Nicholas Sparks- The Rescue

   I am so happy to have found a really good group of books to read!  I just get tired of trying books that end up having so many swear words or vivid bedroom scenes I feel like I am watching a rated R movie, which I don't do for those reasons!!!  Nicholas Sparks books have all just been really clean, easy reads!  Yes, they all have some lovey, dovey love saga, but who doesn't need one of those once in a while?  Obviously a lot do since a good majority of his books turn into movies!!

  The next great book I have read recently is 'The Rescue'.  It is another good love story about Taylor, Denise and her little boy Kyle.  They meet when Denise crashes her car, and Taylor, a volunteer fire fighter, is the one to find her and help her through the accident.  Denise's son Kyle has learning and cognitive impairments and Denise has been working since he was an infant to help him overcome these.  She is a great example of a mother and is just inspiring.  It does have a few places that will make you smile or cry (I do that a lot lately :) and more that just keep you hoping for them; Denise and Kyle, and Denise, Kyle and their relationship with Taylor.

I hope you will enjoy this as much as I did!  I would give it 5 Stars!!

~Stacy~

Nicholas Sparks, The Choice

Another great Nicholas Sparks book is "The Choice".  

Travis Parker strikes up a friendship with his new neighbor, Gabby Holland.  All of his friends are happily married with great kids too.  This is what he has wanted too but just hasn't found "The One" yet.  He is hoping the friendship will blossom to something more, but their is one problem, she already has a serious boyfriend of several years.

This is also a very touching book with fun and witty times, a great love story with another heart wrenching moment too.  Be ready for more tears!!  I highly recommend "The Choice" as another good book to read!

~Stacy~

Nicholas Sparks, The Last Song

   I have recently finished another series of books and was in search of something else good to read.  I had read a couple of Nicholas Sparks books quite a few years ago and really enjoyed them, so I thought, "What the heck, I'll try another one".  The (ebook) waiting lists for most of his books were REALLY long, so I started with the shortest one on the list, "The Last Song".  

   

Ronnie and her brother, Jonah, have to go to North Carolina at spend the summer with their father who she hasn't spoken to in three years.  She learns who she is and really, what is important in life.  She finds love and forgiveness too.  

   I LOVED this book, but be ready for a HUGE tear jerker.  I was really sobbing at one point, but it was worth it!  Such a good book!  Hope you'll enjoy it too!

~Stacy~

Reached

 

  Yay!  Reached, by Ally Condie is out and it is AWESOME!!  It came out in November 2012 and in my library, it was immediately on waiting lists.  Lucky for me, I happened to find it the very day they put it out and snatched it up.  What a way to end the series. 
  At the very end of Crossed, Cassia and Ky had to leave each other again to work for the Rising.  Cassia has to go to Central and Ky stays out in the borders, not knowing when they will see each other again.  Xander is working as a medic in one of the provinces.  Very soon into the book, the Rising does get to break out, but nothing goes as planned.  It is really sad; a lot like the final Hunger Games book.  You really don't know until the very end what is going to happen and who will survive, if any of them!  If you haven't read any of the books, I highly recommend you start the series.  If you have started the series and were just waiting for this final book, wait no longer, go get it and read it now!!!

 

~Stacy~

P.S. . . Stay tuned, we are going to do another give away this week!  More details to follow!  Best of luck to all of you!!

The Vampire Diaries

I have started reading another series of books that I have really enjoyed called, "The Vampire Diaries". You may have heard of it from the TV series on the CW. If you have, whether you liked it or not, you need not worry, they seem to be so far different from each other, I would still recommend reading the series!   It has several different branches of series off of the original group. I will also say, if you are a die-hard 'Twiglight' fan, it may be hard for you to really get into this series, at first, because their "vampire" traits, do and don't, can's and cant's are very different from one another. In my opinion, if you read 'Twiglight' first and liked it, you will probably like Stephanie Meyer's description of what a vampire is better. If you read 'The Vampire Diaries' first, you will like L.J. Smith's definition better. So far, I have read the first 7 of the books, and I will tell you I have fallen in love with the characters so much I was sobbing for like 45 minutes at the end of book 7. It was very sad! Please give it a chance thought!   Here is the order of the books:

1.  The Awakening; 2.  The Struggle;  3.  The Fury;  4.  Dark Reunion 

 

 

 

   

The second set/series is "The Return" series.  The order for them is:  1.  Nightfall;  2.  Shadow Souls, 3.  Midnight



The Hunters series is the next in line.  They are: 1.  The Hunters, Vol. 1: Phantom;  2.  The Hunters, Vol. 2, Moonsong;  3.  The Hunters, Vol. 3, Destiny Rising. 

To wrap the series up are: 1.  Stephen's Diaries, Vol. 1, Origins;  2.  Stephen's Diaries, Vol. 2, Bloodlust;  3.  Stephen's Diaries, Vol.3, The Craving; and finally 4.  Stephen's Diaries, Vol. 3, The Ripper.

   One more thing I will say about the books vs the series is, as mentioned above, they are VERY different.  The names of the 3 main characters and how they came about are the same and the rest is not!  It kind of bothers me HOW different they are, but I am neither the author or creator of either so, whatever!  They add main characters to replace important ones in the books and remove vital characters from the books.  Hardly anything that happened in the books has happened in the series, that I have seen.  I haven't watched as much of the series as Michelle yet, but she will call and tell me all about the episodes and we will compare notes to the books.  Once she reads the books, she will have to say which one she liked better and why.  In my opinion, the books by far out do the series!  Check it out though and see for yourself!

~Stacy~

The Host

 

    I had really forgotten that I had read this book until earlier last week when I sent a message out to all the sisters if they knew any good books/series to read.  I was looking for a good one to start and everything that had been recommended was on a waiting list at the library.  Meagan had mentioned, Stephenie Meyers, The Host.  Immediately, memories of the book came back to me.  I read it about 4 years ago and LOVED it!  It was good to hear that she really liked it too.   I remember after reading it thinking, "they should really make a movie out of this", not knowing who "they" specifically should be.  If you recognized the authors name, yes this is the same author who wrote the Twilight series.  This was actually her first book.  In my opinion, it is every bit as good as Twilight.  I am also happy to report, that according to her website, www.stepheniemeyer.com, there will be a movie coming out March 29, 2013!  It is about time! 

 



    Anyhow, a quick overview of the book:  The humans have been invaded by an 'unseen' enemy and their minds are taken over leaving the shell of their human body intact.  Before now, the enemy has been able to keep it disguised pretty well, but the humans are catching on and those who are left are trying to protect themselves and leaving to a hidden safe place. 
    Melanie was one of those last humans to be taken over by a Host.  She plays the role of her human as best she can to try to find the remaining humans, including her love, Jared.  He is somewhere in one of the remaining safe places.  Melanie is a fighter though and is not willingly giving her mind over to the Host Wanderer.  She and Wanderer have to decide whether to become allies to locate and save Jared or continue battling each other.  It definitely gave me a more open mind to ideas.  Not saying I think there are aliens, or vampires, or werewolves, but Stephenie's creativity gets your mind moving!  I love it!  Hope you will give The Host a try.  (I don't know if I ever told my sister Melanie this or not, but as I read the book, I kept thinking of her as Melanie.  I think she would have played the part really well too!)

~Stacy~

Free Books

I've been reading a blog for a while 71 Toes, it is such an inspiring blog for me. Shawni is such a good writer, mom and wife! It's one of those that she seems to have everything together but instead of thinking "life seems perfect for them...she is perfect" it's just inspiring and makes me want to be better. She is ALL about family and has so many great ideas. Anyways...it must run in the family because her sister is the writer at Powerofmoms.com, which is also a very inspiring blog for mothers. Their parents have written a few different books and they are giving two of them away for free right now at the Powerofmoms blog, you can just download them to your computer. They seem amazing and have great reviews on them. You can get them here. They are called "A Joyful Mother of Children" and "I Didn't Plan to be a Witch." I have started reading the second one and the first page had me, let me give you a little preview....

"You planned to be the perfect

mother, right? You planned to have a

spotless house and dress your little girls

in pinafores and have hot cookies ready

for your little darlings every day as they

came through the picket fence and up

the flower-lined walk after school.

" Roses bloom beneath our feet, all the

earth's a garden sweet!"

You certainly didn't plan to be a

witch! Not to lose your patience with

these little darlings! Not to feel frustration-

or anger-or guilt ! Oh, no! Not

those things! Not you!

And surely no one else feels these,

do they? I mean .. . look how perfect

other families look. Most mothers must

have it together! And some surely must

be supermoms-being all things to all

people-wife, mother, lover, counselor,

spiritual leader. "Making life a bliss complete!'

No, you certainly didn't plan to

be a witch!"

I'm excited to read these! I remember when I first help Brynlee in my arms and the first few months...and more of her life I just always thought, how could I ever get angry or frustrated with you?! And now when she's screaming, throwing tantrums...and into everything! I feel like I am a witch some days...and I thought I never would be! :) So go on over and get these books while they are available! 

--Michelle--

Another Good Series to Read!

     So Michelle is the one who got me to read "The Hunger Games" series and I thank her for that!  I loved it!  She had not told me it was a series at first, just a good book to read.  When I got to the last 20 or so pages of it, I thought, "There is no way this can be over in 20 pages!"  Sure enough, it said, "End of Book One" on the final page!  I immediately called her up to find out what was next.  At the time, the 3rd and final book had not been finished and I ended up having to wait about 6 months for it to come out after completing the second book.

     A couple of weeks ago, I was asking her again if she knew of any good series to read again and she introduced me to the "Matched" series by Ally Condie.  She told me it was a bit like "The Hunger Games" in that it was a "Society" that dictates the way this group of people eat, think, work, marry.  It has a great love story and keeps a pretty interesting story along the way too.  It is definately a book that makes you mad to think about what others may have to live like and grateful for what we are blessed with!  At the current moment, I have just finished reading the first book.  Infact, I finished it just this afternoon.  I will pick up the second book, "Crossed" at my library later today.  I am once again in the same predicament as "The Hunger Games" though and will have to wait until November 13, 2012 for the 3rd book, "Reached" to come out!  Sad day!  I do anticipate both of them will be great reads also!

If you want to go to this link (here), you can watch the book trailers for the first two.  They were pretty good too! Enjoy!

~Stacy~

 



  

Well, I finished reading 'Crossed' last night!  It was very good too!  It continues the love story for Cassia.  She begins to show her independance and understand that she CAN do things without the society to find something more.  However, there is a twist in the end I wasn't really expecting.  Actually, a couple.  I am sure we will find out in 'Reached' if they are good twists or not!

~Stacy~

Another Good Book to Read

So, I heard about this book at work and then started seeing it everywhere and it really sparked my interest.  So I finally got the book from the Library last week and read it on Sunday. . . ALL of it.  It was really good.  The book is called "Heaven is For Real".  It is a true story about a little boy who dies for a few minutes during an emergency appendectomy and his visit to heaven during that time.  His father has written the story for the boy telling all of the experiences he shared with them since the experience.



Hope you enjoy this too! 

~Stacy~

Caller ID

I am a huge mystery book reader.  That is by far my favorite type of book to read.  So I have a couple of recommendations, and they are both by a high school friend of mine... Rachelle J. Christensen.

Wrong Number is her first published book



Caller ID is her 3rd!  They are both very good and suspensful books.  I own both if you want to borrow one, or both.  (Her other book is a non-fiction book about dealing with miscarriages)

Rachel  :)

Another Great Series of Books to Read!

This is second series in the Percy Jackson books.  They are called "The Heroes of Olympus".  There will be five of these books as well.  So far, only two are out :(   The first book, "The Lost Hero," is about Jason, Leo, and Piper.  Three new heroes we will learn about.  Percy is mentioned, but only the fact that he is missing.  He has been missing as long as Jason has been present and Jason can't remember anything before that period of time.  They have a great mission to save Piper's Father, who has been kidnapped and another very important person, who has also been kidnapped.

"The Son of Neptune" is back to Percy who finds himself also in a different place, other than camp half-blood, with a whole new group of friends.  He, Hazel, and Frank will also be placed on a new quest to kill the impossible, release a monster, to save camp all in a short period of time.  Hopefully all of this will restore Percy's memory and old live.

These were both wonderful books! Loved every minute of them. I could hardly put them down. Now, I have to wait until this fall when "The Mark of Athena" will be released.





I have not read this one yet, but there is also "The Demigod Diaries" available.  It is a book of several short stories of the various demigods, such as Luke Castellan, Percy, and Leo Valdez.  Sounds like it could be fun too!

Book Four is Scheduled to be released Fall of 2013! (No name announced)

Book Five is Scheduled to be released Fall of 2014! (No name announced)

~Stacy~

Christmas Jars

A couple of years ago a neighbor gave us a book called "Christmas Jars" by Jason F. Wright.  I immediately read the book and loved it!  I had Austin read it and he loved it and the idea behind the book.  So we started a Christmas Jar.  At the time we were poor residents hardly spending any money at all, but that first year we were able to give away about $60 in change that we had collected.  And WOW! I cannot tell you how wonderful of a feeling it is to help someone else like that.  Seriously.  It is such a good lesson for a family.  My kids are SO excited every single time they add money to the Christmas Jar.  Every year about a month before Christmas, during Family Home Evening, we challenge the kids to think of someone to give our Jar to, and this year they had a suggestion that night.  It had already been on their mind and they had been thinking of who could use it!  I was so proud of them.  We used their suggestion and they were again SO EXCITED when it came time to deliver the JAR.  What a wonderful lesson for children. 

I HIGHLY recommend this book to every family. 

Great Books to Read

     

   
 So, I have just started reading the 'Percy Jackson' series of books by Rick Riordan.  Let me just say, what a good, wholesome series this is so far!  I finished the first one, "The Lightening Thief" in just a couple of days.  It was a very easy read and very entertaining.  If you liked Greek Mythology, you will enjoy these books very much.  I would give it a 4.5 out of 5 and only because there were so many of the Greek Myth characters I could not remember who were in the story and maybe could have been re-introduced to our memories a little better!  But all in all, great book, great story!
 Stacy