Read-a-Thon Mini-Challenge Hour 16: Rereading

Rereading is a mini challenge hosted by Jessica from The Blue Stocking Society

Here’s the challenge:

1. Go back to your blog, and tell us about a book you’re rereading during the read-a-thon. Maybe post a picture of the book and describe why you love it enough to reread it.
OR
2. Go back to your blog, and give us a list of your top favorite rereads of all time. You know, those books that you can go to time and time again for comfort and escape. Again, pictures are always good but not required.

I used to reread like CRAZY but I have so many books to read right now that it's a little harder. But here are the books that I have read so many times I lost count.

The O'Malley Series by Dee Henderson

Uncommon Heroes Series by Dee Henderson

Team Hope Series by Susan May Warren

Love Comes Softly Series by Janette Oke

The Californians Series by Lori Wick

The Yellow Rose Trilogy by Lori Wick

Men of the Saddle Series by Lori Copeland

The Princess by Lori Wick

Who Brings Forth the Wind? by Lori Wick

The Knight and The Dove by Lori Wick

Dewey's 24 Hour Read-A-Thon: Halfway Update and Mid-Event Questionnaire

WOOHOO!!!! Halfway done! We are officially past the 12 hour mark and I'm loving it! Here are the Mid-Event Questions:

1) How are you doing? Sleepy? Are your eyes tired? I'm actually pretty good so far! I'm kinda on a hyper reading high!

2) What have you finished reading? Prom and Prejudice by Elizabeth Eulberg and Cascade by Lisa T. Bergren

3) What is your favorite read so far? I've enjoyed them all (except the one I quit) but I'd have to go with Cascade, though Torrent is shaping up to be just as good!

4) What about your favorite snacks? I haven't really done snacks, but rather quick meals. For breakfast I made a smoothie-ish thing that had: frozen strawberries, OJ, Whipped Cream, vanilla, and a smidge of sugar. And then for lunch and dinner I had homemade quesadillas: taco shells with cheddar cheese, and Tastefully Simple's Bacon Bacon, stuck in the broiler.

5) Have you found any new blogs through the readathon? If so, give them some love! I've been more focused on reading then blog hopping-sorry!

Currently Reading: 78 Pages through!

Total Page Count: 870

We Are On Hour 5 of Dewey's Read-A-Thon: Update and Mini Challenges

Well as we start into the fifth hour of the Read-A-Thon, I'd like to at least think I made decent progress!

I read 65 pages of this one but it wasn't for me so I set it aside and picked up...

I finished this book and I really liked it was a fun new look at the well known story! After that was done I went for my next book...

About 40 pages through and loving it!!!

And now for the Mini Challenges:

Book Sentence

For this challenge you will use book titles to form a complete sentence, and then take a picture of your sentence and post it to your blog, facebook or twitter account and then come back and fill out the linky with your link.  

Rules:

* Because you’ll be taking a picture, no ebooks allowed.  Sorry!

* Book titles ONLY.  You may not use author names or add/remove words to a title.  This is what makes the challenge a challenge, verbs are hard to come by!

* Use a minimum of 3 books.

* Take a picture and post to your blog, facebook or twitter account. 

* Come back here and leave your link in the correct linky

My Entry: Deeply devoted to win her heart forevermore!

Turn to Page...

For this challenge, you must turn to page 32 of the book you are currently reading (or the nearest page with text on it) and find the most entertaining phrase to complete the following sentence:

"I would rather read than ________ any day!"

My Entry: "I would rather read than "get asked to prom" any day!

From Prom and Prejudice by Elizabeth Eulburg

So there you have it, now I'm off to read more!!

Additional Challenge Joined in hour 7!

Bon Appetit!

Take one of the books you are reading today.  Now lets pretend that you are going to have a book discussion with friends regarding that book.  They are all coming over to your house and you are providing food and beverage to go with said book.  That’s right, your challenge is to share with me here:

1.  Title and author of the book

2.  The menu:  the food, the beverage (if you want you can go as far plan background music, decor, whatever.

My Entry: I'm reading Cascade by Lisa T. Bergren. Since I'm not extremely creative I kinda stole my menu from the book! Chicken, ham, figs, currants, pears, meat pies, bread, wine (not for me!) and water.

Dewey's 24 Hour Read-A-Thon Begins! & Introductory Questionnaire

Well the Read-A-Thon is about to officially begin, and I'm ready! First up on my list of books are:

Prom and Prejudice by Elizabeth Eulberg

Cascade by Lisa T. Bergren

The Sound of Red Returning by Sue Duffy

Introductory Questionnaire 

1) What fine part of the world are you reading from today?
Midland, PA
2) Which book in your stack are you most looking forward to?
Hmm, probably Cascade by Lisa T. Bergren
3) Which snack are you most looking forward to?
I don't have my snacks planned out but I'll be drinking a lot of my tea!
4) Tell us a little something about yourself!
I'm an avid reader who loves working with kids. I love the color orange, iced tea, cats, laptop, & iPod
5) If you participated in the last read-a-thon, what’s one thing you’ll do different today? If this is your first read-a-thon, what are you most looking forward to?
This is my first time and I'm just excited for the chance to read all day!

Well I'm off to start! I'll be checking in every so often to give you an update so see you then!

WDATBCF? Read-A-Thon Day 1: Progress Report

Finished A Silent Pursuit by Lynette Eason (about 70 pages today)

Finished The Accidental Bride by Denise Hunter (154 pages read today)

Read 6% of Little Women

Well that was more than I was hopping for when I started today! Tomorrow should be a good reading day since I'll be participating in Dewey's 24 Hour Read-A-Thon!

"Where Did All of These Books Come From?" Read-A-Thon

Tiffany from Book Cover Justice decided to host a 10 day Read-A-Thon so I thought it'd be cool to join. I read a lot anyway so why not have fun with it?! Also tomorrow I'm participating in Dewey's 24 hour Read-a-Thon, so I should get a decent amount of books done between the two.

Here are the "rules" for this one:

1. Read want you want, when you want, and at your own pace.

2. Post your daily progress.

3. Have Fun!

Tiffany is going to be doing a goals post in the morning and a progress report in the evening but I think I'm just gonna go with the progress report! I'll be titling them WDATBCF? Read-A-Thon Day...

The Accidental Bride by Denise Hunter Book Review

About the Book
When a wedding reenactment turns real, Shay finds she's an accidental bride.
Shay Brandenberger is raising her daughter in Moose Creek, Montana, on her childhood ranch, nestled against the Yellowstone River. Despite the hard work, she can't seem to keep her head above water-and now the bank is threatening to foreclose. She prays for a miracle, but the answer she receives is anything but expected.
Having agreed to play the bride in the Founders' Day wedding reenactment, Shay is mortified to be greeted at the end of the aisle by none other than Travis McCoy, her high-school sweetheart-the man who left her high and dry for fame and fortune on the Texas rodeo circuit.
Then the unthinkable happens. Thanks to a well-meaning busybody and an absentminded preacher, the make-believe vows result in a legal marriage. But before Shay can say annulment, Travis comes up with a crazy proposal. If she refuses his offer, she may lose her home. If she accepts, she may lose her heart.
Shay isn't sure if the recent events are God's will or just a preacher's blunder. Will trusting her heart to the man who once shattered it be the worst mistake of her life? Or could their marriage be the best accident that ever happened?

My Thoughts
I really enjoyed this story, evidenced by the fact that I read the majority of it in less than 24 hours. From the moment I read the description of this book I was thoroughly intrigued and anxious to read it.. Thankfully it didn't disappoint! The characters were great and the plot was well thought out and written. I loved how well Travis knows Shay and how he keeps on loving her and trying to win back her heart. When I first started reading I didn't realize that this was technically book two in a series, and while you don't necessarily need to read them in order (I didn't!) book one A Cowboy's Touch, sounds just as good and I've already ordered my copy.  So if you like contemporary cowboy stories I strongly recommend picking up these two books-you won't be sorry!

About the Author
Denise Hunter is the nationally published author of bestsellers Sweetwater Gap and Surrender Bay. She has won The Holt Medallion Award, The Reader's Choice Award, The Foreword Book of the Year Award, and was a RITA finalist.
In 1996, inspired by the death of her grandfather, Denise began her first book, writing while her children napped. Two years later it was published, and she's been writing ever since. Her husband says he inspires all her romantic stories, but Denise insists a good imagination helps too!
When Denise isn't writing she's busy raising three heroes-in-the making with her husband.
You can learn more about Denise through her website or by joining her FaceBook group

I received a free ebook copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for my honest opinion. 

Talkin' Thursday: Rearranging Books

As I was thinking about this blog today two things dawned on me. One: I rarely if ever have things to post on Thursdays. And Two: I really only post book reviews and memes. So I decided to solve both these problems, and thus Talkin' Thursdays was born. I'm not very articulate, especially when it comes to writing, but once a week that's bearable-right?

So here's how it'll work. I'll pick a random book related topic and then share my thoughts on the subject. I'm gonna give you a heads up though, I can be rather random and this way come out a jumbled mess but please bear with me! If you like the topic and want to weigh in feel free to write your own post or just share your thoughts in the comments.

For today's topic I picked something that I just finished doing: rearranging my books. I love to rearrange my books maybe it's because I like to organize things or maybe it's because needing to rearrange usually means I've gotten a lot of new books. But either way I think it's fun.

I'm rather picky about HOW the books are arranged. There are lots of different ways people sort their books: author, genre, audience, color, newest to oldest, alphabetically, height, etc. I personally am more of a genre girl, at least for each shelf, then it becomes by author.

Here's how I have my nine shelves ordered: Western historical fiction takes up about a shelf and a half and is joined on shelf two by other historical fiction. Then is my Susan May Warren shelf-she's my favorite author and trust me when you own 32 of someone's books they deserve their own shelf! After that is Romantic Suspense, followed by modern day romance and any other contemporary story that doesn't fall into a specific category. Shelf number six is YA fiction, seven is novella collections, eight is classics and Love Inspired, and finally nine is my non-fiction shelf.

There are some books that aren't in their "proper" place but other than the couple exceptions I stick to my order. Which is probably making you wonder, "If she keeps the same order, what is there to rearrange?" Well most of my rearranging comes switching genres to new shelves or expanding a genre to more than one shelf if the need arises. Trust me, there's always some cause for shifting books!

So how about you? Do you like to rearrange? How do you sort your shelves? Let me know!

"Waiting On" Wednesday #7: Full Disclosure

Hosted by Breaking the Spine.

"Waiting On" Wednesday is a weekly event that spotlights upcoming releases that we're
eagerly anticipating.

This week's pre-publication "can't-wait-to-read" selection is:

Full Disclosure by Dee Henderson
Bethany House Publishers-October 2, 2012

About the Book

Ann Silver is a cop's cop. As the Midwest Homicide Investigator, she is called in to help local law enforcement on the worst of cases, looking for answers to murder. Hers is one of the region's most trusted investigative positions.

Paul Falcon is the FBI's top murder cop in the Midwest. If the victim carried a federal badge or had a security clearance, odds are good Paul and his team see the case file or work the murder.

Their lives intersect when Ann arrives to pass a case off her desk and onto his. A car wreck and a suspicious death offer a lead on a hired shooter he is tracking. Paul isn't expecting to meet someone, the kind that goes on the personal side of the ledger, but Ann Silver has his attention.

The better he gets to know her, the more Paul realizes her job barely scratches the surface of who she is. She knows spies and soldiers and U.S. Marshals, and has written books about them. She is friends with the former Vice President. People with good reason to be cautious about who they let into their lives deeply trust her. Paul wonders just what secrets Ann is keeping, until she shows him the John Doe Killer case file, and he starts to realize just who this lady he is falling in love with really is...

Why I Want It

*squeal of excitement* I'm through the roof excited that Dee Henderson is FINALLY releasing a new book. She is one of my all time favorite authors and I've read both the O'Malley Series and The Uncommon Heroes Series several times. And while I KNOW I'll love it also helps that the description and cover sound and look good. October can't come soon enough!!!!

Made to Crave: For Young Women by Lysa Terkeurst and Shaunti Feldhahn Book Review

About the Book
What do you crave to make you happy? ... every day is filled with things we want and crave. Things that will make us feel good at least for a moment. But what happens when that moment is gone and the need returns? There's nothing wrong with wanting certain things, but God didn't create us to rely on those things to make us happy. He created us to crave Him, and a happiness that lasts. In this teen adaptation of the bestselling Made to Crave, the deep emotional, physical, and material cravings you face are explored---desires that can turn into spending too much, over- or under-eating, needing a boyfriend, or more. Through real-life stories and support from people who have been where you are, you will also discover how to truly crave God and the love and comfort He wants us to have, and how craving heavenly things can make the earthly cravings easier to overcome. You were made to crave more than this world has to offer. Learn to reach out to fellow Christians and educate them on their faith with a Christian Studies mfa degree.

My Thoughts
This book was pretty good. It wasn't extremely applicable to me but there were great truths in it. The authors gave pretty good tips for how to start making God the object of our cravings rather than food, people,  or things. I think there is something in this book for almost all kinds of teenage girls. And would highly encourage anyone, who is struggling with putting God first, to pick up a copy.


About the Authors
Lysa TerKeurst is a New York Times bestselling author and national speaker who helps everyday women live an adventure of faith. She is the president of Proverbs 31 Ministries, author of 15 books, and encourages nearly 500,000 women worldwide through a daily online devotional. Her remarkable life story has captured audiences across America, including appearances on Oprah and Good Morning America. She lives in North Carolina with her husband and five children


Shaunti Feldhahn started out as an analyst on Wall Street and ended up a surprise bestselling author, encouraging the Christian community toward service and outreach with the #1 bestseller Y2K: The Millennium Bug—A Balanced Christian Response. Also an author of message fiction, Shaunti is a newspaper columnist on women’s issues, contributing the conservative opinion for the Atlanta Journal- Constitution’s popular online “Woman to Woman” column. Shaunti and her husband, Jeff, are active leaders in their church, leading a home group that encourages married couples toward greater intimacy with God and each other.

I received this book free from the publisher in exchange for my honest opinion.