Author: CAstfalk

5 Faves: Clean Romances with Pro Athletes

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5 Faves

I’ve been thinking about re-reading Amy Matayo’s The Thirteenth Chance – and that’s saying something because the book only came out yesterday! I breezed through my advance copy, but I find myself wanting to go back and savor it. It got me to thinking about other books I’ve read that involve professional athletes as main characters. I could think of quite a few books with high school and college athletes, but when I tried to think of pro athletes only, I came up with the Becky Wade books below but not much else. I scanned my Goodreads list, and it jogged my memory about two more. But that’s it.

Clearly there’s interest in professional athletes as leading men in romance novels, as evidenced by a glut of mainstream romances and erotica with half-naked athletes on the cover, but they seem to be underrepresented in Christian fiction and clean romance. Huh. Hard to believe no one has fictionalized Tim Tebow. Yet.

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Discovery by Karina Fabian: A Journey Worth Taking

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Discovery by Karina FabianWhile I’ve watched a fair amount of science fiction in movies and on TV, I’ve read very little. Despite the fact that I like science, detailed scientific descriptions in novels tend to make my eyes gloss over.

Even so, I’ve been wanting to read some of Karina Fabian’s work, and Discovery, published by Full Quiver Publishing, provided the perfect opportunity.

I’m not sorry I gave Discovery a shot, and I’m happy to report that my eyes didn’t gloss over once!

Jump ahead for an interview with the author, my review, and an excerpt!

Sisters Ann, Tommie and Rita are part of a classified mission to explore an alien ship that has crash landed on an asteroid three billion miles from earth. Humanity’s first contact with beings from beyond the solar system is bound to unlock the mystery of life in the universe, but the crew have their own secrets; hidden fears, desires, horrible sins – and a mission to kill. Researchers discover something unique about the third arm of the ship: something wonderful, something terrifying. Something holy. This discovery challenges Rita and Ann to confront their own pasts in order to secure the safety of the mission and the very souls of the crew. Continue reading →

Top 10 Tuesday: Favorite Albums

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All That You Can't Leave Behind U2

I’m linking up with The Broke and the Bookish (which describes me quite well) for my top ten albums. The broad category is “audio,” and since I couldn’t complete a list of 10 favorite audiobooks (yet) or podcasts (which I don’t often listen to), I’m going with albums. A good song, and even more so a good album, like a good book, should transport you to a unique place in your mind with a feeling, a mood, and characters all its own.

In no particular order and probably omitting a forgotten favorite or two:

  1. The Rising – Bruce Springsteen (2002)
  2. Scarecrow – John Cougar Mellencamp (1985)
  3. All That You Can’t Leave Behind -U2 (2000)
  4. Woodface – Crowded House (1991)
  5. Kick – INXS (1987)
  6. Riser – Dierks Bentley (2014)
  7. Mercury Falling – Sting (1996)
  8. Under the Table and Dreaming – Dave Matthews Band (1994)
  9. Blue Moon Swamp – John Fogerty (1997)
  10. Mission Bell – Amos Lee (2011)

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Reviving God’s Forgotten Friends: Author Interview with Susan Peek

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Your novels fly in the face of the mistaken notion that saint stories are dry, boring, or irrelevant to modern life. They are lively, gritty, and despite the time periods, relatable. How does your storytelling compare to the style of other stories of the saints? 

The Last Viking by Susan PeekAs a mother of eleven, I’ve read an awful lot of books about saints over the years, believe me. I’ve invested more money than I care to admit, always hoping, of course, to find stories that would not only inspire my children to love and imitate these incredible heroes and heroines of God, but, more importantly, make them realize that the saints were true flesh-and-blood human beings who started out with the same struggles, temptations and weaknesses that plague every one of us since Adam bit that stupid apple. But the more books I crammed into our bookshelves, the more apparent it became that the majority of saint novels (often reprints from the 40’s and 50’s) are agonizingly dull. It’s awful to say, but it’s true. I’m sure everyone knows the kind of books I’m talking about – where the author wheels out a cardboard cut-out saint and plops him on the page. There he sits, in perfect holiness, from his first breath. From that point on, things only get worse. Long-winded passages, flowery archaic prose, little action, dead-boring dialogue. Basically a bunch of lifeless characters tripping across the pristine white pages of your newly purchased twenty-dollar book, while you yawn your way through the story waiting for SOMETHING exciting to happen to these people. Sound familiar? Continue reading →

Seven Quick Takes

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7 Quick Takes

Resumption of Camping Edition

My husband and I began tent camping together before we had children and continued with regularity for years with our young children. We toted babies and toddlers. We relished the outdoors. And then, around the time we had an infant and a toddler in addition to our two older children, it became a bit much. My husband feared an unknown woodsy calamity. I’ll admit, our last excursion, with only three of the children, was a bit challenging. My sole recollection is my toddling 10-month-old stretching out of her Bumbo seat to gather dead leaves from the forest floor to stuff into her mouth while we wrestled with tent setup. So, we took a break. Our youngest is now three, so on Labor Day weekend, we gave camping another shot. Here’s what I learned.

–1–

All Pit Toilets Are Not Created Equal

We’ve camped in state park campgrounds with pit toilets before. Not recently and not often, but we’ve done it. My boy scout has done it fairly often. It’s not a big deal. At least it hadn’t been. The pit toilets at this particular Pennsylvania state park stunk. Sure, you say, pit toilets stink. No, I don’t mean “stink.” I mean eye-watering, gagging, covering-my-mouth-and-nose-with-my-shirt stink. Putrescence. Is that a word? I think that’s a word. Lesson learned: If you’ve smelled one pit toilet, you’ve smelled one pit toilet. (Since we like this park, I was relieved to learn they are installing flush toilets over the winter! Yay!)

Michael State Forest

Michaux State Forest

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Oh, the Places Your Art Will Go

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A couple of weeks ago, I endured a particularly grueling trip to the grocery store with my two youngest children. It started with the purchase of King Julian yogurt tubes instead of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle yogurt tubes and escalated to a shouting match over who would press the button to close the rear door of the minivan. An attempt was made at choking. An arm was bitten hard enough to leave a bruise. There was much wailing and whining as I slammed shut the vehicle to head for home. All I could think to do was crank up the car stereo. I didn’t care what song was on, only that it would drown out the pandemonium in my car. It happened to be Dustin Lynch’s “That’s Where It’s At.”

The song’s okay. I don’t have much feeling for it one way or another. But I started to pity Dustin Lynch. Someone slaved over that song. Every chord, each lyric, was the product of someone’s creativity. There were writers, performers, producers, and others. The grand sum of countless hours of creativity and work was, for me, finding its fulfillment in suffocating the noise of my children in meltdown mode. Continue reading →

An Open Book

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An Open Book CatholicMom

Welcome to the September 2016 edition of An Open Book, hosted both at My Scribbler’s Heart AND CatholicMom.com!

Fellowship of the Ring audiobookMy husband has been subjecting us to The Fellowship of the Ring audiobook by J.R.R. Tolkien. While my two older kids seem to enjoy the story in limited doses, I say “subjected” because it’s been the soundtrack of his choice for our recent travels. The little kids get bored. The big kids are okay with it if there’s not something else they’d rather be doing, and I must repeatedly slap my husband’s thigh while he’s driving and insist he open his eyes. That’s not to say this production isn’t well done. It seems to be. I think the particular times at which it’s being introduced to us is the biggest problem. For myself, I sincerely wish I enjoyed Tolkien more than I do. But, hey, I loved the Lord of the Rings movies!

Scarlet by Marissa MeyerI’m slowly making my way through Scarlet by Marissa Meyer. I zipped through the first book in the Lunar Chronicles (Cinder) quickly, but have slowed on this one. It’s not grabbing me right off that bat, but more to the point, I’ve had too many other obligations pulling me away from reading. I will return to it soon!

The Catholic Mom's Prayer CompanionI’ve also been reading The Catholic Mom’s Prayer Companion, edited by Lisa Hendey and Sarah Reinhard, in order to review it. This is the one and only book I’ve reviewed without completing it, but, honestly, to read this book straight through seems to defeat its purpose, which is to provide short and simple daily meditations. So, I read a couple of months to inform myself of the quality, but I’m going to finish it day by day. And I’m going to be handing out a lot of these to Catholic moms at Christmas!

Treasure IslandMy son has been reading Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson. Interestingly, he borrowed a paperback copy from the library even though we have it on Kindle. These kids and their paper books. Go figure. I read the book for the first time about a decade ago after pulling it off of the shelf at the beach house in which we were staying in the Outer Banks of North Carolina. I’d always wanted to read it, and enjoying it so close to where real pirates sailed made it that much better!

Roland West, LonerMy boy’s also reading Roland West, Loner by my friend Theresa Linden. The book was one of our Christmas gifts to him, and I’m happy to see him reading something I enjoyed so much. I love that he asks me questions about the characters and other books in the series as if I have the inside scoop.

My daughter is STILL reading Trixie Belden, so no news to report there.

Honeybee's Busy DayWe did a little bit (very little bit) of cleanup, and shifted some boxes of books that were in my son’s bedroom. They are temporary storage for some of our favorite picture books. The littlest of our kids have no memory of these books, so they were excited to discover them. All of our children have loved Honeybee’s Busy Day by Richard Fowler. That little bee on the front cover is made of durable cardboard. Slip her out of her plastic pouch and take her through each page’s adventures by sliding her through the slots. There’s so much excitement over this book in our house that I have to strictly enforce taking turns. I’ve noticed that the author has a similar book, A Squirrel’s Tale, which is available at the gift shop in Shenandoah National Park, where we recently visited. I’m tempted to give that one a try too.

Little Black SamboThe kids have also been enjoying one of my childhood favorites, The Story of Little Black Sambo by Helen Bannerman. I barely recall the controversy over this book when I was young. It didn’t dim my love for the story, and I’m happy to see that all of my children love it as much as I do. Something about those tigers zipping around the tree so quickly they turn to ghi is simply magical! I haven’t revisited the hullaballoo over this book, but to say that the text is racist seems absurd to me. The characters are bright and industrious and in any case, they are not even African or African-American. They are Indian. With its tiger sounds and repeated dialogue between Sambo and the tigers, it’s a delightful story perfect for reading aloud.

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Small Success Thursday

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Small Success Thursday

Why small success? Because that’s the only kind I know! Even the big ones come in small steps. Here’s my paltry offering for the week:

  1. The end of summer stuff – The final days of summer vacation included the usual consultation of lists and running from store to store. School supplies, uniforms, shoes, and a backpack were purchased. It doesn’t seem like a lot when it’s condensed into a nine-word sentence, but with four kids, summer uniforms and gym uniforms, it becomes a project. We also turned in our summer reading packets to the library. I failed at listing books and counting minutes for the little kids, so only the older kids and I were able to collect our free books and prizes. Continue reading →