Reading, Writing & Pondering

  Christine Caine has two flourishing olive trees in her front yard. The Faith to Flourish is her book full of lessons she learned from her olive trees. I don't have olive trees but I have 2 plum trees in my front yard that I love to watch through the four seasons. Publisher: Thomas Nelson Publication date: February 10, 2026 Print length: 240 pages AN INSTANT  NEW YORK TIMES  BESTSELLER! Discover how God has created you and called you to flourish even in the most difficult times. Join bestselling author Christine Caine as she shows you how God created you with a powerful purpose and destiny. He wants you to flourish. Sometimes it feels like hardships and struggles are endless. Like a new storm is always brewing on the horizon. You face challenging circumstances, strained relationships, or shattered dreams. And the weight of it all can feel crushing. You simply long for rest. But how can you flourish when you feel like you can barely breathe from it all? In  T...

  Are you looking for some new magical fairy tale stories? My Gift by Raluca Sirbu is a beautifully illustrated book (Alisa Barannik, illustrator) that will delight children (and adults!) with 3 tales of hope and courage. My Gift is aimed at children ages 5 to 10 years old. The hardback book is illustrated in bright, vivid colors. The book measures roughly 8 by 10 inches in size and is 36 pages long. The author is from Romania and these Romanian stories are inspired by true events in the Romanian past.  The stories in My Gift show people being freed from oppression. They show courage. They show how to stand strong in the face of evil. They are wonderful stories for children in today's world. The brightly colored pictures illustrate the stories quite well.    I received a copy of this book from the author. All opinions within this review are my own. 

  As Brighter Than Before by Courtney Walsh starts out, Claire Karadec feels like a failure. Her marriage is washed up after publicly finding out her spouse had an affair with a younger woman. To try to make sense of her hurt and sadness, Claire goes to therapy. The therapist encourages her to make a list of her dreams in her journal in response to being asked, What do I really want? As a result, Claire decides if she wants a new start in life, she needs to act on her list to start a new story. At first, I wasn't sure about Brighter Than Before. It started off quite a bit different than this author's other books. But as I went along, it grew on me, and by the middle of it, I was cheering Claire on with the rest of her new friends. Then there is Miles who lives in Claire's apartment complex. I genuinely liked Miles from the start. . .I wanted him to let go of his fears too so was also cheering him on. I always love that Courtney Walsh gives me a HEA ending too...

  At some point in our lives most of us deal with some type of heartbreak or disappointment. That is just part of being human. The Wholehearted Way by Dr. Peace Amadi is a book offering a way to deal with the pain and find healing in your life.  A Five-Part Framework to Healing and Inner Peace · Understand your patterns of pain · Navigate heartbreak, disappointment, and rejection · From a credentialed PsyD professor of psychology, speaker, and coach Heartbreak, disappointment, and rejection are part of being human in a broken world. But when we experience them again and again, it can start to feel personal. Our identity and worth are shaken, and we may find that staying hurt feels easier than pursuing healing. Yet, in Christ, we are meant to be made  whole . The Wholehearted Way  expresses an approach to life that requires us to tell ourselves a bigger, better, broader story about our pain, allowing us to love ourselves fully and live abundantly. Combining b...

Claire Holloway Is Winging It by Angela Ruth Strong is a Christian contemporary romance novel. I wasn't sure what to think of this one when I heard that it was a love triangle story. However, having read it, I felt that trope was well-done. Claire Holloway was a ballerina who lost her dream of performing when she developed some foot issues. Her boyfriend, Wyatt, continued to support her and she valued that support and saw him as her main support. Then she decided to become a flight attendant and he isn't too happy to support her in that dream. He struggles with her being gone so much as he works in a regular office. First officer pilot in training Nathan Stuart recently faced a break-up with his fiance. He had been feeling down about that until he meets the frazzled Claire on her first day on the job. From the first day they met, Nathan and Claire share some humor and have a friendly bond. Does it stretch the boundaries of friendship? Claire continues to try to keep her relati...

  Are you looking for a new book to gift a baby or a toddler? Or maybe a toddler's Easter basket right now? The Beginning of You by Laine Lawson Craft is such a cute illustrated book with rhyming lyrical prose throughout the book. This cute board book measures 7 inches square and has the thick cardboard pages that make it easy to little ones to turn the pages on their own. The Beginning of You is 17 pages long and is aimed at children ages two and under. The illustrations are inclusive and show children of all skin colors, which I like. The words of this book are written with a wonderful rhythm. I like how she writes about how we are all made by God in our own special way. The words also remind little ones that they are loved by the Creator who made them.     I received a copy of this book from the author/publisher. All opinions within this review are my own.