Being married to a saint isn’t what it’s cracked up to be.

Beth’s husband won’t be joining the family on vacation at the beach this year. He’s not even joining them in the house. Instead, Rick has holed up alone in the backyard shed. Nobody knows exactly what he’s up to. Maybe he’s immersing himself in prayer. Maybe he’s lost his mind. Maybe he’s even the modern-day prophet or the saint the neighborhood artist imagines him to be. But while “St. Rick” waits for an epiphany, Beth will have to figure out what to do with herself and their teenage sons, possibly for the rest of her life.

What happens next is both uproarious and bittersweet: a peace march turns violent, her son is caught with drugs, and she embarks on an ambitious road trip that turns into something nearly surreal. Will Beth rediscover the idealistic woman she used to be, once upon a time? Can her marriage survive Rick’s backyard vigil? Will anything ever be the same? And should it be?

Truthful, comic, heartbreaking, and magical in the very best sense of the word, The Sky Beneath My Feetgently tears the veil off our egos and expectations to reveal the throbbing, redemptive, and achingly beautiful life beyond and within us.

My Comments:  When I began this book I got very excited.  I thought I was reading a book I could really relate to.  As the book went on, however, I felt a little lost and found it harder to relate to what I was reading.  This story was good at showing how real people in ministry are – they have the same thoughts and struggles as people not in ministry.  We all don’t grow up in ministry families – some of us  don’t even grow up in Christian homes.  Ministry families have the same struggles are everyone else and some unique ones all their own.  This book did a great job portraying that.  However, the struggles were difficult for me to relate to very different from my own.  Having said all of that, I enjoyed this book and was excited to read it because both of my daughters love Lisa Samson.  This book is a great slice of life.

Random.org chose Theresa N. as the winner.  Congratulations!  I will send you an email shortly.

Readers, Please continue checking out Sylvan Dell books for children – they rock!

Tomorrow is the last day to try winning this great children’s book.  All you have to do is go to this link and post

http://thefriendlybooknook.com/2013/05/14/giveaway-meet-the-planets-by-john-mcgranaghan/

**Be watching this week for my review of Meet the Planets by John McGranaghan.  This will be our giveaway during this week of Children’s Book Week.  You can also download Sylvan Dell’s eBooks for only 99 cents this week!   Read the following announcement from Sylvan Dell:

Sylvan Dell Publishing Celebrates Children’s Book Week

Mt Pleasant, SC (April 23, 2013)-It’s all about reading! For Children’s Book Week Sylvan Dell Publishing and their authors are delighted to share the love of a good book with children. Not only will several authors be participating in events at bookstores, libraries and schools in their communities, but the publisher will also offer free access to new favorites at www.sylvandellpublishing.com. For tablet readers all of Sylvan Dell’s enhanced eBooks will be 99 cents on the Kindle and iBooks stores from May 12^th through the 18^th.

To spark a love of reading and an appreciation for science and the natural world around us is the foundation on which Sylvan Dell was built. Each of the authors has an interest in sharing this love with children; meet one of these dedicated authors in your city.

• See Janet Halfmann author of Home in the Cave, Little Skink’s Tail and Fur and Feathers at the Women’s Club of Wisconsin on May 14^th at 6:00 pm and the South Milwaukee Public Library on May 15^th at 6:00 pm for story time and signing.
• Marianne Berkes author of Animalogy and The Tree that Bear Climbed will celebrate Children’s Book Week at Woodward Elementary School on May 15^th.
• Terry Catasús Jennings will be signing Gopher to the Rescue on May 15^th at Powell’s Bookstore in Portland, Oegon. Then she will be presenting at the Mount Saint Helen’s Institute on May 16^th and at the Mount Saint Helen’s Coldwater Science & Learning Center on the 18^th with a signing at Johnston Ridge Gift Shop later that day.
• Scotti Cohn author of On the Move: Mass Migrations, Big Cat, Little Kitty and One Wolf Howls  will be presenting and signing at the Blue Ridge Bookfest in Flat Rock, North Carolina on May 17^th & 18^th.
• At the Tattered Cover Bookstore in Denver, Colorado Phyllis Perry author of Pandas’ Earthquake Escape will be part of a Book Week presentation at 7:00 pm on May 18th.
• Illustrator of Count Down to Fall, Deep in the Desert and The Best Nest, Sherry Neidigh will be presenting at Malprops Bookstore on May 18^th in Ashville, North Carolina.
• Ann Downer author of Shark Baby will be presenting an ocean themed event at Books on the Square in Providence Rhode Island on May 18^th.

During Children’s Book Week Sylvan Dell will be hosting contests, giveaways and free fun activities.  The Sylvan Dell blog, Facebook page and @sylvandell on twitter will be dedicated to Children’s Book Week events beginning in May, get involved and win! For a complete listing of events, to schedule an interview with Sylvan Dell or any of the authors please visit www.sylvandellpublishing.com or contact heatherwilliams@sylvandellpublishing.com.

About Sylvan Dell Publishing

Sylvan Dell is on a mission to improve child literacy with science and math through fictional picture books. Using prose and pictures, children are delighted with stories of their favorite animals, planets, or even place. This leads to the exploration of facts and learning activities in each book’s For Creative Minds pages. Sylvan Dell carefully designs each book to portray accurately the chosen subject. Vetted by experts in that field, and aligned to common core and state standards; each book is a unique asset to educational programs. Sylvan Dell has grown to include more than 80 authors and illustrators, and honored to have won more than 70 book awards since its inception in 2005.

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One innocent mistake . . . a lifetime of consequences.

After growing up an only child, Amanda Lisandra wants a big family. But since she and her soldier husband can’t afford to have more children right away, Mandy decides to earn money as a gestational carrier for a childless couple. She loves being pregnant, and while carrying the child, she dreams of having her own son and maybe another daughter. . . .

Just when the nearly perfect pregnancy is about to conclude, unexpected tragedy enters Mandy’s world and leaves her reeling. Devastated by grief, she surrenders the child she was carrying and struggles to regain her emotional equilibrium.

Two years later she studies a photograph of the baby she bore and wonders if the unthinkable has happened—could she have inadvertently given away her own biological child? Over the next few months Mandy struggles to decide between the desires of her grief-stricken heart and what’s best for the little boy she has never known.

My Comments:  The content of books never ceases to amaze me.  Angela Hunt takes an issue I have had questions about and weaves it into a great story!  Struggles are a part of life – some are thrust upon us and some are due to choices we make.  This book covers a struggle which is a result of a choice.  Carrying another person’s baby is not a choice I would have ever made mainly due to the fact that I hated being pregnant.  My hormones worked overtime and I felt sick for 9 months.  It’s worth it for your own child, but for someone elses’?  and to get paid for it?  Wow, this book made me think.  One thing I love about reading is that you live vicariously through someone else – you see their struggles and you work out in your own mind how you would solve their problems.  There were a few twists along the way, but this makes for a great story.  I usually read everything Angela Hunt writes – and enjoy her writing.  She did a great job of putting me into Mandy’s head, so that I could feel what she felt and see what she saw.  Her relationship with her mom was interesting and I felt it could have been developed a wee bit more, but enough information was given.  Her relationship with her in-laws was even more interesting to me.  They seemed more like her birth family, and they were of another culture!  Great writing Ms. Hunt!

In her latest novel Mary Higgins Clark, the beloved, bestselling “Queen of Suspense,” exposes a dark secret from a family’s past that threatens the lives of two sisters, Kate and Hannah Connelly, when the family-owned furniture firm in Long Island City, founded by their grandfather and famous for its fine reproductions of antiques, explodes into flames in the middle of the night, leveling the buildings to the ground, including the museum where priceless antiques have been on permanent display for years.

The ashes reveal a startling and grisly discovery, and provoke a host of suspicions and questions. Was the explosion deliberately set? What was Kate—tall, gorgeous, blond, a CPA for one of the biggest accounting firms in the country, and sister of a rising fashion designer—doing in the museum when it burst into flames? Why was Gus, a retired and disgruntled craftsman, with her at that time of night? What if someone isn’t who he claims to be?

Now Gus is dead, and Kate lies in the hospital badly injured and in a coma, so neither can tell what drew them there, or what the tragedy may have to do with the hunt for a young woman missing for many years, nor can they warn that somebody may be covering his tracks, willing to kill to save himself . . .

Step by step, in a novel of dazzling suspense and excitement, Mary Higgins Clark once again demonstrates the mastery of her craft that has made her books international bestsellers for years. She presents the reader with a perplexing mystery, a puzzling question of identity, and a fascinating cast of characters—one of whom may just be a ruthless killer . . .

My Comments:  I listened to this on my long commute to work (45 minutes).  It sure made the time fly by!  A few twists and turns really kept me going.  I found it hard to get into the listening part at first and listened to the first CD twice, but this was because I was distracted.  Once I really got into the story I kept with it until finished.  I even played with the idea of bringing the CDs into the house to listen, but then I would have nothing to look forward to on my long drive.  I always enjoy Mary Higgins Clark books.  They are full of mystery yet a clean read.  This was no exception.  The reading was excellent with consistent voices for each character.  Even the accents were right on.

Thanks to Simon and Schuster for a free review copy in exchange for my honest review.  I loved it!