Fresh from the Bookshelf: The Wedding Shop and A Royal Christmas Wedding by Rachel Hauck {Book Review}

Rachel Hauck is a rising star in the inspirational romance genre with her delightful books usually centered around weddings! In fact, both of her top selling series are wedding themed! She has released two new books in 2016 that go with two of her most beloved series. The Wedding Shop is part three of her The Wedding Dress/Heart's Bend series, and A Royal Christmas Wedding is a novella that goes with her The Royal Wedding Series. I received both of these books from The Fiction Guild to review, and because each of these books are wedding oriented, and were both released in 2016, I decided to combine them for a Rachel Hauck Romance Book Review!

Fresh from the Bookshelf: A Daring Sacrifice by Jody Hedlund {Book Review}

I love the story of Robin Hood. I also love stories that play with traditional tales to give them new life. A Daring Sacrifice by Jody Hedlund does just that--putting the role of Robin Hood, on a young maiden named Juliana, but known throughout the forest as the Cloaked Bandit!

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About the Book

A Daring Sacrifice by Jody Hedlund is actually book two in a series called An Uncertain Choice. The series is set in the medieval times of knights and ladies, castles and kings! In this book, we are introduced to The Cloaked Bandit--a sly light-fingered daring chap who goes out of his way to rob the rich in order to take care of the poor. Living in the forest with a group of compatriots, the Cloaked Bandit has been able to keep his true identity a secret. Until he robs Collin Goodrich...who beats him at his own game, and Collin discovers that the Cloaked Bandit is a...she! And not just any she...she's Juliana Wessex--a neighbor (And titled!) girl from his childhood, who is supposed to be dead!

What follows next is an investigation by Collin into what has happened in Juliana's life that has lead her to this extreme method of saving her friends. Will she trust him with her secrets? Will she ever be able to reveal to the world that she's alive and claim her land and home that was stolen from her? Is there a future for this unlikely pair?

My Thoughts

It's a fun story, but very idealistic. The lead character Juliana is supposed to be 17, but she speaks much to grown up. Even if she is an educated "lady". And the dialogue isn't very 1390ish medieval times. But it's fun going back and forth between Collin and Juliana's narratives. And the plot does get heavier as the book continues as it deals with things like torture, burning on a stake and such. This is a young adult lit book--and it does fall in the Christian genre as well. There are discussion questions included in the back of the book to talk about the Christian undertones.

I did like the bold, courageous, self-sacrificing role they gave Juliana. She was a bold female character who was a help mate to Collin, supporting him. I like that in a literary character.

Although the book is #2 in a series, I never felt that there was a need to have read book #1, as the characters or references to that book are very few and far between. This book appears to stand on it's own well.

Oh, and I love the cover art!

I give A Daring Sacrifice a solid average rating. It was good--but I've read many many other young adult lit books in this genre which are more meaty and hold my attention better. That being said, I am still going to be seeking out book #1 in this series An Uncertain Choice so that I can spend some more time learning about Collin's history. I would recommend it to any who enjoy a good young adult lit adventure story where the characters are moral and still exciting!

A Daring Sacrifice

by Jody Hedlund

ISBN# 9780310749370

Available for Kindle and Paperback

Fresh from the Bookshelf: The Mountain Midwife by Laurie Alice Eakes {Book Review}

My first choice for reading is never contemporary, but every now and then I am willing to branch out and give a book or a new author a try. I recently was sent The Mountain Midwife by Laurie Alice Eakes through the Fiction Guild to review and though hesitant about the contemporary setting, I was willing to give it a try.

The links on this blog and in the posts may be affiliate links.  Please see my disclosure policy for full details and thank you for your support!

About the Book

The Mountain Midwife was released at the end of 2015 into the Inspirational Fiction market as another novel for Laurie Alice Eakes. The Mountain Midwife is a midwife serving her small Appalachian community just as the women in her family have done before her. But she wants something more--she feels she can do them even MORE good if she earns a medical degree! But everything changes one night when a young woman gives birth at Ashley's home and is abducted, right as Ashley is preparing to take the dangerously bleeding woman to the hospital.

Faith Builders Bible from Zonderkidz {Product Review}

We were recently given the opportunity to review Faith Builders Bible from Zonderkidz, a brick-building toy themed Bible for ages 5+. Considering my family is a LEGO family and that we regularly read from our Bibles, I was curious to see if this would be a version of a children's Bible the boys would enjoy. 

Product Summary

Zonderkidz is the children's division of Zondervan publishing company. Zonderkidz is dedicated to offering everything from novels to devotionals to Bibles designed to keep your child immersed and interested in God's word. One of their newest products is the Faith Builders Bible.
Faith Builders Bible was designed with the brick-building toy lover in mind! There are 24 full-color illustration pages all with a brick building theme--to make the Word of God more...hands-on! The Bible encourages the young readers to replicate the scripture themed brick building creations for themselves. This edition of the bible is the complete New International Readers Version (NIrV) designed for early readers, and ESL readers.
Faith Builders Bible is hardcover, measures 8 1/2" x 5 1/2", and retails for $24.99. 
We were given the Faith Builders Bible to review with Little Britches, age 10.

How Did We Use This Product?

Because we use bibles daily in our homeschool for our biblical studies, this product was put to use straight away! I had my oldest use it for all his scripture reading for a week, and he happily did so. 

The other aspect of the bible that we checked out were all the brick-building illustrations. Little Britches looked through them all and then pulled out his big tub of LEGOS to give a few of them a try. 

A multi-colored giraffe!

Little Britches was intrigued by all the bible scene creations and has decided he's going to attempt a few more. 

Our Thoughts on the Book

I think the cover of the book is very eye catching and the LEGO themed cover drew my boys in right away. They practically snatched it once I opened the package, eager to check it out. "A LEGO BIBLE!" they both happily cheered. I told them I wanted to look at it first, but would let them look at it very soon. 

The boys reached for it right away to touch it!

Our family's preferred bible translation is NKJV and this one was a NIrV (New International Reader's Version). We try to avoid the NIV for personal reasons, so I wasn't very hot on this being a NIV. Neither my husband nor I are big fans of the readers versions, as they seem to drastically "simplify" God's word, and that's not something that we are comfortable with--especially if it's going to be for our kids to use. Maybe that seems odd, but we were both taught right from the King James or New King James version of the Bible without needing it simplified for us. It wasn't difficult and I used a dictionary when I had a word I stumbled on. We both agree that we learned more having to look up words on our own than having someone else tell us a synonym. I also have found that the readers versions sometimes pick words that the original Hebrew or Greek doesn't match in regards to meaning. I use a concordance a lot, so I've found this to be true time and time again. (even in the NKJV it happens). 
That being said, I decided to go through it and use this Bible in conjunction with one of my own so that I could keep an eye on the translation text.
How is it different?  Here are a few examples...
Example 1: Genesis 1:2 "The earth didn't have any shape. And it was empty. There was darkness over the surface of the waves. At that time, the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters." (Faith Builders Bible-NIrV)
Genesis 1:2 "The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters." (NKJV)
Example 2: Matthew 1:18 "This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about. His mother Mary and Joseph had promised to get married. But before they started to live together, it became clear that she was going to have a baby. She became pregnant by the power of the Holy Spirit." (Faith Builders Bible--NIrV)
Matthew 1:18 "Now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows: After His mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Spirit." (NKJV)
These are both good examples to show how the version is designed for those who have a "hard time understanding" other versions of the Bible. In general, they take out a larger word and replace it with shorter words or series of shorter words to explain what the big words meant. 
Completely unnecessary in my opinion, and not something that I really think is a good idea. HOWEVER, it IS very helpful when reading the Psalms and Proverbs. Those are the best books of the bible for easy reading versions. 
The boys did like the LEGO photos in the Bible and had fun replicating a couple animals from the picture of Noah's ark. Little Britches is trying to figure out how to do the one of the fruit of the spirit, but has said he doesn't have enough of the same colored pieces.  As an aside: Some of the illustrations had things that our family doesn't agree with according to our belief system: images of the cross, Noah with only a pair of each kind of animals (some kinds had 7 pair!), not quite right nativity scene, and then a much too simplified explanation on becoming saved. But these are things that most Christians don't and wouldn't have any issues with. But I know that some people might want to know about it, so I am mentioning it here. This totally boils down to personal beliefs though, so everyone would have a different viewpoint on it.
I also did appreciate the font that was used. It is very good for reading--especially for younger eyes still working on sounding out words. Little Britches said it was a good font and size to read.
Another extra tidbit--if a passage of scripture was found elsewhere in the Bible--like when the NT quotes the OT, it was written right into the passage using parentheses.

And lastly, I was expecting this version to have extra notes, or photos or something relating scripture to brick building. More than just the illustrations they included. And I think the boys would have appreciated some kind of brick-building guide for making some of the creations, instead of having to come up with it all by looking at the photos. But I'm sure there is a reason why they didn't do that...probably conflicts with LEGO or something.
In summary, the main reason I didn't LOVE this Bible was that it was a NIrV and not the NKJV that our family uses all the time. If it was available in NKJV, I am sure that I would give it two big thumbs up!

Would I Recommend This Product?

If the version or style of the text of the Bible isn't that important to you, and you want an easy to read bible for children, I would say that this Bible might be a good fit! I think that it will work for both genders, however, my boys said it was more for boys because it was blue and had LEGO pictures. Obviously they are not accurate in their assumption. LOL. 
If version and scripture accuracy is important, than I would probably pass on this bible as it is more of a loose translation to make it "easier" for reading. That's what it was DESIGNED to be for and it does it well. It just isn't what I want in a Bible for my kids to use on a regular basis. If you were hoping for some kind of devotions or tidbits tying brick building into scripture (like I thought there would be), then no you won't find that.
Will we continue to use this product? It will be a good one to pull out whenever some wording in our NKJV might be a bit beyond the boy's understanding--when there are LOTS of more complicated phrases and such. We own many translations, and this will just be another one in our stack to reference when needed.

Want to Know More?

We reviewed Faith Builders Bible from Zonderkidz. You have read our thoughts on it, but what did other families using this bible think about it? 

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This is a Bible that the boys enjoy using--but almost exclusively because of the colorful illustrated photos showing various brick-building creations, not the actual bible itself. As expected, I am still not a big fan of the NIrV, but I already knew that going in. We will be sticking with the NKJV that we already have and use frequently.

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