her imagination, even if he seems extremely real to her.

This whole book reminded me a lot of a line from the 1995 movie Sabrina:  "Illusions are dangerous people.  They have no flaws."  West is everything Halley wants... because she made him up.  His only flaw is that he doesn't really exist, and he'll slowly fade when Halley makes some real friends.

The message in this book is really good: don't hide who you are in order to attract friends or significant others.  The middle section of it started to drag for me after a while, as Halley made unfortunate choice after unfortunate choice, but the pacing picked back up again at the end.

The last two chapters had me crying so much, I went through several Kleenex.  I had some very dear imaginary friends when I was a kid and a teen, and I brought a couple of them with me into adulthood.  (But I never fell in love with any of them, whew.)  The thought of having no choice about whether or not I could keep them was pretty devastating, so probably a lot of readers wouldn't be bawling like I was.

Particularly Good Bits: 

"Isn't it better to stick to the people and the things that make you shine brighter?  You don't have to fade away to find a place to fit in, Halley" (p. 29).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It:  PG-13 for scenes with teenage boys making girls feel uncomfortable, lightly described kissing, mention of teen make-out sessions, and a LOT of physical attraction to the opposite sex.  It is maybe a little more romantic than I would let my teen daughters read just yet, and they are 13 and 15.

"Of Clockworks and Daggers" by Sarah Everest

This is the second book in the Games of Greed and Ruin series -- the first was One Must Die, which Sarah Everest co-wrote with five other authors.

Of Clockworks and Daggers follows the adventures of Zenith, a young assassin-for-hire whose beliefs about his entire existence are challenged when he meets a mysterious fellow assassin who has a dangerous offer for him.  Zenith has been trying to live an honest life ever since the events at the mysterious sky mansion in One Must Die.  He's also been trying to help support the orphanage run the Jessie, the young woman he is falling in love with.  But he gets sucked back into his old life, and more is jeopardized than just his relationship with Jessie. 

This book ponders some pretty deep issues, like being the adult child of abusive parents, how to deal with the wrong in your past when you want to change for the better, and personal sacrifices big and small. It starts a little slowly, but builds to a really thrilling climax.

I really like the steampunk world of this series, a sort of Dickens-meets-H.G. Wells vibe with some fantasy twists here and there.  I'm looking forward to more of this series, including the next book, which drops in October!  

Particularly Good Bits:

Something about the pretentiousness of lawyers who live a life bending the law to fit the needs of their benefactors makes them believe they're untouchable.

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It:  PG for some violence, memories of child abuse, thieving, and a scary sequence involving fire.

"Chase the Legend" by Hannah Kaye

Chase the Legend by Hannah Kaye is a fantasy retelling of Moby-Dick by Herman Melville.  It's about a young woman signs on with a crew hunting a legendary dragon.  She makes new friends, faces new and old fears, and finally comes to terms with the fact that she's been fleeing her future as much as her past.  

It's a good shipboard adventure story, and the characters are unique and entertaining... but I never quite connected to any of them.  That might be just a me thing, as I have come to realize that I often just don't like extremely obsessive characters, and everyone in this book has some kind of obsession, obvious or not,  damaging or not.

Particularly Good Bits:

The lights of Edgewater floated in the fog like lost ghosts, wandering the night with no hope of shelter (p. 35).

"But you can't love someone hard enough to convince them they're worthy of love, not if they refuse to believe it themselves" (p. 152).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG for scenes of peril and some scary moments.

"Eldest" by Christopher Paolini

My reread of the Inheritance series stalled out for a while with this book, I'm afraid.  I think it could have been about 200 pages shorter, and it would have been a much stronger book.  Imagine if The Empire Strikes Back (1980) was three hours long, and a full hour of it was Luke and Yoda hanging out on Dagobah, and you get an idea of the pacing issues.

That aside, I do enjoy the fantasy world of Alegaesia.  And Eldest had lots and lots of time spent with Roran Stronghammer, who is my favorite character in the series.  I very much enjoyed all of his sections, especially since they moved forward at a relentless pace.  I do get that part of Eragon's character growth was learning to be patient and to stop wanting to be going and doing at all times... but I think we could have experienced that arc just as well with a lot fewer pages.

Particularly Good Bits:

If any honor existed in war, he concluded, it was in fighting to protect others from harm (p. 2).

"History provides us with numerous examples of people who were convinced that they were doing the right thing and committed terrible crimes because of it.  Keep in mind, Eragon that no one thinks of himself as a villain, and few make decisions they think are wrong.  A person may dislike his choice, but he will stand by it because, even in the worst circumstances, he believes that it was the best option available to him at the time.  On its own, being a decent person is no guarantee that you will act well" (p. 351).

"To have a child is the greatest honor and responsibility that can be bestowed upon any living being" (p. 362).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-13 for fantasy violence.  Nothing gory, but not suitable for small children.  I think it may have had one or two old-fashioned cuss words, too.  No smut.

"Rowan Farm" by Margot Benary-Isbert

Rowan Farm is the sequel to The Ark and continues the story of the Lechow family as they attempt to build new lives and a new home in post-war West Germany.  Informed on the author's own knowledge and experiences after WWII, these two books show the chaos and ruin of Germany after WWII, but also the courage and hope of the people who work together to make the country fit for life and love once more.  

The youngsters from The Ark all live at Rowan Farm by this point, and have acquired some new friends.  Margret and Matthias, the two oldest Lechows, both have some romantic misadventures, though one of them does find love and start making plans for a future marriage by the end of the book.  This book is a little less funny than the first one, but instead feels more poignant and contemplative.  That feels very natural, because most of the Lechow children are pretty well grown up by the end of it.

As you might expect from a book about life in post-World War II West Germany, many struggles are portrayed here.  A new schoolmaster comes to town, a veteran who lost an arm in the war.  He and his pupils try to build a home for displaced veterans out of an old farmhouse and meet with a lot of opposition.  Other war veterans come through the story, all weary and burdened with doubt and dread and remorse.  Some new characters are escapees from Communist East Germany.  

The book never discusses Nazis or the cause for the war, only the helpfulness of American occupation troops in getting Germany back to being good and productive again.  Benary-Isbert was German herself, and wrote the first draft of The Ark while sharing an apartment with two other families in West Germany after WWII.  Both it and Rowan Farm were completed in the USA after she moved there with her husband in the 1950s.

I read Rowan Farm out loud to my kids over the past couple of months, and it marks a first for us -- we started reading it immediately after finishing The Ark.  Usually, I read a different book in between books in a series, but none of us wanted to wait to get to this book.

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It:  PG-10 for discussions of death, loss, and suicide.  That all happens off-page, but is discussed by the characters.  No cussing, smut, or on-page violence.

This has been my 38th book read and reviewed for my 4th Classics Club list.

"What Comes of Attending the Commoners Ball" by Elisabeth Aimee Brown

This book is an absolute hoot!  Also, it made me hungry, particularly for cheese.  Repeatedly.  I already eat a lot of cheese, but I definitely was craving it more often than usual while reading this.  I hear this is a common side-effect of reading this book.  Brown probably should get a subsidy from the American Dairy Association for it or something.

This is basically a screwball Cinderella story.  Hester doesn't want to go to the Commoner's Ball to dance with one of the princes, she just wants to go so she can attend the banquet and get a really solid meal for once.  She's loving life in her country's capitol city, aside from the way everything costs way more than it did back home on her family's pig farm, how many rude and unpleasant people are around, and the fact that her only job prospects tend to involve sewing for hours and hours and hours.  But she's gradually saving up enough money to move her aging parents to the big city so they can stop working hard on their pig farm and start enjoying city life too.

But, of course, she ends up running into both Prince Hughbert and Prince Lucas at the ball.  And being pursued by both of them, though she's really not interested in either one.  At least, not at first.  It's pretty obvious which one she does like, and who she will end up with, but the fun comes in getting there.  

And it definitely is fun.  This is a quirky book that made me laugh aloud repeatedly, sometimes in public.  

However... I hated Prince Hughbert.  Loathed him.  It took me rather a long time to finish this book because, every time he showed up, I would have to put the book down.  Hugh is a trickster character, and I do not do well with tricksters.  Loki in the MCU?  It took me 5 movies to stop hating him, and then his Disney+ show ruined everything and made me hate him again.  Q on Star Trek: The Next Generation?  I avoid his episodes like the plague.  Puck from A Midsummer Night's Dream?  I would gladly fast-forward through all his scenes.  I Do Not Like Characters Who Make Things Difficult For Other People Just Because They Think It Is Funny.

This is not a judgment on Brown's writing!  This is purely a personal bugaboo that I have with a character archetype.  Most people do not have this issue with tricksters, judging by Loki's legions of fangirls.  So most people will probably gobble this book up in like 5 hours instead of taking more than a week to read it.  Despite me wanting to slap Hugh, throttle him, and duck tape his mouth shut, this will still get 5 stars from me.

Particularly Good Bits:

"People were meant to rely on each other.  Life is more than bargains" (p. 193).

"How did you fit all of those in one pocket?" I ask.  That's the sort of coat I need.  My cloak's pockets are irritatingly small (p. 252).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-13 for some innuendo involving repeated jokes and mentions of the fact that Hester's landlady thinks she intends to seduce one of the princes at the boarding house.  No actual smut, no bad language, no gore, no real violence.  But that running gag makes me not rate this totally family friendly.

Top Ten Tuesday: Spring Sprang Sprung

This week's Top Ten Tuesday prompt from That Artsy Reader Girl is "Books on My Spring 2025 To-Read List."  

I will freely confess that I am actively reading four of these books right now, which are marked with an asterisk.  I know I will definitely also read Before the King because it's my book club's next pick.  Also, I'm determined to read the Agatha Christie collection during the correct season.  The rest are things I'd like to read in the near future, but I'm a total mood reader, so some of them may simply get pushed off for another time.

Before the King by Heather Kaufman

The Number of Love by Roseanna M. White

A Rose in West Egg* by Storm Shultz

The Experiences of Loveday Brooke, Lady Detective by Catherine Louisa Pirkis

The Simple Art of Murder by Raymond Chandler

Sinister Spring by Agatha Christie

Eldest* by Christopher Paolini

Rowan Farm* by Margot Benary-Isbert

Holy Hygge: Creating a Place for People to Gather and the Gospel to Grow* by Jamie Erickson

Rembrandt in the Wind: Learning to Love Art Through the Eyes of Faith by Russ Ramsey

Did you share a Top Ten Tuesday list this week?  Have you read any of these?  Leave a comment and let me know!

"The Bronze Bow" by Elizabeth George Speare

I know I read this at least once as a teen.  I remembered basically none of it.  In fact, I actually misremembered things about it -- I thought it took place during the boyhood of King David, but that's completely wrong.  It takes place during the life of Jesus Christ!  I was way off.

I did remember it being really good, and that memory was totally accurate, though.  Whew.

Daniel is an angry young Jewish man whose parents were killed by Roman soldiers when he was a boy.  Now he's part of a renegade band of rebels who ostensibly fight the Romans, but mostly just steal stuff.  He befriends a nice brother and sister from a good family, and through them, he encounters Jesus more than once, and also gets a real job, is able to start caring for his younger sister, and gradually realizes that armed rebellion against the Roman Empire is not going to fix his problems.

I almost feel like this is Ben-Hur for teens, because it has a lot of the same themes of letting go of anger and hatred, learning to forgive, and finding peace in the midst of trouble. 

Particularly Good Bits:

"Can't you see, Daniel, it is hate that is the enemy?  Not men.  Hate does not die with killing.  It only springs up a hundredfold.  The only thing stronger than hate is love" (p. 224).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-13 for violence, including descriptions of crucifixion.

This was my 36th book read for my fourth Classics Club list.

"Eragon" by Christopher Paolini

All three of my teens got into the Inheritance Cycle last year, and they really want to read Murtagh, but I said I had to read it first (because hey, I'm the one who bought that new release hardcover copy, after all!), but then I realized I need to reread the series.  Because I finished reading the original series in 2011 when Inheritance was released, and that is a looooooooooooong time ago.  I mean, my youngest kid wasn't even born yet when that book came out, and now she's a teenager.

So, for my #25fo25 challenge of 25 specific books I want to read this year, I picked these four books and Murtagh so I would be sure to read them in a timely fashion. 

My favorite character in this series is Roran Stronghammer.  He's barely in this book.  I did not remember that at all, so yeah... that was kind of a bummer.  I do love Brom too, though.  He's got such acerbic sass and mad skills -- how would I not love Brom?

Anyway, as original stories go, Eragon is an enjoyable one.  A Chosen One who is unaware of their chosen status until Weird Things Start Happening, who first reject and then embrace their specialness -- it's a timeless story.  Which is why we have been using it as a storytelling framework for thousands of years.  

My one quibble with this book is how quickly they make soup.  Repeatedly, characters will throw some foodstuffs in a pot, wait until the water boils, announce, "Soup is ready!" and then eat it.  Um.  Um.  I guess that's soup, but it's not going to be good soup.  Even pasta has to boil for more than 5 minutes to be done.  And you're tossing chunks of meat and root vegetables in that pot and assuming they're done as soon as they have come to a boil?  I worry for Eragon's gut health.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to rereading the rest of the series :-D

Particularly Good Bits:

"Keep in mind that many people have died for their beliefs; it's actually quite common.  The real courage is in living and suffering for what you believe" (p. 197).

"Find peace in where and what you are" (p. 429).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-13 for violence.  Nothing gory, but not stuff for little kids, either.  One or two mild cuss words.  No smut.

"The Ark" by Margot Benary-Isbert

I read The Ark several times as a teen -- our rural North Carolina library had it and the sequel, Rowan Farm.  I still remember they were both bound in that weird orange hardcover binding that library books so often got rebound into when their original covers wore out.

I actually tried to find this book again every now and then as an adult, because I remembered loving it.  But I didn't remember the author's name, or the name of the sequel.  Do you know how hopeless it is to search the internet for a book called The Ark that is NOT about Noah???  Pretty hopeless.

And then one day, a few months ago, a new acquaintance casually mentioned that Purple House Press had released this book.  I went tingly with hope.  Was this the same book called The Ark that I remembered???  I investigated.  It certainly sounded like the same book!  So, I ordered it, and the sequel.  And then, over the past few weeks, I read The Ark aloud to my kids.  And it is definitely the same book I remember from thirtyish years ago!!!

The Ark is about a mother and her four children in postwar Germany of the late 1940s.  They are refugees from Pomerania (a region of Germany next to Poland) living in West Germany and waiting for their father to be released from a Russian prisoner-of-war camp in Siberia.  Matthias and Margret, the oldest siblings, find work at a farm outside the town where they have been relocated.  They gradually fix up an old train car on the farm for the whole family to live in.  Meanwhile, their mother takes in sewing to help support the family, and younger siblings Andrea and Joey attend school and make friends and have adventures.

This is an amazingly heartwarming and hope-filled book, especially considering it is based on the author's own experiences after WWII.  As soon as I finished reading this book aloud, my kids insisted I begin reading the sequel right away instead of reading something else in between.

Particularly Good Bits:

"Well, what about you, Margret?" Mother asked, taking her daughter's hands in hers.  As she did so, she felt how hard and rough those delicate child's hands had become.  But this did not trouble her; she knew that calloused hands are good for getting a firm grip on life" (p. 163).

The human beings, too, withdrew within the house and within the shell of their own selves.  After the intense activity of summer and hares there followed the time of quiet contemplation, of gathering forces, though within it the stirrings of the next spring were already present (p. 210).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG for discussions of death (including a sibling who died during the war), war, and imprisonment that might be too intense for young readers.  No cussing, smut, or on-page violence.

This is my 34th book read and reviewed for my fourth Classics Club list.  It's also the first book finished from my #25for25 list.

So Dawn Goes Down to Day: January 2025 Inklings

My friend Heidi at Along the Brandywine has gotten her wonderful monthly link-up series going again!  She's letting the January edition linger into the first week or so of February, so I am not too late to join.  Whew!  I used to participate in this a few years ago, sometimes on this blog and sometimes on my movie blog, and it was always fun.

Since this is my first time participating in a long time, I'll repost the rules here so you understand how it works.

Rules: 

1. At any time during the month, on your own blog post a scene from a book or film that matches the prompt, including a link back here in your post. 

2. Make sure to come back and leave a link to your entry in the box on this post. That's it!

The first prompt for 2025 is A scene at sunrise.  I'm choosing a quiet, but powerful moment from one of my absolute favorite books, The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton.  Two teenage boys from the poor side of Tulsa, Ponyboy Curtis and Johnny Cade, are hiding out in the countryside because they think they're wanted for murder, and they wake up one morning to something that amazes them.

One morning I woke up earlier than usual.  Johnny and I slept huddled together for warmth -- Dally had been right when he said it would get cold where we were going.  Being careful not to wake Johnny up, I went to sit on the steps and smoke a cigarette.  The dawn was coming then.  All the lower valley was covered with mist, and sometimes little pieces of it broke off and floated away in small clouds.  The sky was lighter in the east, and the horizon was a thin golden line.  The clouds changed from gray to pink, and the mist was touched with gold.  There was a silent moment when everything held its breath, and then the sun rose.  It was beautiful.

"Golly" -- Johnny's voice beside me made me jump -- "that sure was pretty."

"Yeah."  I sighed, wishing I had some paint to do a picture with while the sight was still fresh in my mind.

"The mist was what was pretty," Johnny said.  "All gold and silver."

"Uhmmmm," I said, trying to blow a smoke ring.

"Too bad it couldn't stay like that all the time."

"Nothing gold can stay."  I was remembering a poem I'd read once.

(Chapter 5)

And then Ponyboy recites the Robert Frost poem "Nothing Gold Can Stay."  When I read this book the first time at age 14, I promptly memorized that poem so I could recite it at the drop of a hat, just like Ponyboy.  It's such a quiet scene, but filled with amazing imagery.  All the hope and promise of the future are wrapped up in that sunrise, and here stand these two tough kids who are sure their futures will be anything but hopeful and promising, but they glory in that sunrise anyway.

The 1983 film version of The Outsiders is one of the best book-to-movie adaptations ever, so I'll leave you with this shot of that scene in the movie.