Book Reviews (Page 20)

Though provoking . . . humorous … Chris Well’s novel Tribulation House was everything the blurbs promised. At first glance, his story featured a questionable mixture of first and third person narration, but in the end, he made it work, as what we actually have is a third person multiple interspersed with a lengthy police statement given by the fun Mark Hogan, who is so blatant in his erroneous thinking, he’s a humorous example of everything that’s wrong with those who get so caught up with prophetic timetables and sky watching, they forget key texts in scripture, that the author happily quotes, making his pointRead More →

—————- Now playing: Michael Card – Immanuel via FoxyTunes    Let me make a confession. I cry at sad movies, even when I know I’m being emotionally manipulated, or if my logical half of my brain tells me what I’m watching is tripe. But it has been a long time since a book made me cry. Or at least it had been. Author Paul Robertson just changed that The pages of The Heir drip despair, and from a young man most would expect to be fairly happy. As we meet him, Jason Boyer is inheriting billions from a man who shipped him off to boarding schoolsRead More →

Christian Fantasy. What comes to mind? For many, the first word to pop up is, “Contradiction.” If you’re sold on Fantasy as a genre being wicked prima facie, Karen Hancock’s novel Return of the Guardian-King (Legends of the Guardian-King #4) probably won’t be able to persuade you otherwise, even if the publisher has classified the genre as “Allegory.” And it is, but if you’re in this group, you’ll still take issue. Whether you insist his name is Yahweh or Jehovah, it will bother you, as has me, that she changed God’s name to “Eidon” that this is Greek for “I saw” will not improve matters.Read More →

If you love Christian Suspense novels with serial killers and possibly ghosts/demons running around, you’ll love Brandilyn Collins’ novel CORAL MOON (Zondervan 4/27/07), the second book in her Kanner Lake Series (note that is Kanner, not Tanner.) If your interpretation of Php 4:8 and it’s command to only think on things that are true, honest, just, pure, lovely, of good report, virtuous, or praiseworthy doesn’t include reading about a serial killer lose in small town, Idaho, well, consider yourself warned. Before getting your underwear in a bunch, let’s stop and consider the first on that list: True. The truth isn’t always lovely. In fact, inRead More →

Popular wisdom is that women are more likely to read fiction and men are more likely to read non-fiction. Tom Morrisey challenges this notion with his novel IN HIGH PLACES (Bethany House March 1, 2007), and without any car chases. But definitely plenty of testosterone. To put it succinctly, if you’re not into vicarious adventure, you’ll learn more about rock climbing than you ever wanted to know.In High Places is a first-person narrative, Wonder Years style, (if you slept through 80’s television, that’s where an adult narrator regales us with tales from his formative years.) We meet Patrick Nolan, at sixteen, just coming back fromRead More →