Author: Kristi

Book Review: Joy to the World

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Joy to the World
by Carolyn Miller, Amanda Barratt, & Erica Vetsch

My rating: 4 / 5
Genre: Christmas-themed short stories, Christian historical romance

Joy to the World contains three novellas from three different authors, each in the genre of Regency romance, perfect for the Christmas season. My overall rating for the book is an average of my ratings for each story, shown below. Below the ratings are brief (as much as possible) reviews for each story.

“Heaven and Nature Sing” by Carolyn Miller – 2 / 5
“Far as the Curse Is Found” by Amanda Barratt – 5 / 5
“Wonders of His Love” by Erica Vetsch – 5 / 5

“Heaven and Nature Sing” is the tale of 2 people who were close to engagement a year past, but are now estranged and are thrust together during the holidays, which certainly allows for a romance to develop in a short time period. There’s history there. But strangely, the only way the author seemed to be able to inject romance was related to kissing. Everything was about finding ways to put them under a kissing ball (mistletoe) or thrust them into some other awkward situation with physical closeness, before they’d even had a chance to try to work out their issues from the past.

Other things happened that made me dislike the characters or made me scratch my head, like Edith (female lead) allowing the other young adults to set George (male lead) up to mock propose to her, and then Edith actually blaming George for the situation! She also spends at least half of the story thinking about George and then mentally berating herself for doing that…and then she gets angry at him for saving her from a falling tree branch. I also noted a bit of dialog in which George asks Edith if she wants him to “kiss it better” in a story filled with flowery, old-fashioned language both in the dialog and surrounding it. Sadly, this story did not go over well with me. 

“Far as the Curse is Found” is the tale of two very broken people, albeit in different ways, who help each other out of the darkness. The connection between them is fast, but not in an unbelievable way. I think that Jenny’s background and brokenness are dealt with less than Dwight’s, and if the story had been longer, I would have liked to see more of how she had to overcome the trauma she’d gone through. It’s not treated frivolously, though, and she’s shown to be a strong character throughout.

Dwight undergoes the largest transformation, and I really like him every step of the way. Again, things may be a bit too quick, but it was explored well in the space the author had. The curse angle is a really nice glue for the story and ties into the story’s title and the book’s theme very well. Other reviewers have compared this story to Beauty and the Beast, which I can’t comment on, never having seen any version of it, but I can see some possible allusions. That aside, in case it’s not obvious, I loved this story! 

“Wonders of His Love” is the tale of a Scottish portrait painter trying to make a name for himself in England and the picture-perfect young widow that feels as displaced as he does. Cilla had married the future Duke of Haverly, who then died before he inherited the title. She’s left in limbo, having practically become a servant to her very demanding and prissy mother-in-law. She reminds me a lot of me–defaulting to a spot in the background, wondering if this will be her entire life. Even when she starts to make strides forward, she still falls back on old, “easy” habits. If the story had been novel-length, there would have been a lot more room to explore that, I think, but on the other hand, it might have started to get tiring, too.

Hamish is a different kind of character than I’ve read in this genre in the past (not that I have a very long history reading Regency romance), and I really liked that. I liked him in a lot of different ways, including the fact that the author didn’t dwell so much on him being tall and ridiculously handsome as every romantic hero seems to be. His talent and compulsion for sketching scenes, coupled with his ability to bring out the truth of  a subject, were all really interesting facets to his character. That’s a lot of why I would have loved to see a particular sketch Hamish had made come to fruition, and I’m not sure if the author simply ran out of space or forgot about it.

This third story was my favorite of the three by a very slim margin. I’ll admit right now, though, that what pushed it over the top was most likely the inclusion of characters from two of Erica Vetsch’s other novels. As soon as I realized who the female lead in this story was, I was so excited. And sure enough, both the Haverlys from The Gentleman Spy and the Whitelocks from The Lost Lieutenant were in the story (the Haverlys moreso, which makes sense, given that Cilla is the duke’s sister-in-law). Both of these books I read just recently and loved, but if you haven’t read them, don’t let that put you off from reading this story. You don’t need to know their stories to still follow and enjoy this novella.

Final thoughts on the whole book: Overall, it’s a wonderful collection of Christmas-related Regency romance stories. I do think plenty of others will like the first story, based on large differences in personal preferences, and I recommend the entire book to fans of the genres mentioned above, or even those looking for good Christian romance in general. I have a feeling I’ll re-read this during a future Christmas season and will even give the first story another chance.

Thank you to Netgalley and Kregel Publications for providing me a copy of this book to review.

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Weekly Writing Update: 12/20

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I’m not even going to pretend that I did much work on book #3 in the series this last week. I put the new order of scenes that I came up with the week before into Scrivener, and then I started writing one of the new scenes I have planned. I didn’t even get that scene finished, as various things, mostly related to preparing for Christmas, took up much more of my time than I’d expected. Plus, I’ve been having headaches more often lately, which makes focusing on writing difficult.

This coming week, of course, will hold even more Christmas prep, plus the day itself. I will attempt to spend at least a little time in Pithea, even if it’s not official revision. I have a character interview in mind, so maybe I’ll do that in little snatches of time throughout the week.

While I work on continuing the series, if you’re interested in reading where it all starts, Pithea is available on Amazon as both an e-book and paperback (it’s also on Kindle Unlimited).

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Book Review: The Old Lace Shop

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The Old Lace Shop
Once Upon a Dickens Christmas #3
by Michelle Griep
read by Nan McNamara

My rating: 4 / 5
Genre: Christian historical romance, Christmas fiction

Recently widowed Bella White spent almost a decade with a man who frightened and abused her. Now that he’s gone, she’s free to make her own path. Keeping one of the businesses her husband owned, Bella decides to help run the lace factory. Her business partner, though, who owns 49% of the business and is used to running it alone, is not so pleased. And since that partner is Edmund Archer, who was once Bella’s beau, things are quite awkward when Bella arrives to help run the factory. And the lace manufacturing business is a lot more cut-throat than Bella expected.

After the disappointment of book #2 in this series, I was glad to be able to enjoy this one more. I applauded Bella’s desire to earn her own money, rather than just live on what her husband left her. And her heart for local women who’d gone blind working in the lace factories was a really nice side plot. The overall story was decent, if not a little too cluttered for a short novel.

Right off the bat, it was strange going into this book after reading the first two in the series, because they were both told in 3rd person past tense, while this one is in 1st person present tense. This is an odd choice for a book with alternating POVs, and I’ll admit to being a little confused a few times when I’d forget whose perspective we were in at the time. Also, there’s more pressure to make sure both characters’ voices are unique, since they’re obviously not the exact same person, and that wasn’t necessarily done well enough here. It didn’t help that I listened to the audiobook though, which I’ve now decided to avoid for romances if at all possible. And that may have been why the romance in this story felt a little weak, or it may have been the story itself, but I don’t think I can say for sure.

The epilogue of this story was about the 2nd-chance coin that shows up in all 3 books. This is a shame, because I wasn’t as connected to that coin as I could have been, and so the epilogue mostly fell flat for me. Be that as it may, I still liked the story in general, and I do recommend this book for anyone looking for a quick Christmas read, or for a historical and/or Christian romance.

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**As far as I can tell, this story is not available in any format by itself. It is only available as the third story in the collection titled Once Upon a Dickens Christmas, which contains all three stories in this series.

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Book Review: The Gentleman Spy

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The Gentleman Spy
Serendipity & Secrets #2
by Erica Vetsch

My rating: 5 / 5
Genre: Christian historical romance

Spoiler notice: The following review may contain spoilers for the first book in the series, The Lost Lieutenant.

Marcus Haverly much preferred his life as a “spare,” the second son of the Duke of Haverly, which allowed him to stay in the background of society and do his work as a secret agent for the Crown without fear of discovery. But when his father and older brother both die, the mantle of duke is thrust upon him, bringing many duties that clash with his clandestine work. One of those duties is to marry an eligible young woman, and he’ll be under much scrutiny by the rest of society until he does so. When he meets Lady Charlotte, who has been chastised by her parents for not conforming to society standards, thus leaving her in danger of becoming a spinster, Marcus makes a snap decision to marry her, expecting to use her as a cover for his secret life. But Charlotte has other ideas of what she wants out of a marriage, throwing a wrench in his plans.

I enjoyed the 2nd book in this series as much as I enjoyed the first. I already liked Marcus going into this book, since he was my favorite side character in the previous book. And while I wanted to throttle him a few times during the story, I still loved the book. Charlotte was a much bigger part of the story than the synopsis—both the official one and the one I wrote above—make her seem. Her arc was definitely a captivating part of the story.

This series so far has been all about my favorite type of romance—a marriage thrown together hastily between two people who don’t really know each other, and the development of the relationship between husband and wife. The only thing that really bothered me in this story is that Marcus, an otherwise intelligent and capable man, was so stupid when it came to his marriage, even after getting brilliant advice from a very wise woman. I’m not saying it’s completely unrealistic, but he got right up to that point of starting to annoy me. Thankfully, the rest of the book was so good, my frustrations with Marcus were overall very minor.

Charlotte’s plight to help the working girls of London really endeared her to me. It was also reminiscent of the first book, and I love that connection between the two. I also loved seeing the Whitelocks so much, which makes even more sense than it might in other series of “stand-alones,” because Marcus and Evan were such close friends in the previous book. Reading the previous book isn’t really necessary before reading this one, but I’d still recommend starting there, because it will make the experience of the 2nd book richer. I’m also very excited about the next book in the series, which won’t release until next March, especially since one of the main characters is Marcus’s sister. We meet her in this book, and though her time in the story was brief, I really liked her!

As with the previous book (though for a different reason), I don’t think the official synopsis for this book is good, especially since it depicts Marcus as unhappy with some of Charlotte’s endeavors. So take it with a grain of salt. But the book itself is great, and I definitely recommend it to fans of Christian romance, historical or otherwise, and fans of Regency romance.

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Weekly Writing Update: 12/13

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I worked on book #3 in the series this week, and I think I have figured out the best way forward. I’ve cut off the last 15k words from the previous draft to be part of book #4, which basically means I’m going to be making the main story goal for book #3 different than how it’s been for many years now. This means that I need to revise a lot to make sure the new story goal is coming out enough. It also means I can put back in some longer scenes that I’d removed to shorten the story and to allow the old story goal to come to the surface earlier in the book.

Actually, this book has been giving me trouble for quite a while. I always worried that the last 1/3 of the book was such a different plot from the rest, and that the plot that is set up in the first 2/3 sort of goes nowhere. But I kept moving forward, thinking I just had to live with it. Then when I had the sudden realization that those 15k words would be better off as part of book #4, it gave me the chance to fix all of that. It’ll be a lot of work to fix, though.

So I started by doing something that helped me a lot during revision of Outcast earlier this year–putting all of the existing scenes onto little slips of paper, color-coding them by story arc, and then filling out new slips for new scenes I think should be added.

This allowed me to play with the order of the scenes and move some forward when I realized a plot arc was getting started too late, and that starting it sooner could help avoid monotony in the earlier scenes. Now it’s pretty much time to get to revising, which I think will start with a read-through to refresh myself on the story, cutting down bloated scenes and writing the first draft of some new scenes along the way. I’ll also need to make the scenes flow in the order I’ve changed them to, but I’m not sure if I’ll do that now or later.

While I work on continuing the series, if you’re interested in reading where it all starts, Pithea is available on Amazon as both an e-book and paperback (it’s also on Kindle Unlimited).

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Book Review: A Christmas Star

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A Christmas Star
Cape Light #9
by Thomas Kinkade & Katherine Spencer

My rating: 4 / 5
Genre: Christmas drama, romance

Spoiler notice: The following review may contain some spoilers for the previous books in the series, starting with Cape Light.

Jack Sawyer, recent hermit after the loss of his wife 2 years past, awkwardly takes in a single mother and her young daughter when their car breaks down near his house in the country. Before long, he’s as much in need of Julie’s help as she is of his. At the same time, Sam & Jessica Morgan lose their beloved house to a devastating fire. Their marriage is tested in this difficult time, as rebuilding won’t be as easy as they hope.

Of the books in the Cape Light series I’ve read, this was my favorite. The story of Jack and Julie was much more interesting to me than the saga of Sam and Jessica Morgan’s tragedy. I don’t think that’s necessarily because I didn’t like the plot arc about the fire, but because I really liked the arc with Jack and Julie. Even moreso, I liked the arc with Jack and Julie’s daughter, Kate.

What I found most endearing was that this was not just the development of a relationship between a widower and a single mom, but also the development of a relationship between a father whose son has been estranged for two years and a little girl who steals the not-so-old man’s heart. Jack could get a second chance at being both a husband and a father, and it’s very sweet. The culmination of that storyline made the entire book worth it.

As for Sam and Jessica, they almost killed my interest in the series in the first book. Fortunately, we’re past most of the drama I disliked with them, but I will say some of their annoying quirks reared their heads again. Still, I found the difficulties they go through in this book sadly all too realistic. And while the end of their story might bother some, I think it makes sense within the context of this series.

After reading the first 4 books in the series and averaging 3.5 stars, I decided not to continue with it (which becomes a series of Christmas novels after the first 4 non-holiday books). But I already owned this one, so figured I’d give it a try. I’m glad I did, as I liked it more than the first 4. I’m not sure if I’ll read more or not, though. Maybe I’ll go back to book #5 if I have time left in the holiday season after I’ve read all of the Christmas-themed books I have planned. We’ll see.

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Book Review: Escape from Mr. Lemoncello’s Library

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Escape from Mr. Lemoncello’s Library
Mr. Lemoncello’s Library book #1
by Chris Grabenstein

My rating: 5 / 5
Genre: Children’s adventure, mystery

Game-lover Kyle Keeley is desperate to win a spot in the overnight sleepover at the new, state-of-the-art local library. The library was designed by his hero, Mr. Lemoncello, who created pretty much every board game and video game Kyle loves. When the overnighter turns into a lock-in (literally), Kyle and his fellow 12-year-olds have to figure out how to escape.

My 10-year-old daughter convinced me to read this book, and by convinced I mean pushed, cajoled, and pestered me until I got to it. She loved it and was sure I would too. She was right! It’s a quick, mostly simple read, and once the lock-in part started up, it was the most just pure fun I’ve ever had reading a book.

Once morning comes, the kids have to find clues and solve puzzles in order to try to escape and win the big prize. The story is basically Willy Wonka meets escape rooms, which is right up my alley. But even better, it’s an escape room played in the entire 3-story (plus the basement) library! I was seriously jealous. Mr. Lemoncello is a really entertaining character, and the kids have distinct personalities, for the most part. I will say that the knowledge base for some of these kids was pretty unrealistic, but it didn’t really bother me. It was just too fun!

I think something else that is important, since the book is written for kids, is that my daughter is a huge fan. She’s read the first 4 books in the series and was ridiculously excited to find out that a 5th one came out a few months ago. I’ll really enjoy continuing this series and being able to talk to her about the books as I go. I think this is a great book for kids around 8-12, and for parents too, especially those who like games.

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Book Review: The Tombs of Anak

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The Tombs of Anak
The Cooper Kids Adventure Series book #3
by Frank Peretti

My rating: 4 / 5
Genre: Children’s Christian adventure

Archaeologist Dr. Cooper and his kids, Jay and Lila, search for a lost co-worker in a tunnel under an unearthed temple of the Philistine god Dagon. They find themselves on the wrong side of Ha-Raphah, the Fearsome One, whom the locals revere and fear. What will it take to discover the true identity of this evil power?

Though I thought the premise for this book sounded too similar to the previous book in the series, it turned out to be quite a different story with quite a different outcome. The story was engaging all throughout, and so far, it’s my favorite of the series.

I found the mystery behind Ha-Raphah really interesting, and even after light is shed on the mysterious being, he remained very sinister, as opposed to becoming less scary once his identity was known, which is what I expected. I read the last 1/3 or so of the book at night, and frankly, I went to bed feeling a little creeped out. This again reminded me of some of my favorite Peretti books, which is a big reason that I liked the book a lot in the end. As for kids that are the age the book is meant for, some might be a little scared, so it’s a good thing to keep in mind if you’re thinking of this book for your kid(s). Maybe read it first and gauge that aspect on an individual basis.

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Weekly Writing Update: 12/6

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Now that NaNoWriMo is over, I’m back to other writing work. Well, sort of. I spent most of this week doing preliminary work on my NaNoNovel before filing it away for now. Sometimes I’ll spend the first few days after November ends doing a quick clean-up of what I wrote–mostly removing things I marked as NaNo fodder and at least doing a quick spell check. This is usually better to do while the story is still fresh, and then it’s good to let it sit for some time.

I did start on revision of book #3 in the series today, but didn’t get very far. I have some large structure changes to figure out, but first have to decide how to figure them out.

While I work on continuing the series, if you’re interested in reading where it all starts, Pithea is available on Amazon as both an e-book and paperback (it’s also on Kindle Unlimited).

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Book Review: An Ivy Hill Christmas

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An Ivy Hill Christmas
by Julie Klassen

My rating: 5 / 5
Genre: Christian historical romance, Christmas fiction

Coerced home from London during the Christmas season by his mother, Richard Brockwell is focused on staying away from any marriageable young ladies and returning to London as soon as he can. But his time at home brings up a lot of regrets and bad memories from his past, places a needy orphan in his path, and taunts him with a young woman who wants to be paired with him even less than he wants to be paired with her. That woman is Arabella Awdry, who is determined to forgo romance for a life of helping the less fortunate. Besides that, she knows all too well what sort of man Richard Brockwell is, and it isn’t the sort of man she wants anything to do with.

I saw this book here and there over the last month or so, passing it by for various reasons. Then I read another book by Julie Klassen recently and loved it, so as soon as I realized this was by the same author, I immediately added it to my Christmas-season reading list. I’m so glad I did! Though I haven’t read any of the other Ivy Hill books, and I could see that some characters were part of a larger story, I didn’t have any issues reading this. And it hit so many sweet spots for me. I loved the characters, that the romance was just one part of the story, that some common tropes of the genre were avoided.

I really liked Arabella early in the story; she endeared herself to me as soon as she put Richard in his place for his rudeness regarding her family. Richard was flawed in such a real way, and I think the author did a great job with his backstory. I’ll admit that Arabella’s stubbornness wore on me a bit by the end, but not as a flaw in the book, because it didn’t feel forced or unrealistic.

A Christmas romance is even more likely to feel contrived than any other romance story, at least in my experience, but I loved the fact that it wasn’t the only purpose of the story at all. There was a lot going on, especially for Richard, and the ending didn’t feel too easy or frivolous. Everything had to really be worked for. Though when I reached the end of the book with only the epilogue left, my heart almost stopped. I am not sure that was the best pacing idea. But it’s a minor complaint, really (not saying more to avoid spoilers).

Overall, I found this short novel to be refreshing and liked how, though some of the same types of silly parlor games were played as I’ve started to get used to in other novels of the same genre, they weren’t so groan-inducing in this story as I’ve come to expect. I loved it, and if you’ve seen many of my reviews, you might know that I don’t give 5 stars very often, so let that tell you something. I definitely recommend this book for any fans of Christian historical romance, especially if you’re looking for a warm Christmas read. I’m definitely adding the Tales from Ivy Hill books to my reading list now!

Thank you to Netgalley and Bethany House for providing me a copy of this book to review.

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