The power of fiction, the beauty of words, and the God who made us to wield them for His glory.

First Line Friday – No Stone Unturned (David James Warren)

Happy Friday and welcome to First Line Friday, hosted by Hoarding Books. It’s book club week for me, which means I’m currently in the middle of a race to finish this month’s book, Shades of Light by Sharon Garlough Brown, before our meeting tonight! 😬 It’s a heavier book than most, dealing as it does with depression and anxiety—and as someone who has had experience with depression, I can tell you it cuts close to the bone. I haven’t finished it yet, but if nothing else, I can tell you that this book portrays both the feelings of the sufferer and the feelings of those who are walking alongside the sufferer very well.

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Before Time Runs Out (Amy Matayo) – Review

Graduate student Bree Sanders is failing the one class she needs to get her degree. So when her professor gives her an ultimatum—ace her thesis or risk having to repeat her final semester—she knows she has to pull out all the stops. After scrambling for an idea, she decides to create her own Ghost Club, a club that blames ghosts for unsolved crimes, the same type of club originally founded two centuries ago by Charles Dickens.

What she doesn’t expect is to find an original copy of one of Dickens’ early works, or to be transplanted into Dickens’s actual ghost club meeting, circa 1870, the instant she picks it up.

When Bree shows up in nineteenth-century England wearing cut-offs and an old t-shirt, her only option is to hide. The London of 1870 won’t look kindly on a woman dressed like her. So, when Theodore Keyes finds her tucked behind a bookcase at the King’s College library and immediately demands to know where she came from, she knows he doesn’t belong here either. Turns out she’s right; the same book caused him to time-travel from 1947 almost three months ago and he’s been stuck in England since…

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Top Ten Tuesday – Autumn 2021 TBR

Happy Tuesday, reading friends, and welcome to Top Ten Tuesday, thanks to That Artsy Reader Girl. It’s a new season, which is always a good reason to revisit the TBR, particularly upcoming releases that I’m looking forward to. And here in Australia, we’re two weeks into autumn already, and it’s starting to feel like it. I put on a light cardigan for the first time in months yesterday! Sounds like perfect weather to curl up and read in, doesn’t it? And I’m looking forward to doing just that with these books!

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First Line Friday – Before Time Runs Out (Amy Matayo)

Happy Friday and welcome to First Line Friday, hosted by Hoarding Books. I’m a fairly eclectic reader, but time travel is one genre I don’t usually pick up. But right now, I’m in the middle of my SECOND time travel novel of 2021. The first book in Amy Matayo’s Charles & Company Romance series released this week: Before Time Runs Out, and I’m loving it so far. There’s a lot of fun to be had with a character from the 1940s and a character from the twenty-first century meeting up in the 1870s!

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Cast the First Stone (David James Warren) – Review

One case haunts him. One chance to fix the past. One mistake could cost him everything.

Ex-Minneapolis Police Detective Rembrandt Stone walked away from a career he loved—just the price of being sure he can come home to the wife and daughter he cherishes. But he can’t shake the deep regret over a case left behind.

When his mentor, the former Chief of Homicide dies and leaves Rembrandt with a box of cold cases and a mysterious watch, he finds himself thrust into a world he recognizes—a world from twenty years ago—the same world he’s woken from in a cold sweat a hundred times. But is it a dream, or some kind of twisted reality?

If he solves the case that plagues him, and justice is finally served, will it destroy the life he loves?

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First Line Friday – Cast the First Stone (David James Warren)

Happy Friday and welcome to First Line Friday, hosted by Hoarding Books. Time-travel is not my normal reading fare, but I have to say I’m super excited for this new time-travel thriller series coming from the combined talents of Susan May Warren, her son David Warren, and James L. Rubart. If you want to know more about the series, make sure you check out their website at rembrandtstone.com. In the meantime, the first in the series released last Tuesday, so you can start reading right now! (After you finish reading this post, of course. 😉) I’m part way through and loving it!

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Cover Reveal! Before Time Runs Out (Amy Matayo)

Welcome to the cover reveal for Before Time Runs Out by Amy Matayo.

Graduate student Bree Sanders is failing the one class she needs to get her degree. So when her professor gives her an ultimatum—ace her dissertation or risk having to repeat her final semester—she knows she has to pull out all the stops. After scrambling for an idea, she decides to create her own Ghost Club, a club that blames ghosts for unsolved crimes, the same type of club originally founded two centuries ago by Charles Dickens. 

What she doesn’t expect is to find an original copy of one of Dickens’ early works, or to be transplanted into Dickens’ actual ghost club meeting, circa 1870, the instant she picks it up.

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Top Ten Tuesday – Most Anticipated New Releases Jan-Jun 2021

Happy Tuesday, reading friends, and happy new year! It’s time for another Top Ten Tuesday post, thanks to That Artsy Reader Girl, and this week we’re getting excited about what’s coming up in 2021—specifically, the new releases we’re most looking forward to reading in the first half of 2021. I have a mixture of Christian fiction and general market titles this year, having discovered a few general market authors I’m keen to read more from (Kate Quinn, Anna Lee Huber, and Ashley Weaver).

Of course, this is only a smattering of the books I’m looking forward to this year, but I was firm with myself in limiting this list to ten!

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