Risk by Brock Eastman
Reviewed by: Lori Twichell
Genre: Young Adult
Publisher: P&R Publishing
Publication Date: May 1, 2012

The Wikk kids are still wandering the galaxy alone after their parents were kidnapped by a group called the Ubel. As archaeologists, their parents know and understand many secrets that could hold the key to the rise and fall of several civilizations. This is why they were kidnapped. It’s also why the Wikk kids, Oliver, Tiffany, Mason and Austin, are now flying around the galaxy trying to follow clues (Indiana Jones style) to see where they might be able to either find what the Ubel are looking for or rescue their parents.

Previously the kids were frightened about the fate of their parents and stuck together –worried about separating their family unit any further. This time, having an older brother in charge is starting to wear on everyone. Oliver is tired of being the guy in charge, but he knows he needs to keep up with everyone as much as he can. Austin’s really over being told what to do and how to act. Tiffany and Mason are doing their best to be the glue to hold the family together and be peacemakers as much as possible.

Packed with adventure and excitement, this book takes the kids to new locations and fighting new enemies to find out what their parents know that’s so important. It’s a mystery wrapped in an adventure that’s kid friendly and still teaches great lessons about how to act. As the kids begin to peel back the layers and learn more about this lost civilization, more Biblical truths are revealed. We know what they are and we understand it, but the Wikk kids don’t. It’s a fun adventure to watch them puzzle out truths that we live with daily.

This book is long. I had a hard time getting through parts of it and it might be a push for kids to work through. With some encouragement, I think it’s worth the effort. I have hope that the payoff, when it finally does come at the end of the series, will be worth it as well. My kids love archaeology and Sci Fi. This is a great mix of both and it’s suitable for all ages. There are tense moments that could bother younger readers, but with parental guidance, it should all be good.

For the second book in the series, I enjoyed it. If you’ve got young readers that like Science Fiction blended with history or if this is something you enjoy, give it a try.

Rated PG: Some tense moments but other than that, all’s good!

Review copy provided by the publisher. Thank you!

Lori Twichell

Lori Twichell has never been a supermodel although she has been asked once or twice if she’s the ‘before’ model on diet ads.  She writes for a living. And reads. And publicizes. And takes care of her three kids, two dogs and a husband. And she doesn’t exercise nearly enough. (See aforementioned modeling reference.)

She is, however, a professional plate spinner. She currently has spinning plates in television, film, radio and publishing. You can see some of these spinning plates at her company website, Beyond the Buzz Marketing.

Enchanted by Alethea Kontis
Reviewed by: Jill Hart, Radiant Lit
Genre: YA / Fantasy
Publisher: Harcourt Children’s Books
Publication Date: May 8, 2012

Sunday Woodcutter has always been a dreamer … and a writer. The problem she faces is that what she writes comes true. After a few mishaps with things she’s written actually happening, she learns to keep herself busy by writing about the past, things that have already happened. This way she can’t change what has already happened and no one gets hurt.

When she meets a frog in the woods where she loves to do her writing, she thinks nothing of it when he asks what she is doing. Little does she know that this meeting with THIS frog will change the course of both her life and his. When Sunday’s frog friend disappears she mourns the loss of her first true friend. In the midst of her suffering she is summoned to a ball at the palace, along with all of her sisters (names after every day of the week) where she meets a rather charming prince.

Unfortunately, this charming prince is hated by her family. The royal family was the reason Sunday’s older brother Jack had died and even befriending the prince was forbidden by her father. So, why is Sunday so drawn to him?

Sunday’s story mixes and matches various fairy tales along with a fresh love story to make up one of my favorite books this year. Enchanted is just that … enchanting. From the very first page you enter a world of fantasy filled with fairy godmothers, talking animals, enchanted people and even a giant beanstalk.

The mixing of fairy tales from my childhood got a little confusing at times as my brain tried to make this story fit what I thought I knew. However the author, Alethea Kontis, uses familiar parts from our childhood stories in new, exciting ways. The book kept me reading late into the night.

Rated PG-13

Book provided by the publisher. Thank you!

The Incredible Awesome Adventures of Puggie Liddell by Karen Muller Bryson
Reviewer: Jennifer Roman
Genre: Young Adult
Publisher: Zeta Comics
Publication Date: June 21, 2011

Nerdy Puggie Liddell and his popular, but annoying sister, Gigi are on a school field trip to Thomas Edison’s estate when Puggie falls into the pool. He’s sucked into a whirlpool that transports him into another time dimension. When Gigi tries to help him, she too is pulled into late nineteenth-century America with her brother.

They set off to the World’s Fair in Chicago to find Edison who Puggie believes can help them get home. When they find Edison, however, he is so curious about time travel that he wants them to stay to study them. He’s also intrigued by Puggie’s Game Boy that happened to travel through time as well.

The siblings manage to escape, only to be captured by Edison’s enemy, Nikola Tesla, who also wants to study them. They end up meeting several luminaries of the era during their adventures, but what they want is to go home.  Despite constantly being at odds with one another, the brother and sister love each other very much and will do anything to protect each other.

This is an actual book, but it is a series that continues, much like a comic book.

Puggie and Gigi’s story is both fun and educational. I enjoyed the siblings’ bantering and teasing, reminiscent of my youth. I believe other readers will feel the same when reading this story. Puggie and Gigi, who have totally different personalities, are both very likeable and should come across as realistic to readers. There’s a lot of history crammed into the story, but it is presented in an interesting format that should appeal to both young readers and to adults. Their adventures can be both scary and funny. This is the world I always think about when I imagine time traveling, so I highly recommend that anyone who likes time travel stories read it. This is a very quick read but is suitable for novices.

Rated G
Book provided by the author

The Jerk Magnet by Melody Carlson
Reviewed by: Jennifer S. Roman
Genre: Young Adult, Christian,
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
Publication Date: January 1, 2012

Chelsea Martin, shy bookish junior in high school, gets the shock of her life when her father tells her that he not only is engaged to be remarried, but also that his job is transferring him to San José.  All Chelsea wants is for things to stay the same.  While not overly popular, Chelsea is comfortable with her life.  Kate, Chelsea’s soon-to-be stepmother, takes an interest in Chelsea and offers to give her some fashion advice and tips on being more confident.  At first Chelsea resists, but soon she sees that boys give her more than a passing glance after she tries some of Kate’s suggestions.  Before long, however, Chelsea realizes that the people giving her all this attention are not the nicest people; most, in fact, are jerks.  With the help of her new friend Janelle, Chelsea comes up with a social experiment to show that we all tend to judge by looks rather than personality.

This is the first in the Life at Kingston High series, in which Melody Carson focuses on a different teen and his or her personal struggles in each book.  She starts with Chelsea and attempts to show how fickle and shallow people can be.  She easily demonstrates the lesson that Chelsea learns: sometimes we are better off in our own skin instead of trying to be someone else.  Similar to my generation’s Sweet Valley High series by Francine Pascal, Carson uses realistic, current situations and applies a good Christian lesson to them while still entertaining.  The genre is nothing new, but Carson manages to find a way to engage adult readers as well as teens without being preachy.  Based on my experience with The Jerk Magnet, the other books in this series should be just as enjoyable and helpful.

Rated PG 13: There are some mature themes, but this book should be suitable for teens and adults.

Beauty For Ashes by Dorothy Love
Review by: Bonita Ledzius
Genre: Young Adult, Christian Romance
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Publication Date: 2012

The only thing Carrie Daly has known all her life is loss. As a young child she lost her parents and with her older brother, Henry, had to be raised by a relative. Then shortly after marrying, Carrie loses her husband to the Civil War. Taken in by her brother, Carrie manages to find a bit of happiness, until she loses her brother as well to a woman who knows nothing of farming, has two ill-mannered boys, and a nasty disposition. Was this really God’s plan for Carrie, to lose everyone she loves, and be treated like a house slave by her new sister-in-law and her rambunctious nephews? Carrie finds herself facing a life on her own, and the mysteries that are thrown into her life along the way.

Griff Rutledge, on the other hand, is a carefree bachelor, with a mysterious past of his own. He is just passing through Hickory Ridge when he saves Carrie Daly from a rampaging horse. The next thing he knows his life is forever entangled with this damsel in distress. Will Griff ever confront memories from his past, and overcome his wonder lust?

Beauty For Ashes is a beautiful story, of love, loss and giving your complete will to God. Carrie is making bread in the kitchen of the Verandah, a hotel for women, and is thinking back about her Granny Bell’s wisdom. Hearing Granny Bell’s voice as a whisper in her ear…

“Baking bread is a lot like growing your faith in the Lord, Carrie Louise. You mix together the best ingredients you can find and wait for the mixture to mature, but it’s the heat of the oven that makes dough into something of worth and of substance. The same way the tribulations of this world mature a person’s faith.”

After adding the heat of trials to the lives of the characters, the author made a beautiful story rise that will touch the hearts of its readers.

A good story should make the emotions inside us swell with every event in the story, and it should be able to transfer mentally and emotionally to the time and place of the story. Beauty for Ashes did just that for me. I found myself angry with some characters and the selfishness and deceit they showed. I cried with Carrie, felt angry with her and hoped with her for love in her life. I was transported to the bookstore, with its dusty shelves and to the barn where Griff trained the horse, Majestic, and could smell the animals and hay there. I waited excitedly for Race Day, and cheered for Griff and Majestic all the way to the finish line, and worried for Griff’s life as the horse reared sending him crashing to the street. Ms. Love truly took us through the realm of emotions in the story, and created not only a love story, but a mystery as well. I was intrigued from the moment that Carrie left the dress shop with her package and nearly was ran over by Majestic.

I would recommend this to anyone who loves historical romance from the age 12 to 100. Beauty for Ashes holds a real lesson in choosing the right person to marry and knowing someone before jumping into marriage with them. For mother’s reading this with teenage daughters, it will spur plenty of opportunities to talk about God’s choices for our lives, our futures and our love. I know other readers will feel part of the story and the town of Hickory Ridge, as I did. The description of the characters and interaction with them will make you feel like you have lived there forever. Memories of Granny Bell will fill your heart with bits of wisdom that will forever help you remember that God can take your life and give you beauty from the ashes.

Rated PG: This story is a little more involved than children under 12 will understand, but it contains nothing in the way of profanity or situations that would be offensive or too mature for those younger than 12.

Review copy provided by publisher…Thank you!

Gravestone by Travis Thrasher
Reviewed by Lori Twichell, Radiant Lit
Genre: YA, thriller, supernatural
Publisher: David C. Cook
Publication Dates: June 1, 2011

If you’re reading Gravestone, it’s likely that you will have read the book that comes before it, Solitary. If not, stop now, go the library or your closest store and get a copy. Gravestone is not the book with which you want to start. Now that said, there be spoilers for Solitary in this review, so if you haven’t read that one yet, you might want to wait on this review as well.

Now that all of the housekeeping is out of the way, let me start by saying this. Chris Buckley is in trouble. If he didn’t realize it before, he knows it now. Everyone in the town believes that his girlfriend, Jocelyn, broke up with him and moved away. They’ve even gotten emails to prove that she’s there and she wants nothing to do with him. But Chris knows different. Jocelyn was killed by a group of people right in front of his eyes. He watched her die. But no one believes him and now, he’s on their radar.

So as Chris tries to keep his head down at the same time that he tries to figure out how to get himself and his mother out of this mess. Oh and speaking of his mother, she’s in the mess too. She’s been having nightmares at night about a man coming into her room. Or are they nightmares? And what’s up with that creepy pastor of that weird church with the upside down crosses?? Why’s he suddenly hanging around so much?

As Travis Thrasher’s Solitary series presses on toward what we can only imagine is a cataclysmic battle of good and evil, this second installment to the series leaves no thrills or chills behind. Unfolding like an old fashioned Hitchcockian adventure, this book is guaranteed to leave you with goosebumps and perhaps, a desire to check all the cabinetry in your home to be sure it’s really what it’s supposed to be.

Containing a variety of pop culture references sure to make you laugh, cringe and more deeply enjoy the tale, one can’t help but compare Thrasher’s work to that of the culture bending phenomenon that was the television show, LOST. Leaving you with more questions than answers but promising (in the author’s notes at the end) that he really does know where he’s going and where this will end up, it’s hard not to see the parallels.

If you enjoyed LOST, you’ll enjoy Gravestone and all that is Travis Thrasher’s Solitary series. If you weren’t a fan of meandering through endless mazes of questions without answers, it might not be the ride for you. But still, packed full of endless plot twists, fascinating characters and engaging dialogue, it’s easy to see how this book will enthrall audiences and keep them coming back to see what Thrasher has to throw at them next.

RATED PG-13: There’s some intense stuff in here. It’s meant for older tweens, teens and the rest of us above that age group.

*Review copy provided by Publisher

2011 Christy Award Nominee!!

The Healer’s Apprentice by Melanie Dickerson
Reviewed by Amber Stokes
Genre: Christian Fiction, Historical, Romance, Young Adult, Fairytale
Publisher: Zondervan
Publication Date: October 2010

Rose is a commoner–a healer’s apprentice–and she has no desire to marry the man her mother wants her to marry. When she has a chance to help heal the handsome duke, however, she is set on a path of discovery. Perhaps there is more to her life’s story than meets the eye, and perhaps true love isn’t beyond her reach…

This is an intriguing, historical twist on a romantic fairytale! The historical details are wonderful in drawing the reader into this half-reality, half-make-believe world. The characters are ones older teen readers (as well as many adult readers who are young at heart) will be able to relate to. The book is well-written, with a plot that was different enough to keep me turning those pages, especially with so many sweet, romantic scenes!

One thing that is for sure about this book, though–the evil represented is completely evil! Some of those close-to-final scenes were unnerving, but (at the risk of possibly giving something away) I was pleased that good did triumph over evil in the end.

Overall, the story was a very interesting one to read, and the romance was very enjoyable! The Healer’s Apprentice shows true love to be sacrificial, caring, and humble, and that’s what makes the story great.

Note: First reviewed on Amber’s blog, “Seasons of Humility,” in December 2010.

Rating: PG – Some possibly frightening images referencing demons.

** 2011 Christy Award Nominee!

The Charlatan’s Boy by Jonathan Rogers
Reviewed by Amber Stokes
Genre: Christian Fiction, Young Adult, Fantasy
Publisher: Waterbrook Multnomah
Publication Date: October 2010

Grady’s greatest hope is to belong—even if it means he has to belong to a deceptive and greedy man like Floyd. In a world where the thought of wild creatures called Feechies frightens the citizens, Grady and Floyd have it made putting on shows. But when the citizens no longer believe in the Feechies, the dynamic duo has to find a way to survive—and somehow bring the memory of the Feechies back to life.

Creative, clever, and oh-so chuckle-worthy, The Charlatan’s Boy is a gift I almost didn’t recognize because it came wrapped in a genre I don’t usually read and one that’s actually rather difficult to define. It’s a-bit-of-fantasy meets Mark Twain’s Huck Finn, with enough of the unexpected to turn everything on its head!

Grady and Floyd make a rather ingenious pair of hucksters, and this book is packed full of some interesting schemes for winning a crowd and making some good pocket-change in the unusual world of Corenwald. It’s fun going back to the beginning to consult the map and follow their journeys across Corenwald. And those journeys are full of the wackiest and most entertaining adventures!

Many of the characters are quirky in a rather lovable way–like Short Fronie, the drovers, and Barbary. What an array of personalities! And the narrator, Grady, won me over with his big, mixed-up heart and his witty observations. Just like Huckleberry Finn, he tells it like it is from the way he sees it, and it’s a pleasure to watch him discover just who in this crazy world he is and where he really belongs.

With a great narrator, an enjoyable story, and a surprising depth, I recommend The Charlatan’s Boy for all those who want an adventure with some laughs and smiles along the way!

*With thanks to Waterbrook Multnomah Publishing Group for providing me with a copy of the book in exchange for my honest opinion.*

Note: First reviewed on Amber’s blog, “Seasons of Humility,” in May 2011.

Rating: G – Appropriate for all ages, although younger children might not understand all of the themes.