September Reads '09

And so another month goes by without any posts at all. Dang, I'm a lazy blogger! :)

It was a slow month for reading, partly due to the books I read and partly due to the fact that many days I was too tired to read. I was asleep before my head hit the pillow most nights. Work has been very busy this month. Bryan is getting settled into his senior year of high school, and my mother-in-law is getting settled into her new home. Having her close by is nice, but does take up a chunk of our time. No complaints, though. I'm blessed to have a wonderful MIL!

So what did I read this month? Only three books....

Terror On Tuesday by Ann Purser
Sequel to Murder on Monday. Lois decides to open her own cleaning business, but her new employees might be involved in a local drug ring. She discovers a dead body dressed in a suit of armor in a small chapel and then the fun really begins. Detective Inspector Cowgill convinces Lois to polish up her sleuthing skills once again. But then she discovers another body, and her husband is almost killed in a hit-and-run accident, and Lois becomes even more determined to find out who the killer is and keep her employees, and her family, safe.

Fireside by Susan Wiggs
The latest in The Lakeshore Chronicles saga. Baseball player Bo Crutcher is the focus of this story. He finds himself suddenly in custody of his 12 year old son, AJ, and doesn't know what to do with him. The timing couldn't be worse, since Bo has finally been signed to pitch for the Yankees. Enter Kimberly van Dorn. She is a beauty, a natural with kids, and just happens to be a PR professional. She can train Bo to be a shining star for the media, but can she help him connect with his son? And can Bo and Kimberly avoid falling in love along the way? I enjoyed this novel, but it's probably my least favorite in the series. I had trouble connecting with the characters, especially in the first half of the book. Not bad, but predictable.

The Shack by Wm. Paul Young
Wow. Very powerful book. I'm just going to take the synopsis right off the back cover of the book....

Mackenzie Allen Philips's youngest daughter, Missy, has been abducted during a family vacation and evidence that she may have been brutally murdered is found in an abandoned shack deep in the Oregon wilderness. Four years later, in the midst of his Great Sadness, Mack receives a suspicious note, apparently from God, inviting him back to that shack for a weekend.


Against his better judgement he arrives at the shack on a wintry afternoon and walks back into his darkest nightmare. What he finds there will change Mack's world forever.


In a world where religion seems to grow increasingly irrelevant THE SHACK wrestles with the timeless question: Where is God in a world so filled with unspeakable pain? The answer Mack gets will astound you and perhaps transform you as much as it did him. You'll want everyone you know to read this book.

I was a little leary of this book. Many of my friends have read it and enjoyed it, my father read it and liked it, but I just wasn't so sure about it. Overall I really did like it, and I'm glad I read it. This novel did bring up some interesting questions about God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Some may call it irreverant or sacreligious, but I call it thoughtful. As I told Ed, it caused my brain to cramp up from time to time. It did make me really think about some of my beliefs, but I also recognized some things it stated as fact are just flat out unbiblical. I had to keep reminding myself that this is just a work of fiction, not based in Scripture at all. I haven't changed what I believe at all, but I did enjoy the challenge of the ideas presented in The Shack. I recommend reading it if you are secure in your faith and knowledgable about the facts surrounding the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.