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Saint (Paradise Series, Book 2) (The Books of History Chronicles)

Ted Dekker

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 89 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Great book, but left me with mixed feelings. 4 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

I have really enjoyed the writings of Ted Dekker, especially the Circle Trilogy, so I bought the Paradise series (Showdown and Saint). Both books are great, however "Saint" left me with mixed feelings. From the beginning (and through the whole book actually) it seemed too similar to the Jason Bourne trilogy with the whole assassin-with-no-memory plot. However, those who are unfamiliar with the Bourne series most likely will not be bothered by this, as even I who have read all three books soon just ignored it.
Most of the book flowed fairly well. There was plenty to guess about, and Ted keeps you trying to guess it yourself before he tells you. I personally was close in my guesses about the true identities of Carl and the Englishman, however I was not right on either of them. Ted keeps the action going well also with plenty of descriptions of training sessions with Carl and later with chase scenes, however those chase scenes once again reminded me too much of Bourne.
The ending of the book is the main part that left me with mixed feelings. The book built up so much climax that the ending was just too short. In my opinion, Carl found his real identity and power too quickly for the background that had been set up so thoroughly. Also, the final showdown just seemed too simple and Carl avoided it too easily. Also, what was with Englishman's "trump card"? It was referred to so much, then it never seemed to be used. Plus, the one possible instance I can think of it being used was the part that Carl avoided too easily.

Overall, I enjoyed this book, but it had just enough drawbacks that 4 stars is the absolute most I can give it. If you have read the Circle Trilogy and/or Showdown, than I certainly recommend this book. Otherwise, it is your decision. This certaily is not Dekker's best effort, but it is still a pretty good book.

Editorial Review:

“We call you Saint.”

The name ignited a light in Carl's mind. Saint. He'd been covertly recruited for Black Ops and given his life to the most brutal kind of training any man or woman could endure. He was here because he belonged here. To the X Group.

An assassin. The most effective killer in the world. And yet . . . Carl Strople struggles to retain fleeting memories that betray an even more ominous reality. He's been told part of the truth - but not all of it.

Invasive techniques have stripped him of his identity and made him someone new - for this he is grateful. But there are some things they can't take from him. The love of a woman, unbroken loyalties to his past, the need for survival.

From the deep woods of Hungary to the streets of New York, Saint takes you on a journey of betrayal in a world of government cover-ups, political intrigue, and one man's search for the truth. In the end, that truth will be his undoing.

The Sparrow

Mary Doria Russell

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 459 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

"A NOTABLE ACHIEVEMENT . . . Russell shows herself to be a skillful storyteller who subtly and expertly builds suspense."
--USA Today

"AN EXPERIENCE NOT TO BE MISSED . . . If you have to send a group of people to a newly discovered planet to contact a totally unknown species, whom would you choose? How about four Jesuit priests, a young astronomer, a physician, her engineer husband, and a child prostitute-turned-computer-expert? That's who Mary Doria Russell sends in her new novel, The Sparrow. This motley combination of agnostics, true believers, and misfits becomes the first to explore the Alpha Centuri world of Rakhat with both enlightening and disastrous results. . . . Vivid and engaging . . . An incredible novel."
--Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

"POWERFUL . . . Father Emilio Sandoz [is] the only survivor of a Jesuit mission to the planet Rakhat, 'a soul . . . looking for God.' We first meet him in Italy . . . sullen and bitter. . . . But he was not always this way, as we learn through flashbacks that tell the story of the ill-fated trip. . . . The Sparrow tackles a difficult subject with grace and intelligence."
--San Francisco Chronicle

"SMOOTH STORYTELLING AND GORGEOUS CHARACTERIZATION . . . Important novels leave deep cracks in our beliefs, our prejudices, and our blinders. The Sparrow is one of them."
--Entertainment Weekly

Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul (Chicken Soup for the Soul (Audio Health Communications))

Jack Canfield

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 474 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

I am a teacher in two high schools and I like to read the stories of the book to my students from time to time to inspirate them and reinforce their teenage self esteem! I suggest it to all teacher to make the same with a nice calm background music.

Just the gift for a teenager 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Once again, "Chicken Soup for the Soul" books has a hit. This is a wonderful gift for young teens with its easy read of short stories on pertinent topics and experiences teens face. Teens I have given it to as a gift have loved it and purchased the next in the teen series. Also a source of good talking points for those anxiety ridden moments or social issues teens face.

Editorial Review:

"Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul" is your handbook for surviving and succeeding during the exciting teen years with both your sanity and sense of humour intact. It contains invaluable lessons on the nature of friendship and love, the importance of belief in the future and the value of respect for yourself and others. It also deals with tough issues like death, suicide and the loss of love. You'll relate to and learn from the inspirational stories, without feeling criticised or judged. Like a good friend, "Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul" will be there for you when you need someone and cheer you up when you're down.

Desecration: Antichrist Takes the Throne (Left Behind No. 9)

Tim LaHaye, Jerry B. Jenkins

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 236 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Just one more book in the all-encompassing, enthralling, and utterly absorbing Left Behind Series 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

From the very first letter of the alphabet that my eyes looked upon inside this series of books, until the very last period of the very last sentence, I was hooked. Each one of these books absorbed my attention like no other book has ever done in my life. Biblically sound, theatrically entertaining, and brilliantly written, the Left Behind books will inspire you to dig into God's word and take the pieces of news from your T.V. screen and match them right smack-dab up with the prophecies of the Bible. Your hair will stand up, your heart will race, and you will find yourself helplessly caught in the suspense. Once you finish one of these books, you will desperately race to your computer screen or your local library to pick up the next one!

Carrie Lynn Jones
Author of It All Began... When Jesus Gave Me Sneakers

Editorial Review:

The exciting ninth book in the Left Behind series that has sold over 2.5 million copies in hardcover is now available in trade paperback. In November 2001 Desecration was #1 on the New York Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, Publishers Weekly, and CBA Marketplace best-seller lists. With 50 million products sold, the Left Behind series is an international phenomenon.

Someday (Sunrise Series-Baxter 3, Book 3)

Karen Kingsbury

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 33 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Creeped out by the Flanigans 3 out of 5 stars.
1 of 2 people found this review helpful.

OK...this wasn't my favorite of the series. I loved "Summer." I love Ashley. She is by far my favorite Baxter.

In this one I hated the deception and miscommunication that comes between Dayne and Katy. The author has given us, what, 7+ books so far to establish that they are madly, passionately in love, and they've been married what, six months--and already Katy believes Dayne is cheating on her? It just doesn't ring true to the characters or their relationship. (Again, though--Ashley saves the day. She always does.)

Is anyone else creeped out by the Flanigans? Think about it--the makeup of the "Flanigan" family--a daughter followed by five boys, three of whom are adopted from Haiti, mom's a writer--is identical to that of the author's own family...and the Flanigans are held up as the ideal, perfect, model family? At least the Baxters have their human side. The worst thing I've seen in all the books was when Jenny was briefly slightly annoyed with Katy because Bailey didn't get a big part in a CKT show. If that's the biggest flaw she has, yikes, there's no hope for the rest of us. Even the names of the kids are similar--"Bailey" and Kelsey, "Connor" and Tyler, "Justin" and Austin, etc. I definitely come away with the feeling that the author is holding up her own family, barely fictionalized, as the epitome of perfection, and it comes across as prideful...I'm reminded of Romans 12:3: "examine yourselves with sober judgment and do not think of yourselves more highly than you ought."

I'm sick of Dayne and Katy and the whole "fame" angle and I hope the last book focuses on Bloomington. That's where the Baxter fans want to be! Oh, I do like Dayne, though. He seems like a good person, especially because he hasn't yet drowned his awful brother Luke in Lake Monroe!

Editorial Review:

Pressures of the celebrity lifestyle weigh heavily on Dayne and Katy Matthews as they take on separate movie projects. Tabloid rumors talk of trouble and unfaithfulness between the two, but finally something drastic catches Dayne's attention and makes him realize the destruction they're playing with. But will it be too late? The Flanigan family recognizes the deep loss of the Christian Kids Theater program, and they lead a final effort to keep the theater from being torn down. Meanwhile, John Baxter takes the next step in his growing relationship with Elaine, giving him a season to contemplate selling the Baxter house and, along with it, losing a lifetime of memories made there. As the rest of the family considers the future and what may lie ahead, they must pull together like never before. Only their undying love for each other can help the Baxters get past the trials of today for a life they know is possible . . . someday.

Apollyon: The Destroyer Is Unleashed (Left Behind No. 5)

Tim LaHaye, Jerry B. Jenkins

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 508 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Christian Readers, you are being plundered! 1 out of 5 stars.
1 of 4 people found this review helpful.

Toward the top of this very page, the authors declare: "For some reason, I'm finding that a large percentage of people who greet us at signings, etc., and tell us they have read "all the books" actually haven't. They are largely unaware that between books 12 (Glorious Appearing) and 13 (Kingdom Come) we produced three prequels (The Rising, The Regime, and The Rapture). These need not be read before Kingdom Come (the final sequel), but if you're a Left Behind fan, you won't want to miss them.
Dr. LaHaye and I also have a new series -- fiction based on the gospels -- that began last November with John's Story: The Last Eyewitness. Late this year the second of the four titles, Mark's Story: The Gospel According to Peter will release. And, of course, we'll finish with Luke's Story and Matthew's Story. As always, I'd love to hear from you."

Indeed, they'd love to hear from you, to hear the sound of your money clinking in the cashbox of sanctimony. NOW hear the gospel (the good news): you don't need to read this escapist fantasy in order to find your place among the ELECT! Do you suppose St. John of Patmos would have delighted in such melodrama? Do you suppose Jesus of Nazareth would have smirked along with Tim and Jerry in their sagas of self-righteousness?

Shame! Shame! Make better use of your time, while the Bridegroom tarries!

Editorial Review:

The #1 best-selling hardcover novel of 1999 is now available in softcover! The Tribulation Force travels to Israel for the Meeting of Witnesses as further judgments are released upon the world. Satan falls from heaven and opens the bottomless pit, releasing Apollyon and his plague of locusts that torture the unsaved. Now available in trade softcover, Apollyon is a thriller that will be tough to put down.

5 1/2 x 8 1/4 softcover

Grave Secrets (Chivers Sound Library American Collections)

Kathy Reichs

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 71 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

THE SENSATIONAL NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

#1 bestselling author Kathy Reichs takes her acclaimed heroine, forensic anthropologist Dr. Temperance Brennan, on a harrowing excavation where she unearths a chilling history -- and puts her own future on the line in a desperate investigation.

GRAVE SECRETS

They are "the disappeared," twenty-three massacre victims buried in a well in the Guatemalan village of Chupan Ya two decades ago. Leading a team of experts on a meticulous, heartbreaking dig, Tempe Brennan pieces together the violence of the past. But a fresh wave of terror begins when the horrific sounds of a fatal attack on two colleagues come in on a blood-chilling satellite call. Teaming up with Special Crimes Investigator Bartolomé Galiano and Montreal detective Andrew Ryan, Tempe quickly becomes enmeshed in the cases of four privileged young women who have vanished from Guatemala City -- and finds herself caught in deadly territory where power, money, greed, and science converge.

An Echo in the Darkness (Mark of the Lion #2)

Francine Rivers

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 51 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

An Echo in the Darkness 3 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

An Echo in the Darkness is the second book in Francine River's Mark of the Lion triology. The book wastes little time recapping from the first book (A Voice in the Wind).

Spoiler alert: Since the last book, we discover that life has changed for the characters in 1st century AD. Hadassah is surviving with disfiguring injuries, Marcus is seeking to make sense of the world as he knows it, his sister suffers from an unidentified and dangerous illness and his mother Phoebe has turned to Christianity and does good works in the community.

To make sense of the tragedy and abominations of the people, Marcus travels to the holy land to find this "God" to whom Hadassah prayed. His journey, is a good metaphor for many people's journey into Christianity. Through his journey, as well as Hadassah's into forgiveness and Julia's into redemption we get a good picture of life in Rome, Ephesus and Israel in the 1st century AD. However, my overall issue with the book was that the talk of God and faith was quite heavy handed. I much preferred a Voice in the Wind because there was a better combination of history, faith and humanity. I know this is probably an unpopular sentiment, but there was so much talk of God in this book that it became overbearing at times. For me, it was to much, for others, if you enjoy a substantial focus on God in a book besides the Bible, then this book is for you.

Editorial Review:

This classic series has inspired over half a million readers. Both loyal fans and new readers will want the 10th anniversary editions of this beloved series. These editions include a new foreword from the publisher, a new preface from Francine Rivers, and discussion questions suitable for personal and group use.

#2 An Echo in the Darkness: Turning away from the opulence of Rome, Marcus is led by a whispering voice from the past into a journey that could set him free from the darkness of his soul.