Love Stephanie's stuff, love her sense of humor, love how she turns knitting into the main character & makes it come alive.

I've actually read this book a couple of times, each time you read it you gain something new from the book, see something you hadn't seen the first time.

This book was published in 2007 & I am rather surprised that it took me this long to read it. I guess I'm rather late to the game.

This book is a rather decent historically accurate (and the biggest things that Maxwell takes liberties with, she tells you about in the back of the book) book about Anne Boleyn before she becomes infamous, told from her point of view. It's rather different than other Tudor stuff I've read, & I rather enjoy how different the tale is. Anne is seen first as a young, confused child, who later grows into a strong, beautiful, powerful individual, who has learned to take control of her own destiny.

The book has a few adult scenes in it, which I wasn't expecting, but considering the court & the times, I guess I should have seen them coming. Most of it "fit" and wasn't an explicit scene just to have an explicit scene.

All in all, I liked the book - why only 4 stars? I love Anne Boleyn; she's my favorite of the 6 wives, and she's the one I enjoy reading about the most. But the Anne of this book, as much as I enjoyed reading it, I couldn't really fall in love with.

I got this book from the library.

I was thrilled to be asked to review this book, about a month or so ago.

Anyone who reads my blog / my reviews regularly, know I love British royality, but that I'm mainly into the Tudors - and I was obsessed with the Tudors before it became cool to do so. I had a friend growing up who was obsessed - still is - with British royality, and I guess more than a little of that rubbed off on me.

So I'm the first one to admit, other than the very basics - king gives up thrown to marry divorced woman for love, I know nothing of Wallis Simpson. I think like most people who hear of Edward & Wallis' story, we think of it as a glamorous love story, for the modern age. And this book tells the tale of Wallis life, & what shaped her personality, before she met Edward & became known to history.

Wallis is shallow, vain, a know it all, and it's very hard to like her - but I find myself liking her & rooting for her all the same. She's obsessed with getting married & becoming rich, & is completely blind to the faults of the people around her or the men she's about to marry - hmm, she seems a lot like us, doesn't she? She's not a nice person, but something about her makes you like her all the same, & I greatly enjoyed the book from cover to cover.

My only real negative about the book - after I finished, I read the author's note at the back of the book like I always do, only to find out two of the main characters Wallis interacts with throughout the book, are completely made up. It's a historical fiction book, so of course you know things are made up, simplified, etc., but I was really rather upset to see two main characters be completely imaginary. I would have really liked to have seen the author write the book a little different, but that's just me.

I received a copy of this book for free for my review, but the opinions expressed are my own.

I took this book out from the library, because my parents, hubby & I, have planted a vegetable garden for the first time, other than the odd tomato plant. I've been devouring the 'net for ideas, hints, tips, tricks, recipes, etc etc, along with stalking coworkers for any advice they can give us - and our garden is doing just great! I can't wait for a bigger & better garden next year!

so, with all that in mind, I've been requesting books from the library on the subject of vegetable gardening, & I took this one out. It actually wasn't what I really expected, as it's geared more towards kids & families, but as such, it's written for beginners in mind. The book has 12 chapters, one for each month, & there are 3 catagories in each one - how to plant something, a craft activity, & a related recipe. The problem is, the craft activities aren't really related to the month, & the recipes aren't really related to that month's planting - for example, lemon cupcakes in February. I'm sure lemons are in season in parts of the US (Florida? Southern Cali?) but not in the majority of the States, I would think. The recipes do look all delicious, which for me balances out the fact that they don't fit with the months. I found most of the craft projects rather bland & boring - I can't see kids being interested in making plant markers out of rocks or decorating a shoebox to put gardening supplies in.

But all of the above is balanced with the fact that the book has great, small garden plans & very creative ideas, like a forth of July patriotic garden display, & does have some great hints & tips for beginner gardeners, & I think the fact that the book is geared towards families is a very nice idea.

Anyone who reads my blog regular knows that I've been rather hooked (pun intended) on tunisian lately. Besides devouring the net for patterns, hints, & tricks, I've been taking out books from the library, & so far I've been really disappointed with what I've been able to find. Most of them show the same 3 or 4 stitches that are easily found on the internet, & most of the projects are pretty much the same things: the scarf, the placemats, a plain bag, blah blah blah, using the same 3 or 4 stitches. They've all been so similiar I haven't even bothered to blog about them, because I had nothing positive to say. So when I took out Silverman's book, I wasn't expecting anything great.

but I was wrong & pleasantly surprised! Of course, there's the usual primer section with the same old boring basics & stitches that are in every crochet book on the market, it seems. But... the projects... are ones you'd actually want to make - using yarn you'd actually WANT to use!

yes, there is the usual scarf & bag (though the spin here is a felted clutch) -- but there's a very cute skirt, some nice wraps / shawls, a gorgeous duster (why are they called dusters, anyway? It's a cardigan) that I would actually wear, using affordable & easily found Lion Brand Cotton Ease. There are some very nice afghans & other wearables, too. I like this book enough I ordered one from amazon to keep in my personal craft library - and anyone who knows me, knows that's saying something!

I love this series. It's light, it's funny, & you just can't help yourself & love Betsy. I've read the whole series & previously reviewed several of them.

Betsy's life is a mess, like it always is, & she's the only one that can solve things, like always. Sinclair, her husband, has a bit of a smaller role in this book, which was actually a nice change of pace.

This one does a great job solving lots of ongoing questions in previous books.

First, I want to admit, I finished reading this book months ago, & never wrote the review for it. Mainly because I received the book for free to review through booksneeze, & I wasn't sure just how much I liked it, or if I even liked it enough to review it, so I sat on it to think about it - and then forgot about it ;/.

Part of the reason why I struggled how to review the book was because I would have absolutely LOVED & ADORED this book as a kid/young adult - I was a regular Sunday School & church goer, & there really wasn't any Christian fiction out there besides the Lion the Witch & the Wardrobe, & that wasn't really Christian fiction, just written by a Christian author. I would have adored reading a book like this, & I could see myself really getting into it.

But as an adult, I was bored throughout most of the story, & just felt like so much of the plot was way too awfully convenient, and boy oh boy, guess what, there's a happy ending! Wow, I'm so surprised (insert sarcasm here). The book, however, was very well written & I did like some of the characters, though ironically not so much the main characters as the secondary characters. I also think that this is a very unique storyline, & for these reasons I am giving the book 3 stars.

I picked this book up on amazon when it was available for free. For the last few years, I've been interested in reading about the Mormon lifestyle (lifestyle, not so much the religion itself) & about how people have escaped the life.

I couldn't have been more disappointed with the book.

The book begins with her life pre-Mormonism, but the author, Judy, only gives the most basic explanation of why & how they converted to Mormonism. Something as life changing as CHANGING YOUR RELIGION isn't going to happen overnight; I think she was trying to simplify the story, in order to move the plot along, but she oversimplified way too much. As she talks about converting, she kept talking about how internally she kept screaming that this was wrong -- and I just don't buy it. Maybe it's the way she wrote it or maybe it just seems way too awfully convenient to me that she had doubts - because seriously, if she had doubts, why on earth would she have converted? If she did have doubts, then she should have explained it better so the reader would better understand where she was coming from.

The next section of her book explains how they converted, some of the things that they had to do day to day, & then all of a sudden they decide not to be Mormons any more & they are just allowed to leave. I don't really know much about that (which is why I read the book in the first place) but it just seemed way too easy to just leave. If it was really that easy to leave, why wouldn't more Mormons who want to leave the church, actually leave the church? So their friends were disappointed... so what? I just didn't get that.

The last half of the book was extremely preachy: I think what Judy & her husband is doing is wonderful, helping other Mormons to escape, but the whole second half of the book is devoted to that work. If that was the whole point of the book (which after reading the book, it seems that way to me), then the book should have been called How I Help Mormons to escape, instead of Out of Mormonism, because little was devoted to her escaping.

On TOP of all that, the book was so badly written & edited, I kept cringing inside, & I'm by far not the best writer. So if I'm cringing, imagine how bad the writing was.

I have a hard time giving a Christian book a bad review, so to be honest up front, that's one of the reasons why this book is rated 3 stars, not 2.

I picked this book up to read at the library, because I enjoy reading fiction books about Biblical women (the Red Tent immediately comes to mind). I've never read a book by this author, & I was intrigued to read a book from a Jewish prospective - one that is slightly different from the Christian framepoint I was raised with.

I enjoyed the book until about the halfway point, when I started to get frustrated with how slowly the book was progressing & how far fetched Miriam's life was. Yes, it's fiction, so there is some poetic license here, but I just can't believe she really did & said half the stuff she was portrayed to have done (but it made for interesting reading, so that's OK). But I kept reading, because I was enjoying the reading - but now we're three quarters into the book, & she still hasn't gotten pregnant, you know, the part she's most famous for. All of a sudden, a few pages from the end, she announces she's pregnant & then she conveniently marries a man she knows, Yosef. And then the last chapter, the bit at the end -- well, let's just say it goes pretty much against what I was raised to believe. I don't know much about the Jewish faith, only the basics, so perhaps this section would make more sense to someone with more similar beliefs to the author.

I do give the book 3 stars, however, because I did enjoy the book, just didn't love it, the book was well written, & it gets points because of the interesting twists & turns the book takes.

I got this book to read through the wonderful Book Sneeze program. I don't tend to read novellas (I like to sink my teeth into a book) but I do like reading Amish books & I've read & reviewed Long before.

This book is 3 separate stories in one: A Perfect Secret, A Marriage of the Heart & Christmas Cradles.

A Perfect Secret was a little weird to me - Amish man, running off in the middle of the woods, wearing & pretending to be English. I didn't particularly get into this one or even like it.

I liked A Marriage of the Heart a little better, but just as I was starting to like the characters & get into the storyline, it ended. I would have really liked to have seen more.

Christmas Cradles was definitely my favorite of the book, & is the reason why the book gets 4 stars instead of 3. If I was to rate just that story, I would give it 5 stars. I loved the characters & the storyline from the first paragraph & identified with Anna. I too once thought myself rather plain & unlovable & thought no man would ever want me, thought of myself as too different for anyone to really want to be with me. I also just enjoyed how Anna & Asa somehow end up falling in love.