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Showing posts from September, 2015

Only with Blood by Therese Down

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Caitlin Spillane is a young woman with a dream. She lives with her family in Ireland in the 1940's. Her sister, Maureen, also has a plan for her future. She wants to become a nun.  In Only with Blood by Therese Down, if a young woman dreams the right dream, things will go well for her. For Maureen who chooses to become a nun, there is joy all around in the family. Caitlin's dream is very different. She wants to go to the university, Trinity university in Dublin. She loves learning and looks forward to discovering new ideas. Her dream seems like "codology" stuff and nonsense. The novel is very painful to read and is a reminder of a time when girl-women were treated like chattel. It helped me to remember how far women have come in the Twenty - first century. What I found as insane was the fact that Caitlin's father does not tell Caitlin his plans for her marriage. He is going to sell Caitlin, his daughter, to Jack Flynn for a measly five hundred

Wondrous Words

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Bermudaonion.wordpress.com yarmulke - a skullcap worn in public by Orthodox Jewish men or during prayer by other Jewish men. https://www.googleyarmulke gers - A traditional yurt (from the Turkic) or ger (Mongolian) is a portable, round tent covered with skins or felt and used as a dwelling by nomads in the steppes of Central Asia . https://en.wikipediawiki/ Yurt

Bible Stories GONE CRAZY! Blog Tour Sept. 14-18, 2015

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There is nothing like an easily written and colorfully illustrated book for children about the Bible. "Bible Stories GONE CRAZY! by Josh Edwards is illustrated by Emiliano Migliardo. There are 8 Bible stories in the book. The child is asked to find the teddies in the paintings and to explore the pictures to find mistakes. It is fun to look for the mistakes in the illustrations. For example, in the Bible story about Daniel in the lions den there is a lion carrying a bundle of balloons. There is also a chalked game of Hop Scotch in the lair. One angel carries dentures in her hand. I could imagine children laughing at these paintings. For a synopsis, you can read about two to three sentences at the top of the page. Near the bottom of the pages are the scriptures that will fit the drawings.The scriptures are rather lengthy. It is helpful to think of the child's age. Probably, an adult will read the stories to the child. The question is whether your child would begin to wigg

Evergreen Falls by Kimberley Freeman

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Like time, we fall forward and then backward in Evergreen Falls by Kimberley Freeman. The time periods are 2014 and 1926. The place is the Blue Mountains of Australia. Most of the action takes place at the Evergreen Falls spa. Lauren is the Historian. She finds a pile of love letters written in 1926 by a Samuel Honeychurch-Black. To find out about the circumstances and the people involved is why the reader is taken back to the Twentieth century. The tale is magnificent. It is about family, love, disaster, wealth, poverty and all of what embodies life. I became very caught up in the workings of the class system during those early years. Rich people treated the poor and working class differently than they would treat someone from the upper class. It is Samuel Honeychurch-Black who falls in love with a young woman who is working at the spa. Her mother works at home as a laundress and seamstress. Violet and her mother have very little money. However, Samuel treats Vio

First Chapter First Paragraph (Lion Fiction)

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http://bibliophilebythesea.blogspot.com Brother Thomas sat impassively in his stall in the choir: he felt irritated nonetheless. The air was astir from Father Chad's bustling as the prior made his way with exaggerated purpose to the abbatial seat. The energy of his going generated a crack and flap of robes that grated on Brother Thomas's nerves.

Sailing

It is always dusk. I see floating light dancing around and through me. I hear a lake move gently north, south, east, west. I move forward slowly close my eyes innocent of how to meet you for the first time.                                T

Cat Thursday

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Hope she or he isn't hard to see. I would have liked a closer shot of the cat. http://truebookaddict.blogspot.com

Wondrous Words

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"Cold gray clouds moved in and started to spit. Of course she didn't have a brolly. Planning ahead was not her forte." chiefly British. : umbrella. See brolly defined for English-language learners. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/brolly "Myrtle had told her that if she took any path, she would eventually come to a sign that showed.....to the farms at the bottom of the mountain that sent their fresh produce straight up on a flying fox; http://bermudaonion.wordpress.com   A flying fox is a common way to return participants to the ground at the end of a ropes adventure course. In past days in the Australian outback , flying foxes were occasionally used for delivering food, cigarettes or tools to people working on the other side of an obstacle such as a gully or river. Australian troops have used them to deliver food, mail and even ammunition to forward positions in several  conflicts. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_fox_%

Balm by Dolen-Perkins Valdez

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  After the Civil War in the states, life was still very difficult. For two women, Madge and Sadie, this time of struggle became a way for them to give hope and healing to other suffering people. In Balm  by Dolen-Perkins Valdez, there is also Horse or Hemp as he is called by those who know him. His master of the Harrison family called him Horse. All of these people have a mission to fulfill in their lives. There is also Annie, the missing slave woman who belonged to Hemp and her daughter, Herod. There are other characters to meet along the way like Sadie's father, etc. No matter whom we meet throughout the novel there is the sweet fragrance of the Balm of Gilead. I sniffed it on each page of the novel. Sadie is the white lady who lives in Chicago. Her concern is with the people who have lost people in the war. We would call her a spiritualist. A man's voice speaks through her. This seemed really strange to me, a bit spooky. I thought Sadie had lost her mind. However, it&