Have you read many Easter themed books?
I have to admit that I have not.
Well, I’ve read the Bible. And (once upon a time) I read children’s version of the Easter story to my children (my youngest is now eighteen).
I have A Stray Drop of Blood by Roseanna M White on my Kindle, but have yet to read it. Maybe this year. After all, it will count towards my Mt TBR (to be read mountain) challenge.
No.
Maybe.
I will often preorder the kindle version of books from authors I’ve read before, especially if the book is part of a series. In those cases, I already know the author and their writing (and often the characters and their stories).
But I will rarely buy a book from a new-to-me author without reading the sample first. In general, if I read the sample in one sitting and the price is right, I’ll buy the book.
I’ll almost always buy a book if it’s 99 cents. I’ll often buy a $1.99 ebook (especially if it’s on sale and is usually $7.99 or more). I’ll never buy a book if it’s $9.99. I don’t usually pay more than $5.99 for an ebook. Instead, I’ll wait for it to come on sale.
I don’t know if there is a specific subject or theme I would like to see more often.
I would like to see Christian fiction set in countries other than the USA and historical England. (I do know of a fair few stories set in Australia, probably because I know so many Australian Christian authors.)
I would like to see more Christian fiction from BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour) authors. The 2021 Christy Awards have introduced the Christy Own Voice Award, a new award for a BIOPIC author, and that’s a great encouragement.
I would like to see more books set in contemporary England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales.
I would like to see more novels set in Europe—historical and especially contemporary Europe.
I would love to see more books set in Africa, India, and Asia.
I would love to see characters who aren’t like me, and to understand how they become Christians and how they live as Christians in countries that don’t have a Christian heritage.
Don’t get me wrong: I love my US Christian fiction. But Christian fiction is predominantly driven by evangelical American Christianity, and I would like to see something more.
I am of the opinion (shared by most booklovers) that the book is always better than the movie. As such, why would I ever doom any book to becoming a movie?
The reason books are better is that movies (and TV shows) have to focus on the visible–the dialogue and action. Books have the visible action, but can also have the character’s thoughts. That adds a depth to the book that the movie can’t always replicate.
As such, I’m always dubious of any book review that says something like “this book would make a great movie!”. That’s basically saying the book is shallow, with little or no character development but plenty of visual action (Exhibit A: that Dan Brown novel).
The books which make good movies are those books with compelling and fast-paced plots, but which lack character development (Exhibit B: any James Bond movie. Half a dozen actors, but the man’s character has barely changed in fifty years).
So I guess the book I’d like to see made into a movie is a book I haven’t read and perhaps don’t have any interest in reading but would still like to know what happens (but without reading the Cliff Notes version).
Let me think …
Thinking …
Still thinking …
I don’t read a lot of children’s books (well, my youngest has finished high school), so I’m definitely going to focus my answer on Young Adult titles. However, I do have one picture book to recommend:
Marty’s Nut-free Party and Emily Eases her Wheezes by Katrina Roe: picture books which explain allergies and asthma in an age-appropriate and fun way.
Invisible, Invincible, and Being Jazmine by Cecily Paterson: a compelling trilogy about a deaf teenager that addresses both the difficulties of living as a hearing-impaired person in a hearing world, but also at the challenge all teenagers have with fitting in with their peers and finding their place.
This Quiet Sky by Joanne Bischof: a Christian historical novel about a teenage boy suffering from a fatal illness.
Perfect Mercy, Amazing Grace, Love, Mercy (the Beautiful Lives series) by Elaine Fraser: a series set in an Australian high school, with each book dealing with a different issue high schoolers face—peer pressure, body image, social justice, and sexual orientation.
The Boy in the Hoodie by Catriona McKeown: a term’s worth of detentions, an unlikely friendship, and some lessons about life.
Books. As readers, we can never have too many books. Library books, books we’ve borrowed, books we’ve bought. Which leads to an obvious question:
I don’t have a specific book buying budget. Being a book blogger helps keep my book buying down, as I get free ebook versions of the books I request for review. When I do buy books, I tend to buy Kindle versions, which are cheaper. I also try and keep my purchases to within my current gift card balance (as I’m a member of Amazon’s affiliate scheme, which pays in Amazon gift vouchers).
I’m also actively trying (trying!) not to buy books, especially paper books, because I’m actively trying to reduce my to-read pile. (If you read my 2021 Reading Challenge post, you’ll see how successful that is).
We’ve recently said goodbye to the longest year ever, and vaccines are rolling out (well, we’re still waiting in New Zealand). Covid-19 is part of our modern world, whether we like or not (not).
I recently elected not to read and review a dual timeline title set in 1820 and 2020. The story was obviously written and accepted for publication before Covid-19 had been discovered, and well before we all lived through the longest year in creation, 2020. the story centred on a teenage girl in England who had some unspecified bad thing happen that meant she didn’t get into university. Apparently, that was supposed to make readers sympathise with her.
The UK news in mid-2020 was full of stories of British teens who hadn’t been accepted into their university course of choice because end-of-year exams were cancelled and the grades they’d been assigned by the government algorithm weren’t good enough. As such, one fictional person not getting into university for an unknown mysterious reason didn’t ring true for me.
I’m in two minds on the question. On one hand, I’m not interested in reading books that directly mention Covid-19. On the other hand, I’m also not interested in reading books set in 2020 or 2021 that don’t mention Covid-19. I suspect contemporary fiction writers will be better placed to write a novel that is either set before 2020, or not set in a specific year.
I saw this question asked in a Facebook group recently. One author said she’d surveyed her Facebook group and newsletter list and had over 3,500 responses. the vast majority wanted to avoid any mention of Covid-19. Other authors agreed.
Reading about an unpleasant current reality is not escape. Several commented that they’ve stopped watching TV shows that have woven Covid-19 into their ongoing storylines.
The other argument I’ve seen against mentioning Covid-19 or lockdowns is that we’re (unfortunately) still in the middle of the pandemic. We don’t know when or how it’s going to end. The rollout of the vaccines gives us hope life will return to something approaching normal sooner rather than later, but we don’t know how effective the vaccine will be, how long it lasts … We won’t know how this ends until it ends.
We have just celebrated Waitangi Day, New Zealand’s national day, on 6 February. What books have you read that are set in New Zealand?
Jackson Gregory was on the cusp of making it big. Then suddenly his girlfriend left him—for his biggest business competitor—and took his most guarded commercial secrets with her. To make matters worse, the Iowa farm that has been in his family for generations is facing foreclosure. Determined to save his parents from financial ruin, he’ll do whatever it takes to convince his wealthy great-uncle to invest in his next scheme, which means accompanying him to the bottom of the world to spend three weeks pretending to be a die-hard Lord of the Rings fan, even though he knows nothing about the stories. The one thing that stands between him and his goal is a know-it-all tour guide who can’t stand him and pegged him as a fake the moment he walked off the plane.
When Allison leads the group through the famous sites of the Tolkien movies, she and Jackson start to see each other differently, and as they keep getting thrown together on the tour, they find themselves drawn to each other. Neither expected to fall in love again, but can they find a way beyond their regrets to take a chance on the one thing they’re not looking for?
A moment of temporary insanity finds her leaving her life in Chicago to move to Sydney, Australia. There she finds herself, against many of her convictions, as a logistics planner for one of Australia’s biggest churches, and on a collision course with her boss’s son.
Josh Tyler fronts a top-selling worship band and is in demand all over the world. But, in the past, his failed romantic relationships almost destroyed both his reputation and his family. He’s determined to never risk it happening again. The last thing he needs is some American girl tipping his ordered life upside down. Especially one who despises everything he’s ever worked for and manages to push every button he has.
When Josh and Paige are thrown together to organize his band’s next tour, the sparks fly. But can they find a way to bridge the differences that pull them apart? Or will they choose the safety and security of what they know over taking a chance on something that will require them to risk everything?
It has been fifteen months since Eva and Angela lost their thrill-seeking husbands in a scuba diving accident. Both women are trying to navigate their way through the grief, but neither one is making much progress. Angela is barely making ends meet, angry at her husband for leaving her to raise three children on her own. Meanwhile, Eva is stuck, unable to move forward after losing the love of her life and her source of inspiration.
But then Eva gets a life-changing phone call. Before Brent and Wes died, they had signed up for a race of a lifetime—an ultra-marathon in beautiful New Zealand. Eva begs Angela to run the race with her in their husbands’ place, and Angela finally agrees, hoping to finally understand her husband’s choices.
Training is exhausting, and the race is even more demanding. Their journey grows more complicated by the presence of two men—Marc is Brent’s best friend who is running the race with Eva and Angela, and Simon King is a writer who is covering their inspiring story. With every step, Eva and Angela must ask themselves questions that they haven’t had the courage to ask before. As the women literally put one foot in front of the other, they wonder: Is it possible to find their way forward in hope?
It’s back to school this week for students in New Zealand and Australia, and it’s the first year since 2004 that I don’t have the back-to-school rush of buying stationery and checking the school uniforms still fit. Yes, my children are now out of full-time education!
But I can still remember school and learning through the books I read.
I loved boarding school stories as a child and teen, and read as many as I could: The Naughtiest Girl and Mallory Towers books by Enid Blyton, and the Trebizon series by Anne Digby. As an adult, I read the Harry Potter series, which is set in a slightly different educational institution.
Reading these stories left me wanting to go to boarding school and experience these adventures for myself. In hindsight, I wonder if these novels were a subliminal trick to get children and teens to want to go to school, and to socialise them to the idea of boarding school and leaving home. (As an aside, I did spend one year at boarding school, and it was a great experience).
I’ve read Elaine Fraser’s series of Young Adult books, set in Australia. They are modern stories dealing with many of the problems facing teens today and presented from an understated christian world view.
I’ve also read a lot of books which feature teachers as main characters. However, the school of the job of teacher tends to be more background than main plot. For example, Molly by Sarah Monzon features a teacher who is fired right at the beginning of the novel, and immediately hired as a nanny by a desperate single father.
I’ve also read a few historical novels where the main character is a governess – one of the few respectable occupations for unmarried ladies. The Governess of Highland Hall by Carrie Turansky is a favourite.
I have a lot of favourite Christian authors who happen to be Australian. Here are a few:
(In case you’re wondering, I have restricted my recommendations to books published in the last couple of years. If I didn’t restrict myself, I’d be here all day!)
