I love a good first line. The first line from your new release, Our Lady of the Roses, really sets the tone with this first sentence: “He looks like a gnocchi.” Five words, but the reader already has a sense of the tone and a cultural connection. Can you tell me more about the role of humor in the book and the Italian influence?
I love throwing opposites together because it makes a story ripe for laughs. Janetta and Bob, the main characters in Our Lady of the Roses, are 180 degrees apart in temperament, looks, desires, and beliefs. I’m not Italian; I’m mostly Irish with a smattering of German, English, and Welsh, and I was once selling my novels at a craft show, and I got to talking with the older woman selling jewelry next to me. We started talking about travels, and she told me she was Italian and had just came back from Italy. I told her I’d been to Italy and loved it. I then shared that I’d just come back from Ireland. She laughed and said, “You know I was a bit of an Italian snob, thinking that no place is as nice as Italy, but I went to Ireland last year, and I had to shut my mouth. I loved Ireland.” Like her, Janetta is a bit of an Italian snob, thinking no one has more style, elegance, and culture than the Italians, and she dismisses Bob for being a “gnocchi” a big, white, doughy blob. As the story progresses and Janetta tries to make Bob over, we come to learn that she is the one who needs a makeover because she’s all style and very little substance.
November 3-9, 2019, is National Vocation Awareness Week. The dozen books below thoughtfully consider vocations (marriage, consecrated life, priesthood, and single life) through characters who consider, discern, or actively live their vocation. They range from a picture book and a chapter book to stories for teens and adults.
During his travels, my husband has been listening to Black Flags, Blue Waters: The Epic History of America’s Most Notorious Pirates by Eric Jay Dolin. It’s what you might expect from the subtitle, but I found this part of the description interesting: “[The book] illustrates how American colonists at first supported these outrageous pirates in an early display of solidarity against the Crown, and then violently opposed them.” Hmm. That’s something new to me.
I readBe Brave in the Scared by Mary Lenaburg in one evening. Yes, it’s short, but it is also smoothly written and not longer than it needed to be – and that says something. I often feel as if nonfiction books are trying to fill pages, becoming repetitive, but not in this case. Mary Lenaburg’s story is brutally honest and well-told, and that’s why this book has been so well-reviewed. I expected it to be more specifically about her relationship with her late daughter, Courtney, but it’s so much bigger and broader. If you’ve ever struggled to trust God with your life – and who hasn’t? – I recommend you read Be Brave in the Scared.
I did a final read-through of my own novel, All in Good Time, hoping to catch every last typo or formatting error! It’s the story of a young widow of three children, Melanie, who unexpectedly finds romance with one of the coaches of her oldest son’s Little League team, Brian. (A “fun uncle” helping out, not a married dad!) But just as everything seems to be going right, it all crumbles. Brian has some secrets. One he can’t keep longer than a couple of days, and an old one he desperately tries to hold close. Some humor, some mystery/suspense, and some serious treatment of a pervasive societal and familial problem: pornography.
I’ve begun reading The Power of Silence: Against the Dictatorship of Noise by Cardinal Robert Sarah and Nicholas Diat during a portion of my weekly Eucharistic Adoration. Who would’ve thought so much could be said about silence? So far, lots of food for thought. As a naturally quiet person and someone who tires of the noise of media (social and otherwise), a lot resonates with me. Even so, keeping silent runs so contrary to so much of how life “works” these days that aspects of the book are challenging.
A Reluctant Bride(The Bride Ships Book #1) by Jody Hedlund was an enjoyable book to listen to while running errands and completing household chores. From a writer’s perspective, so much of this novel is done right: internal and external conflicts for the hero and heroine, romantic tension, character arcs, story goals, and more. Beyond that, it was simply an enjoyable romance, drawing upon the common theme of love conquering class barriers. Joseph and Mercy were such honorable characters it would be hard not to like them, even if I wanted to give them a little nudge now and then.
Ella’s Promise by Ellen Gable recently released, though I read an advance copy a couple of months ago. This is the final book in the Great War Great Love series, another sweet historical romance between an American woman and a Canadian man set against the backdrop of World War I in France. I especially enjoyed the bit of espionage that makes its way into this story and the satisfying resolution of the series.
As I make my way through Bram Stoker’s Dracula, a classic I’ve never read, my son is beginning Dracul by Dacre Stoker and J.D. Barker. Inspired by notes and texts left behind by Bram Stoker, Dracul is a prequel to Dracula, set in 1868.
Apparently he has a thing for thick classics, because he’s also begun reading Don Quixote by Cervantes. I think he’s trying to up his Quiz Bowl game in the literature category, but he’s always gravitated toward classics. My son’s going to be better read than I am, for certain.
In sixth grade, my daughter has been borrowing books from the classroom library. Unfortunately, she’s somehow reading a series in reverse order, which is driving her bonkers. The current book is Julie by Jean Craighead George about an Eskimo girl returning home after having lived among wolves. The first book in the series was a Newbery Award-winner.
My second-grade daughter so desperately wants a puppy that it’s become nearly the sole topic of her reading. Poor thing. She recently read Buddyby Ellen Miles, another in the Puppy Place series in which foster dogs are placed in homes by a brother and sister, Charles and Lizzie Peterson.
She also really enjoyed Drawing God by Karen Kiefer. I asked why she liked it, and she gave me a little summary of how a girl tries to draw God by drawing things that God is like: the sun, bread, and a heart. This is a creative story designed to get children to try drawing God themselves and unlock the creativity of their faith imagination. World Drawing God Day is November 7.
In first grade, my son has discovered Nate the Great books, and I am happy to revisit this series that I loved reading with my oldest child. Nate solves simple mysteries, often with a side of his favorite food, pancakes. What makes this series shine are the quirky kids in the neighborhood: Oliver, who follows him everywhere, Annie and her vicious dog Fang, and Rosamond and her cats. The book he most recently read is Nate the Great and the Snowy Trail by Marjorie Weinman Sharmat.
At bedtime, we read Brother Lorenzo’s Pretzels: Prayer and the Holy Trinity by Cornelia Mary Bilinsky. We enjoyed this little history of the pretzel and how it was used to teach children basic religious concepts. It’s nicely illustrated and comes with a pretzel recipe at the end. I recommend it with a side visit to the Julius Sturgis Pretzel Bakery in Lititz, Pennsylvania, the first commercial pretzel bakery in America.
Want more details on An Open Book? You can also sign up for An Open Book reminder email, which goes out one week before the link-up. No blog? That’s okay. Just tell us what you’re reading in the comment box.
THANKS FOR STOPPING BY! STAY A WHILE AND LOOK AROUND. LEAVE A COMMENT. SHARE WITH A FRIEND. IF YOU LIKE WHAT YOU SEE, PLEASE SIGN UP FOR MY AUTHOR NEWSLETTER TO KEEP UP-TO-DATE ON NEW RELEASES, EXTRAS, AND HOT DEALS!
As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
When she joins the war effort during the Great War, American nurse Ella Neumann doesn’t see allies or enemies. The daughter of German immigrants, Ella sees only human beings in need of care. A promise to herself and a promise made to her by an enemy officer become the catalyst for the life she plans to lead after the war. But a handsome Canadian soldier may complicate her plans. In this third installment of the Great War – Great Love series, join Ella in a tale of promises, betrayal and unconditional love
Seems like Kanye West is a hot topic. I’m old enough to say without embarrassment that my knowledge of him begins and ends with him being married to a Kardashian and his tussle with Taylor Swift. But a headline about him caught my eye a couple of days ago. I clicked through and discovered this:
“Playboy was my gateway into full-blown pornography addiction. My dad had a Playboy left out at age 5, and it’s affected almost every choice I made for the rest of my life,” West told Zane Lowe on Apple Music’s Beats 1 on Thursday. “From age 5, to now having to kick the habit. And it just presents itself in the open, like it’s OK. And I stand up and say, you know, it’s not OK.” (Source)
And that prompted me to write the blog post I never intended to write. I’d been reading about silence and wondering whether I really should be saying something about anything. And yet, I felt like something else needed to be said.
October, or “spooky season,” as I keep hearing, is the perfect time to feature books that highlight the unseen realities of angels, demons, and disembodied spirits. Interestingly, not a single one of these is a horror novel.
Below lie a dozen Catholic novels widely considered to be Catholic (and literary) classics. In some cases, the entire body of the author’s work could be included on this list. I stuck to one work per author.
In the case of The Lord of the Rings, it was simply easier to link the first book in the trilogy. Summaries provided are taken from the Amazon descriptions.
These also make IDEAL downloads for the ride to/from the annual March for life!
In reverse order of which I read them, here are a dozen reading recommendations for Respect Life Month. They are a varied bunch! Romance, dystopian, women’s fiction, mystery, young adult, short stories, and suspense. And, yes, even adventure dinosaur dystopian!
