Modern Pioneering by Georgia Pellegrini

Modern Pioneering by Georgia Pellegrini is a book of recipes, projects and skills for a self-sufficient life.  If you have spent your life eating out of the grocery store but have been hearing scary news articles or just want to know how to grow your own then this is the book for you.  This book will walk you through making raised garden beds. Then this book gives you recipes for using your homegrown produce.  It tells of the easiest to grow.  It tells which grow best, which grow in cool weather, and which in warm.   Or if you don't want to know how to grow your own but just want to know which pretty flower or weeds in your yard are edible this is the book for you.  It gives tips on living off the land no matter where your land is even in the city.  Now don't however think that you can with the knowledge in this book you could go off grid.  This would be the first book to read--not the last.  There are a few easy crafts that one can make on the cheap for gifts or making your own glasses from wine and beer bottles.  If you remember real homemade sour kraut that grandma made and want to know how to make it yourself then reading this book can tell you.  There is DIY projects like making your own home made paper stationary or other paper products out of your grocery sacks or other paper products.  Maybe you don't recycle but would like to be part of the reuse or up-use population.  Want to eat pickled eggs but paying $6.00 for a small jar of them is too much?  This book can walk you through making your own.  Want to throw a party but have no keg to serve beverages? Make one from a watermelon.   Been reading the health news about the benefits of using caste iron but everything sticks?  This book tells you how to season it so that sticking is no longer a problem and no worries about the Teflon health scares either. 

If I were a beginner just wanting to learn some of the basics for starting to live simply this is the best first book to read.  It neither talks over your head nor makes you feel like you are reading a 6 year old primer.  It has looks of pictures and drawings where needed also.  It has simple party suggestions as well as making garden beds and as I mentioned earlier making glasses out of beer bottles (this sounded trickier than I wanted to try).  What to do with the mushrooms you just found-are they poisonous? how to cook? what do they taste like?  Do you have 1 1/2 # of almonds and want to know how to make milk out of them?  Oh the list goes on and on.

I would suggest this book for anyone wanting to learn how to live more simply and safely.  2 thumbs up for easy to read and understand.
I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review.

Persecuted by Robin Parrish

Persecuted: I Will Not be Silent by Robin Parrish is the next Christian fiction by this author.  It will make the reader think, "What would I do if I were no longer allowed to express my religious beliefs?, what if all religions were so watered down that none disagreed with another? "  Would we all then be one happy group of people who all believed alike or would we merely be a group of lukewarm believers? or non believers?  Who knows we would all be alike---maybe.  When would we recognize that instead of giving freedom to worship to everyone we have instead watered down our Christian faith to such a degree that it doesn't look any different than any other religion or for that matter any non religion either.  Will our freedom to worship as a Christian be subtly be wiped away bit by bit until it is gone?  We think that we know what we would do if a government entity tries to take over that we would fight to the death but what if our own government slickly passes law after law ever so slightly nips away at our freedom to worship.  Will I notice?  Will you?

John Luther is a well known well loved evangelistic pastor of the TV screen.  He loves his wife and daughter though his career takes him away from home more and more of the time.  He is the person that the government workers come to when they have a question about religion.  His long time friend Senator Donald Harrison is constantly calling him to indorse his bill, the Faith and Fairness Act, which John believes would water down religion in order to appease the masses and get Don more votes of course.  When John will not agree, Donald calls on the help of a hit man to solve his problem and further his own political agenda.  This starts the ball rolling in ways that neither could have predicted.

This is a suspense filled book.  People who love religious reading will love it.  Persons who read murder mysteries will love it.  This book has something that many readers of many genres will enjoy.  It is an adult book and describes murders and a sex crims but anyone from the age of high school and possibly middle school age will enjoy this book.
I received this book from Bethany House which is a division of Baker Publishing Group for this review.

Seasons of Tomorrow, Amish Visnes and Orchards book 4 by Cindy Woodsmall

Seasons of Tomorrow by Cindy Woodsmall is the 4th installment in the Amish Vines and Orchard series.  This series studies the working and living lives of the King and Byler families as they learn to live together in the same house as well as work together establishing a new Amish settlement and apple business.  They would grow closer together as well as learn to work together.  They make some of the rules for the new settlement but are constantly being interfered with by the caring as well as jealous involvement of their former settlement.  They have no bishop and so mostly rely on the religious advise of their pastor Stephen Byler.  Their former settlement have people who jealously regarded them and they now know that they have within their midst an informer who regularly reports to any indiscretions no matter how slight.  Since they have no idea who this person is they must be careful whenever they may stray from their roots no matter how good their reasoning is.  Rhoda has future insights which come to her at inopportune moments.  She knows that at sometime in the future that the settlement will have to deal with the loss of one of their females.  She feels that it will be either Phoebe, who is pregnant with her and Stephen's 4 child, or Lydia who is rapidly getting more involved with an Englisher man who is an integral part of the business and one that they would like to bring in as a partner.  Phoebe and Stephen have recently lost their last child and Lydia is one of the sisters in the King family and has been ostracized in their former settlement because of her ideas which don't include joining the church though she is rapidly approaching the age of the decision. Rhoda has been ostracized by the settlement for "practicing witchcraft" because of her visions of the future of which she has no control and tries to ignore whenever possible.  When Phoebe develops an H1N1 pneumonia and Rhoda starts seeing her in the corners of her vision holding the baby she is so afraid that her friend and her baby will die.  The hospital has Phoebe in a drug induced coma to improve the chances of survival of both baby and mom but the hospital personnel still don't hold out much hope.  Phoebe is covered in prayer in the King settlement, in the old settlement of Harvest Mills as well as in the hospital.  The group decides to break the rules once again so that they can tape the voices of Phoebe's children so that if Phoebe can hear she can hear their voices in her room.  Will all of this be enough? Read this book to find out.
I loved this book as I have loved all of the Vines and Orchards series.  I hope that Ms Woodsmall has a plan for a future installment.  This book is excellent reading for any girl or woman of any age. 
This book was provided by Waterbrook Press for this review.

Love Hunger by David Kyle Foster

Love Hunger by David Kyle Foster is a book based on the author's experiences of growing up.  David grew up in a family where he was one of the middle children in a pastor's family.  David grew up attending church multiple times per week in a family of 4 boys where discipline was quick practicing, "spare the rod and spoil the child".  He came from a line of pastor's families as his father's father was also a Presbyterian pastor as was his father since arriving in America from Ireland in the early 1800s. David grew up in the 60s and so when he went to college he grew his hair long and dabbled in drugs as well as alcohol like many of his cohorts. He also started experimenting with sex both homosexual as well a heterosexual. David headed out to California to seek his fortune in acting and managed to find work in commercials, teen magazines, and a few movies.  He continued to use drugs and broadened his sexual appetite to include many partners and paying customers.  David continued in this vein though he felt increasing guilt as well as feeling like he was headed for hell.  This book follows David's experiences from sexual and drug addiction into a life of being a pastor freed from all of these addictions.  David is very honest with the things he did during this period of his life though it is not particularly graphic is detail unless necessary.

This book was a difficult read for me and in the middle I almost put it down and didn't think that I would finish it.  Though as I stated in the previous paragraph the descriptions are not extremely graphic and I also lived through the 60s, I found the homosexual nature to be difficult  and uncomfortable to read.  I am glad that I made it through since the end of the book is easy to read and I am glad that David found his way through and is now living a life in which he is happy and he also reconciled with his parents before their eventual deaths.  The book does not sugar coat either the life he lived before becoming reconciled with Christ or after.  I would recommend this book only to those seeking to change their life from sexual addiction or homosexuality or their parents.  It is a difficult read and one not for the faint of heart.

I received this book from Chosen which is a division of Baker Publishing Group for this review.

A Broken Kind of Beautiful by Katie Ganshert

A Broken Kind of Beautiful by Katie Ganshert has written a novel that heartbreakingly reads like real life.  Though very beautiful fashion model Ivy never felt love from her father or by her drug addicted mother.  Her father had never acted like a father in her life.  He was married Marilyn who had always tried to show Ivy the love that she deserved even though Ivy was the product of her husband's infidelity.  Marilyn had even raised Ivy from the time that her mother could no longer do so because of her drug use.  Ivy had learned over the course of her life never to trust that the men who from the age of 14 told her that they loved her really did not love her but only wanted something from her.  Upon the death of her father though Marilyn has the chance to teach Ivy that she is loved.  Marilyn is a clothing designer of bridal dresses.  Her nephew Davis is a photographer who refuses to take pictures because he has promised himself that since the blindness of his sister, Sarah, is his fault he will not use a camera again.  Marilyn wants to use both Ivy who at age 25 is getting too old to get the good jobs and Davis who refuses to forgive himself to both commit to a project of having a bridal show that would benefit a blind school for Sarah. Ivy's agent says that this is her only chance for work right now and Davis agrees to do this one thing for Sarah.  Marilyn has her work cut out for herself--showing Ivy that she is worth loving and that she loves her as if she were her daughter and showing Davis her nephew that depriving the world of a great photographer is not going to make him feel less guilty or bring back Sarah's sight.  

Ivy comes into her hometown feeling like this is the end of her modeling career.  Davis is wondering if God will forgive him for going back on his promise never to pick up a camera again.  Will Ivy learn that though the world may always take advantage of her for her beauty that God loves her for herself?  Will Davis learn that God has already forgiven him and that he needs to accept his guilt in the matter and forgive himself?  Read this book to find out.

I liked this book.  Finally a Christian love story where the main love interest is the love of God for his people and the desire of God to have good for His people.   I received this book from Waterbrook Press for this review.

Lost and Found by Sarah Jakes

Lost and Found by Sarah Jakes is the insightful real life of Sarah's teenage years.  Sarah grew up under the watchful and loving eyes of her pastor parents the well known, TD and Serita Jakes.  She grew up knowing that she was loved and though much was expected from her she received the needed foundation in order to do all that was expected of her.  Her mother though very busy with the life of a pastor's family also was in charge of homeschooling all 5 of her children.  She is one of the blessed teens who had all she wanted or needed both physically and emotionally.  Sarah when she reached her teen was allowed a bit more freedom and during church services joined the rest of her peers in their own portion of the sanctuary.  Sarah enjoyed her teen times of learning how to grow up in the world right until at age 13 she found herself pregnant.  She was afraid to tell her parents not because of punishment but rather because she was ashamed and didn't wish to disappoint her parents.  What would they think?  What would the congregation think?  What would this do to the reputation of her parents and her family?  All very important questions that any teen would question.  Sarah's parents however surprised her--oh they were disappointed all right but they also stood behind her and helped her face her new life.  Sarah was surprised all right but she still felt that she had both disappointed them, the congregation and most of all God.  How could she ever make up for all that she had done?  One of her life lesson is on page 223 of the book: "Grace is not the absence of the struggle; it is the presence of protection."

This book reveals how Sarah grew from the little girl totally cared for by her parents into the lost teenager making horrible decisions and into the strong adult that she is today.  This book is very true to life.  Sarah is more honest and open with her mistakes and her fumbling through the growing up time of her teen years than most authors would be in an autobiography.  This book should be in most high school libraries so that girls can see that no matter the bad errors in judgment that they make that a good life can still be established and they can make it.  That mistakes can be lived with and that life goes on.  That God will forgive anything if we have the good sense to ask.  Most of the mistakes that girls make while growing up are mistakes that harm themselves but most female teens are looking at instead at how it affects the way that people think of them.  We females spend too much time worrying about what others think of us and too little on how this affects our self.  A good read.  Pick it up.

This book was provided by Bethany House for this review.

Girl at the End of the World by Elizabeth Esther

Girl at the End of the World is a true story about the life of the author Elizabeth Esther.  Elizabeth grew up in a fundamentalist church founded by her grandfather.  This church was a Christian church but it had many barbarian strict rules instigated by her grandfather or grandmother.  In this fundamentalist church children were strongly punished for minor or even imaginary infractions using beatings or emotional deprivation.  These were then covered up to the outside world by codes of silence.  Elizabeth starts the book at the age of 9 with her beginnings into public aposyletizing in her community with her parents watching close by for support and encouragement.  She always felt and believed that her parents loved her through all the abuse and emotional anxiety that she felt in her growing up years.  Her parents believed as did the entire church that the daily spankings were needed in order to "break the will" of the child, confess their sins, and surrender to Jesus.  Elizabeth tells of her life through the years in the church, through her marriage and finally through the times of she and her husband, Matt's, break with the church and then finally to her finding physical and emotional healing in adulthood. 

This heartbreaking story will just bring you to tears at times and to the edge of your seat at times just wanting little Elizabeth to have the strength to leave and get the help that she so desperately needed.  I was so afraid that someone would hurt her so unspeakably that she would not be able to get help.  I at no time felt that her parents did not love her but just were brainwashed themselves.  Elizabeth though honest never writes punitively about those who so awfully abused her.  This would be good reading for any adult but should be careful about allowing too young of a child to read.  This is difficult reading emotionally though no abuse is told too graphically.  Very good read.  Congratulations on living the life and making it though to the other side so well.  Thank you Elizabeth for having the courage to not only write the book but to change your life so that your children could have better.

This book was provided by Blogging for Books for this review.