Remembrancy

Matt Mikalatos is at it again. In Night of the Living Dead Christian: One Man’s Ferociously Funny Quest to Discover what it means to be truly Transformed,” Mikalatos looks at members of the church through monster-movie glasses. There are the zombies, those people who would rather blindly follow someone’s teachings and theological beliefs than do the research themselves, the vampires are those people who selfishly continue to take from others but refuse to look at themselves and the werewolves are those who have a beast living inside of them that they can’t quite tame.

The story is narrated by Mikalatos but tells the story of Luther Ann Martin (Luther had a Lutheran upbringing, can you tell?) a werewolf who is trying, without success, to get rid of the beast inside of him. He teams up with Mikalatos, a mad scientist, and an android to find the solution. There are portions of this story that will leaving you laughing and, even more importantly, there are parts that will have you taking a good look at yourself and thinking about whether or not you are in that category of Christianity.

Would you like to win a free copy of this book? Just leave a comment and say tell us what your favorite monster movie or book is to be entered into the drawing.

To learn more about Night of the Living Dead Christian, check out this video of Mikalatos discussing the book: http://www.tyndale.com/video/296. To learn more about the author, his first book, Imaginary Jesus or even  more about this book, visit the author’s website at http://mattmikalatos.com. Both books can be found at www.tyndale.com.

****Tyndale House Publishers provided me with a copy of this book free in exchange for an honest review.

April Grace Reilly is a spitfire. She is funny, speaks her mind, has strong opinions and loves her family fiercely. If the great name of this book, Cliques, Hicks and Ugly Sticks: Confessions of April Grace, isn’t enough to grab your attention, then this red-headed girl from Arkansas is sure to draw you in.

In the second book of the Confessions of April Grace series, April Grace finds herself starting Jr. High school and seeing changes in her friends that she does not like. On top of this, she is also dealing with her mom not feeling well due to the new baby on its way and having to help the snooty Isabel St James put on the church Christmas play.

If you are looking for good, clean, funny, engaging books for girls from the fourth grade to the eight grade, I highly recommend the April Grace series written by K. D. McCrite. When I first looked at the book I thought to myself that it seemed pretty long for that age group but McCrite does a wonderful job of weaving an engaging story that has you rooting for April Grace.

***Tommy Nelson publishing provided me with a copy of this book free of charge in exchange for an honest and fair review.

I am so excited that Multnomah publishing has re-released The Sierra Jensen Collection. During a time when teenagers are inundated with werewolves, vampires and witches, Robin Jones Gunn’s classic series is a breath of fresh air.

I remember reading both the Christy Miller and the Sierra Jensen series fifteen or twenty years ago. Re-reading The Sierra Jensen Collection Volume 1 was refreshing. There are three books in this collection, OnlyYou Sierra, In Your Dreams and Don’t You Wish.

The books follow the main character, Sierra Jensen, as she comes back home to a new home,  a new city and a new school. She has to deal with making friends, changes in her family dynamic, boys and strengthening her faith.

If you have teenage girls, The Sierra Jensen Collection is an honest, faith-based story that they will love. Even though the books were initially written several years ago, the issues that Gunn deals with in her writing are still real to most teenage girls.

****Multnomah Publishing provided me a copy of this book free of charge in exchange for an honest review. I was not compensated for either a positive or negative review.

The mill in the town of Smitten has just closed. Four friends in the small town are determined to turn their town into the next romantic getaway vacation destination. And while they are trying to help their town succeed, each of them find love.

Smitten is a collaboration by Colleen Coble, Kristin Billerbeck, Diann Hunt and Denise Hunter. Each author writes one story of the four women’s quest for success in their future and true love.

Even though there are four authors, the stories fit together seamlessly. Even though the likelihood of four friends each finding love within a year’s time is fairly slim, the stories draw you in and you want each woman to have a happy ending.

Smitten is what I would call a good beach read. There is nothing too substantial in the story but it is fun to read nevertheless.

***Thomas Nelson Publishing provided me with a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Mercy Comes Morning by Lisa Tawn Bergren is a re-release of Christmas Every Morning. It is a story about a woman who returns home to Taos, NM to spend her mother’s last days with her in an Alzheimer’s care facility.

The main character, Krista, has not had a good relationship with her mother and has stayed away for several years. Coming home and facing her past and learning more about her mother’s own struggles causes Krista to re-evaluate her opinions about her mother.

Bergren does a wonderful job of weaving Krista’s past memories in with the present and the new things her main character is learning about her mother. This is a love story in more ways than one. There is the love between a man and a woman, the love between a woman and Jesus and the love between a daughter and her mother.

At first, the story was a little hard to get into but it slowly draws you in and you begin to want Krista and all of her loved ones to find resolution. Mercy Comes Morning is a story that will touch people with loved ones with Alzheimer’s as well as women who may not have the best relationships with their mothers as well as anyone who is just looking for a good read about forgiveness and healing from the past.

***A copy of this book was given to me free of charge by Waterbrook Press in exchange for an honest review. I have not been compensated in any way for either a positive or negative review.