i decided to go through my bookcase and do an inventory, and i discovered that there were a ton of books i wanted to read, but the ones that had been there the longest, were often at the end of the list.

it seemed a shame, so i decided to abandon the new stuff i was excited for, and read the ones that had been there the longest BEFORE i got to those. This is the category of “CHRISTIAN FANTASY” and hopefully I can do this for all the genres in my bookcase, but for now, here are these results:

Season of Wonder: Remnants Book 1 by Lisa T Bergren

3.5 STARS
Pretty interesting plot idea. Relatively solid theological content, and easily applicable to every Christian today – we all have access to all the gifts of the Holy Spirit, which were given to the main characters.
Clearly a strong grasp of spiritual warfare, and dealing with your own emotions in a positive and Godly way. Great for those struggling with this. Language used was somewhat annoying – the way it was told how old someone was, the language sounded “Firefly” ish, and nicknames were flip flopped between used and not used, which was frustrating. Pretty good, but probably not holding my attention enough to continue the series.

Storm Siren: Book 1 by Mary Webber

2.5 STARS
I honestly have such random and scattered thoughts on this so…. Spoilers and chaotic answers ahead:
Reasons I don’t like it
– Too much magic
– Love triangle?? What was the point?
– Danger to kids – them being killed at almost every turn
– Too many gorey descriptions of death
– Killing everyone (and I do mean almost everyone of the good guys!) is not a plot device
– too many mentions of the main love interest being “unfairly attractive” ugh, please
What I liked
– The explanations of Nym using her elemental powers, sense the killing and death
– The banter of an independent Nym
– Interesting world
Honestly, why even bother creating a cast of characters we learn about only to kill all of them anyway?? I feel betrayed by the author – you strung me along only to yank away every person I connected to in the story, save one. Boo you.

Nine by Rachelle Dekker

4.5 STARS

Redemption, identity, and are we a product of our environment, or can we choose our lives?
I loved this story! It felt very Jason Bourne meets Divergent and I was here for it!
The characters were easy to connect with, somewhat unreliable at times (which made them exciting and interesting), and brought up some really deep and dense topics. Rachelle handled those topics and characters beautifully! I love the way she writes, and the story was fun and entertaining all the way to the end.

Recruits: Book 1 by Thomas Locke

3 STARS
It had me all the way until the last 70 pages, then it lost me.
Fun, interesting, and a fascinating world.
Then it went creepy, haunting and utterly unreadable for me. Shame because it was such a great book until then.

The Gifted: The Daegmon War Book 1 by Matthew Dickerson

NO STARS
I didn’t make it past page 10 of this book.
the writing style wasn’t connecting with me, the main character felt like a rip off of Katara from Avatar: The Last Airbender, and the “bad guy” was already shaping up to be too creepy for me to like.
I decided to give up before I went down the rabbit hole.

have you read any of those? maybe you want to now after hearing my thoughts? You can check out these books by clicking on their titles and heading to the Goodreads page for each to learn more about them.

See You in the Adventures!