Month: March 2025

Book Review: The Sisters of Corinth

/ Kristi / Leave a comment

The Sisters of Corinth
The Emissaries #2
by Angela Hunt

My rating: 5 / 5
Genre: Biblical fiction

The new provincial governor’s son is an eligible bachelor, and the chief magistrate’s daughter, Prima, is intent on catching his eye. Unfortunately, Marcus prefers her step-sister, Mariana, who, as a new Christian, knows that it would be a bad idea for her to marry a man who worships the Roman gods. While she struggles with her options, Prima is determined to convince Marcus that she is the right choice after all.

For as much as I loved the previous book in this trilogy (I gave it 5 stars as well), this one even tops that! First of all, we have a sort of take on a marriage of convenience but with a twist, which is a trope I generally love in Christian fiction. The backstory of how Mariana and her mother became followers of Yeshua (Christ) is really interesting, and there’s the added suspense of their faith not being accepted by those in authority around them. Prima’s side of the story is shown alongside Mariana’s, and Hunt doesn’t shy away from the harsh realities of life during this time period—violence, idol worship, sexual immorality, etc., so let this be a warning to any who would have a difficult time with that being included.

There’s so much more that I liked about the story, but too much of it would involve spoilers. I’ll just say that I both cheered and cried while reading this book. It seems like it’s not nearly often enough these days that I’ll read a book that I get completely caught up in and don’t want to leave, even when it’s over, but that happened with this book. Another warning—it does end on a cliffhanger, but fortunately for me, the follow-up book is already out, so I can read it very soon! Overall, I earnestly recommend this book for those who enjoy biblical fiction, especially from the time after Christ.

Find out more about The Sisters of Corinth

See what I’m reading next.

If you’ve read this book, or read it in the future, feel free to let me know what you think!

Book Review: The Fugitive

/ Kristi / Leave a comment

The Fugitive
Lorien Legacies: The Lost Files #10
by Pittacus Lore

My rating: 3.5 / 5
Genre: YA sci-fi

Spoiler notice: The following review may contain spoilers for the main series, starting with I Am Number Four.

Upon learning the whereabouts of Sarah Hart, Mark James heads to New Mexico to mount a one-man rescue, all the while trying to stay out of the hands of the Mogadorian-allied FBI.

This quick read was not a bad way to re-visit the world of the Garde and Mogadorian threat. I didn’t care for Mark in the first book, but he grew on me when he joined the cause. He was always in the background though, so it was interesting to see him more front and center here. Of course, I never much cared for Sarah as a character; I don’t feel that the author really created her in such a way that it makes sense for both John and Mark to pine over her, but that doesn’t really affect this story. Since I have read the whole Lorien Legacies series, I already knew the outcome of this novella, so the big reveal wasn’t news to me and cliffhanger wasn’t particularly thrilling. Again, this isn’t any fault with the story itself. Overall, the story was decent but not super exciting for me. Maybe it would have been different if I’d read it at the place it occurred in the series, instead of after it was all done, but oh well. You definitely wouldn’t want to read this if you haven’t read any of the series. If you have and liked the series, you might want to read this as well.

Find out more about Fugitive

See what I’m reading next.

If you’ve read this book, or read it in the future, feel free to let me know what you think!

Book Review: The Unbreakable Code

/ Kristi / Leave a comment

The Unbreakable Code
Book Scavenger #2
by Jennifer Chambliss Bertman

My rating: 4.5 / 5
Genre: Middle grade adventure

Spoiler notice: The following review will contain spoilers for the previous book, Book Scavenger.

At a party at Hollister’s book store celebrating the release of a lost book by Edgar Allen Poe, Emily witnesses her teacher, Mr. Quisling, stealing something out of a purse. Before she can decide whether to confront him or not, he drops it, and she and James decode a message that starts them off on a new quest to learn more about something called the Unbreakable Code. But when they begin to realize that an arsonist is involved in the same quest, they’re not sure who to trust.

I loved this book almost as much as the first one. Emily and James (and Steve), and at times Matthew, still make a great team. The Book Scavenger game is a fun addition to the plot, and the Unbreakable Code angle was really intriguing. Though the code itself is fictional, the author includes a lot of real San Francisco history that I think made the story come alive. One thing I noted while reading this book is that, unlike several other series I’ve read similar in genre and age group, for the most part, these kids aren’t getting up to things that kids their age would never be able to do. I’m not saying everything is 100% realistic, but I think it was moreso than even the previous book in the series. Bertman does a great job of keeping it real.

I only had a few issues with one particular plot hole and with the fact that…well, the entire arson angle felt unnecessary to me. Fortunately, the rest of the story was so enjoyable, those things barely detracted from the rest of the book. I  highly recommend it to kids aged around 10-14 (my 14-year-old daughter loved it as well) but also for teens and even adults who enjoy books and puzzles.

Find out more about The Unbreakable Code

See what I’m reading next.

If you’ve read this book, or read it in the future, feel free to let me know what you think!

Book Review: Death in the Clouds

/ Kristi / Leave a comment

Death in the Clouds
Hercule Poirot #12
by Agatha Christie
read by Hugh Fraser

My rating: 3 / 5
Genre: Classic mystery

I don’t have a whole lot to say about this book, partly because I’m getting behind on my reviews due to being so busy right now and partly because this wasn’t a standout installation in the series for me. It was another locked-room-type setting, albeit it an interesting one. Other aspects of the story seemed a little too similar to previous books in the series as well. I did suspect some of the solution, but like normal, I was missing a lot still by the end. There were some slight twists, but overall, I wasn’t super engaged in the story. However, since I’ve started to enjoy the series a lot more than I did early on, I’ll just consider this a bump in the road of my trip through the series. And I still appreciate the narration by Hugh Fraser.

Find out more about Death in the Clouds

See what’s coming up.

If you’ve read this book, or read it in the future, feel free to let me know what you think!

Book Review: No Compromise

/ Kristi / Leave a comment

No Compromise
by Melody Green and David Hazard

My rating: 4.5 / 5
Genre: Biography

Keith Green died a few months after I was born, so though his music wasn’t a huge part of my childhood, I do remember my mom liking his music when I was younger. I don’t generally base my rating of a biography on the content, because what the author chooses to provide about his/her (or in this case, her husband’s) life is really their choice. Based only on the writing and style here, the book is easy to read and gives some really interesting insight into the lives of both Keith and Melody Green before, during, and after their conversion to Christianity. She doesn’t sugarcoat their drug use and time spent following New Age or eastern mysticism practices as they both searched for spiritual truth. Lyrics of various songs written by Keith Green (again, before and after he became a Christian) as well as quite a few snatches of writing directly from his hand in the form of journal entries pepper the pages.

I have to admit that I didn’t agree with a lot of his philosophy or his approach to evangelism, but I appreciate how on-fire he was for God. As his own wife noted, when he became a believer, he didn’t hide away somewhere to learn about God before then presenting himself to the world as an evangelist. Maybe he should have, though, because some of the way he treated his audiences, both believers and nonbelievers, may have been more harmful than helpful. Going to a church, for example, and assuming that everyone there was a lukewarm Christian and needed to be confronted from the stage to repent of hidden sins really shocked me. I suppose if there were people in attendance who truly were right with God, they may not have been guilted by Green to confess unnecessarily, but it seems to me that Green made the assumption that every Christian he encountered (except select people he met in person and looked up to) was either a fake Christian or at least an apathetic one, simply because he could see that those types did legitimately exist in Christian communities.

Overall, I’m glad I read this book. Despite my concerns about both Keith and Melody Green’s understanding of God and the Bible, it was an interesting insight into the mind of someone who sought God before understanding exactly what it was he was seeking. Keith seemed to be working out his belief and understanding through his music, which might be a legitimate way to do so, except that by becoming more and more famous, he wrapped others up in his confusion. I do recommend this book to anyone who’s interested in biographies of famous musicians, especially fans of Keith Green, because I think knowing how he thought and believed might be an important lens through which to view his music.

Find out more about No Compromise

See what I’m reading next.

If you’ve read this book, or read it in the future, feel free to let me know what you think!

Book Review: Disney at Dawn

/ Kristi / Leave a comment

Disney at Dawn
Kingdom Keepers #2
by Ridley Pearson

My rating: 3 / 5
Genre: Middle grade fantasy

Spoiler notice: The following review may contain some spoilers for the first book in the series, Disney After Dark.

After the events of the previous book, the DHIs are back online, and the kids they’re patterned after are part of a huge celebration at Magic Kingdom. But Maleficent wasn’t as secure as they’d thought, and now she’s made Animal Kingdoms a wilder place to be. With a new threat of being locked up if they fall asleep and cross over into their holographic forms, the five hosts have to stay awake long enough to free Jez, who has been captured by the Overtakers.

Like its predecessor, this book is not terrible but not great. Again I assume that if I was a major Disney World buff, I would enjoy this book more…or maybe I’d enjoy it less, since some reviews mention incorrect descriptions of the parks. But I have no real ties to Disney, so I wasn’t able to go along for the magical ride as intended. Instead, I had to rely on the story itself. The plot is nothing unexpected and the characters are perhaps even more static and interchangeable than they were in the first book. I have to give this series credit for being inventive in the general premise and fantastical world, but the execution continues to fall short. I will keep reading the series for now, because I can see what it’s trying to be and appreciate that idea. In the meantime, I wouldn’t really recommend this book to anyone, but if it does sound intriguing to you, certainly check out other reviews at the link below, as others have liked it more than I did.

Find out more about Disney at Dawn

See what I’m reading next.

If you’ve read this book, or read it in the future, feel free to let me know what you think!

Book Review: The Kaiju Preservation Society

/ Kristi / Leave a comment

The Kaiju Preservation Society
by John Scalzi
Read by Wil Wheaton

My rating: 3 / 5
Genre: Sci-fi

When Jamie Gray is fired right before COVID lockdowns, he has to resort to food delivery for the very company that fired him. (Note: Yes, Scalzi again here never assigns a pronoun to the MC, but since the narrator I listened to is male and it would be a pain to continue to refer to the MC by the MC’s name rather than use a pronoun, I am going to refer to Jamie Gray as “he” in my review.) Then a delivery to an old acquaintance lands Jamie a better job (because really, anything would be better) with an animal rights organization that turns out to be Jamie’s entrance into his very own sci-fi story.

Overall, this book is a fun, light sci-fi adventure. I did not know the backstory of the name, but I’m sure many others will be aware that kaiju is the general term of movie monsters like Godzilla and Mothra. The story here is that kaiju are from an alternate dimension and occasionally cross over to our dimension, and sightings led to the famous monster movies. The Kaiju Preservation Society is set up in that alternate dimension and basically studies the giant creatures while attempting to keep the two dimensions separate. Jamie is dropped into the middle of this situation and has to learn the ropes basically on the fly. I struggled to understand what the main conflict/plot was for a while, but by the time it really got going, I was mostly enjoying the story. Based only on that, I probably would have rated the book higher.

Unfortunately, Scalzi’s style and political/social leanings detracted heavily from the book for me. When I read Lock In, my first Scalzi, I noted that he tends to write conversations with little in the way of descriptions of what the characters are doing. In that book, it worked for me, at least partly because the main character was just a consciousness within a metal suit. In this book, the lack of descriptions and the overused, super basic dialog tags constantly back and forth (i.e. “I said.” “Kahurangi said.” “I said.” etc.) made the style a little too bland for me. (And by the way, kudos to Wil Wheaton for making it through the many odd names in this book.) Aside from those issues, I actually almost stopped listening to the book when, after the main character leaves behind his two homosexual roommates, he meets a character who is introduced with the “they” pronoun (which, by the way, confused me greatly about how many people were being introduced before I realized what the author was going for). It was a judgment call on my part to keep listening, but I feel that other Christians who read this review should be made aware of the concerns I had that almost led me to stop. There is also quite a bit of language, though I have come to expect that from books like this. I’m overall glad I read the book and tend to think that fans of Scalzi will generally enjoy this book as well. If you are new to his style, though, I don’t know that I’d recommend you start with this one.

Find out more about The Kaiju Preservation Society

See what I’m reading next.

If you’ve read this book, or read it in the future, feel free to let me know what you think!

Book Review: The Shingle Weaver’s Picnic

/ Kristi / Leave a comment

The Shingle Weaver’s Picnic
by P. C. Smith

My rating: 2.5 / 5
Genre: Historical fiction

It’s 1941, and 7-year-old Annie Elizabeth Jordan (known as Cricket) is going to stay with her grandparents for the summer alone for the first time, since her mom is about to give birth. Amidst the uncertainty and confusion of the war that has already cost Cricket dearly, a tragedy rocks her grandparents’ small Pacific-northwest town.

Before I get into the actual review, I feel the need to give some warnings up front. From the synopsis and at least some early parts of the book, I got a kind of To Kill a Mockingbird feel, so I was completely caught off guard by the extreme language and sexual content. Specifically, there are multiple rapes described in varying levels of graphicness, at least one quite graphically. It’s really bizarre, in fact, considering the amount of prayer and references to God in this book. Cricket’s prayers are sweet and could make the story come across as Christian, but it’s not too hard to see that it’s shallow at best.

Now to the story itself—I have to applaud the author for the depth she put into it. The story is told in snippets of Cricket traveling to and then spending the summer with her grandparents, mixed with fairly in-depth backstories of different characters as they’re introduced. Some of these characters are seemingly minor, and at least at the time we read about their lives up until the point that we meet them, we have no idea why they’re important. It is an…interesting pacing choice. Then, as if because Smith understood the possible issues that would arise from this style, she ends a lot of chapters with a reminder that something terrible is coming to keep the suspense up. This might work for some people, but it was just a little strange to me. Especially since the official synopsis tells us what that event is going to be (though not all of the details, of course); it just takes quite a while to get there. I also feel like the title was fairly disconnected from most of the book.

There is a little bit of a twist near the end, which kept it from being as predictable as I thought it might be by the time the actual “event” happened. It was a little underwhelming though. Also, Cricket’s prayers seem childish in nature, but some of the words and things that she seems to understand are too grown-up for her age. I was also a little confused by the “present time” that the book starts with, at which point Cricket would have to be in her 80s, since she was 7-8 in 1941, yet her baby brother, who was born around 1941, says he’s in his 50s. So maybe the “present time” is actually supposed to be the 90s, yet iPods and iPhones are mentioned. It was a minor thing, but it really confused me. On the other hand, for a book that, as far as I can tell, is self-published, it contained barely any typos and mistakes, which is refreshing. In the end, though, it just wasn’t for me. I would say that enough of that was personal preference, though, so if you’re interested in the book, check out the other reviews, which are all positive so far, at the link below.

I received a copy of this book for free from the author in exchange for an honest review.

Find out more about The Shingle Weaver’s Picnic

See what I’m reading next.

If you’ve read this book, or read it in the future, feel free to let me know what you think!