Rescue the Prophet by Rob Ficiur

Rescue the Prophet by Rob Ficiur

This next adventure in this series includes Tom and Becky and their Uncle Daniel traveling back in time to Palmyra—only ten years later. They want to see the Grandin building, the place where the Book of Mormon was printed, as it originally was in the 1830’s. They run in to Joseph Smith once again, and he invites Uncle Daniel to go preaching with him. Uncle Daniel agrees to go with the prophet, but decides to send Becky and Tom home. As often happens with time traveling, something goes wrong and Becky and Daniel end up not returning home, but staying in the same time. Now, their Uncle is gone, and they have no money or place to stay until Martin Harris comes along and rescues them. They agree to help out at the print shop, binding originally copies of the Book of Mormon, but they didn’t bargain for the persecution that would affect them personally for their belief.

I enjoyed reading the second book in this series, and reading about the production of the Book of Mormon. Yet, the book didn’t have the magical quality that their first book did for me, probably because they didn’t get to interact with the prophet as much, and he was much older too. Though, I still loved the classy way he portrayed Marin Harris and his wife. Also, it shows a lot of the persecution that early saints faced at this time, and the ways they dealt with it. Overall, it really was a delightful book to read. I’m looking forward to the next one.

Rob Ficiur's blog

Book Blogger Appreciation Week

I received and email this past week notifying me that my blog had been nominated for the BBAW. Thanks so much! I wish all the nominee's luck, and I hope you follow the button on the top right of the page to find out more about this wonderful book blogging awards program. Below is the timeline for the awards. Go support your favorite book blogs all!

The BBAW Awards Timeline

July 15—August 15 Nominations are accepted in all categories. Anyone can nominate a blog and bloggers may nominate themselves.

August 16-17 Nominees are contacted and requested to furnish awards committee with selected information

August 21 Nominee information is due by 11:59 PM EST

August 22—September 4 Panelists review blogs and submit scores based on the following criteria: Quality of Writing, Originality and Diversity of Content, Audience Engagement, and Visual Aesthetic and Functionality.

September 7 Shortlists are announced and voting begins

September 12 —Voting closes at 11:59 PM EST

How to Take the Ex out of Ex-boyfriend by Janette Rallison

How to Take the Ex out of Ex-boyfriend by Janette Rallison

Giovanna’s brother, Dante decided to run for school president because he’s tired of the shallow way the popular kids run their campaigns. Her boyfriend Jesse is wonderful except for one thing—his friends. All of Jesse’s friends are in popular camp and Giovanna can barely stand them. When Dante announces his campaign Giovanna naturally supports him, but Jesse supports his friends and suddenly he is part of camp enemy. Annoyed by Jesse’s betrayal she breaks up with him, but as she starts to date other boys (mostly to make Jesse jealous) she realizes just how good she had it. How can she help her brother win the campaign for student body president and win her boyfriend back?

Have you ever had the experience where you really like an author, but kind of loose track of reading their books for a bit, and then you pick up one of their books again? Then remember why you fell in love with them in the first place, nay more, in fact, you’re convinced they’ve gotten a million times better. I’ve been a Janette Rallison/Sierra St. James fan forever! I love how funny her stories are, her characters have strong voices, and there is always a cute romance scene. She also likes to have embarrassing stories, and in the past a few of them have felt contrived to me just a tinsy bit. Yet, this book didn’t have that moment where I was like…that’s a bit awkward. This book didn’t have any of that, and it flowed really well. In fact Jesse was a perfect hero, and yet a realistic teenage boy. I really liked Dante too, he reminds me of my little brother in some ways.

P.S. I find it weird that I read two books with Italian characters named Dante just months apart from each other. They were both by LDS authors too. Hmmm, soon we’re going to meet children in primary named Dante. Not sure what I think about that. Either way, I’ve been to the real Dante’s tomb—both of them. (No, there are not two Dante’s but two tombs for the same Dante) I really like Dante. I did tell you of my obsession with the underworld did I not? Who wrote the coolest underworld narrative ever? Dante!

Janette Rallison's Website

Janette Rallison's Blog

Spires of Stone by Annette Lyon

Spires of Stone by Annette Lyon

When the Adam brothers, Ben, Claude, and Philip returned home from their mission the first thing the do is visit their old bishop and his two daughters. Ben is painfully reminded of his catastrophic relationship with the oldest, Bethany. Years apart have not softened the bitterness that they feel towards ones another, nor their verbal sparring. Philip hopes to build his new photography business fast enough to court the younger Hansen sister, Hannah. Yet, he watches as his older brother Claude takes a liking her, and feels that he doesn’t have much of a chance to win her over.

This book is the third in Annette Lyon’s Historical stories based on temples. Spires of Stone focus on the building of the Salt Lake temple and is also loosely based on Shakespeare’s romantic comedy Much Ado about Nothing. I liked this one much better than At Journey’s End, and I couldn’t put it down. Seriously, my husband kept giving me the look, the one that said I should stop reading and start working on school stuff, but I couldn’t. I got so caught up in the story and characters that I just read the whole afternoon away. I really liked Philip and found his goals to set up a photography studio very interesting. I really like that Claude, though he plays the role of villain, gets the chance to redeem himself. Not only once, but several times. In fact, sometimes you just want to hit him upside the head.

Ben and Bethany have the classic Pride and Prejudice sort of romance. They hate one another and get in bitter verbal sparring matches. Then you slowly learn about their past and how things fell out between them, and realize that if they could both put aside their past hurts and pride that they could love one another again.

I really enjoyed this one! I think I’d recommend this one the highest out of the three novels that I’ve read of the series. There is another about the Manti temple called Tower of Strength. You don’t have to read them in any order to understand the plots. The books have characters in common but each novel is stand alone.

Annette Lyon’s Author Website

Visit her blog the Lyon’s Tale

Recovering Charles by Jason F. Wright

Recovering Charles by Jason F. Wright

Luke hasn’t heard from his father in several years and for that he is glad. He has a successful photography career, and new life. His childhood was tainted by his mother’s addiction to sleeping pills. His father kept waiting for his mom to conquer this addiction, but she took too many pills one day and didn’t wake up. This leads Luke’s father into a downward spiral with alcohol, which lead to a father and son estrangement that had lasted several years.

That was until Luke receives a call from a man in New Orleans, the city that has been recently devastated by hurricane Katrina. His father settled in the city, playing and writing music, and his friends are looking for his missing father in the wreckage. Though, Luke hesitates to become involved with his father, he heads down to New Orleans not expecting much of a reunion, but while there he might just find that his father found a second chance.

Recovering Charles takes place in New Orleans in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina. I was really impressed with the amount of detail the author used when describing the city and how it was affected in this disaster. Specific streets and sections of the city and all the logistics involved in recovering from such a massive wave of destruction seem to be portrayed accurately. Though, since I’ve never been to New Orleans I can’t say for sure. I found the beginning of the book to be a little slow since it recaps all of the news reports on television. It was my curiosity about a picture on the wall of his office that intrigued me. I wanted to know the story behind it so I kept reading, and I got a total surprise when I learned what the picture meant to Luke! The beginning of the book also has a lot of flashbacks to the past, while the back story and the characters portrayed were interesting, I still got annoyed because the story didn't move forward very quickly.

The book really is an inspiring look at how people help one another to survive in desperate circumstances. I ended up enjoying the story, and I love how it has the lyrics of the song that his dad wrote at the end. They fit so perfectly with the theme of the story, and apparently the song was recorded so you can listen to it on the book's website.

To listen to the mustic visit recoveringcharles.com

For other books visit Jason F. Wright's Author website