Review: The Letter Keeper

 

 

The Letter Keeper 

 

About the Book:

Combining heart-wrenching emotion with edge-of-your-seat tension, Charles Martin explores the true power of sacrificial love.

He shows up when all hope is lost.

Murphy Shepherd has made a career of finding those no one else could—survivors of human trafficking. His life’s mission is helping others find freedom.

But then the nightmare strikes too close to home.

When his new wife, her daughter, and two other teenage girls are stolen, Murphy is left questioning all he has thought to be true. With more dead ends than leads, he has no idea how to find those he loves.

After everything is stripped away, love is what remains.

Hope feels lost, but Murphy is willing to expend his last breath trying to bring them home.

My Comments:

I almost quit about 10% into the book because I couldn't figure out what was happening or how the characters fit together. However, I kept reading and in the end, I can't say I wasted my time, but no, I will not be reading the next book in the series.

The story is told in the first person by Shepherd, and it follows two timelines--what is happening now, and what happened in the past to bring him into this line of work.

Based on the blurb above, I expected a story where his loved ones were kidnapped early in the book and we as readers spent most of the book watching him follow the clues and dead ends to rescue them. Instead there was a lot of exposition about Murphy's childhood and young adult years, followed by some current action, then, in the last quarter of the book the kidnapping and resolution.

What did I not like? Basically, the characters all seems so unrealistic. Murphy was a loner kid who had only one friend, but at some point he saw some trafficking victims and rescues them, and that is noticed by someone. He gets an appointment to the Air Force Academy, even though he never applied, and while there, is mentored by an Episcopal priest who is a chaplain, but who wears robes around the Academy, not a uniform. The chaplain signs him up for an online seminary and between his Academy work and the seminary program, Murphy is busy to say the least.

After graduation, instead of going into the Air Force, he goes to work for his mentor in some super-secret super exclusive group that rescues people. They set up a community for the folks they rescue where they can receive counseling, love, support, etc.--and I'm talking community, not a couple of buildings. 

 

The bottom line is that I never figured out why all these people were together.  In writing this post, I learned that this is book two in the series and reading the blurb on book one explained a few of the characters, but there is one in particular that still makes no sense to me based on the content of this book. I could never get to the point of accepting the author's world as real.

 

The book is published by Thomas Nelson which is a Christian publisher and as noted, two of the characters are priests (I think--maybe they are just pretending)but while the theme of self-sacrificing love is there, I wouldn't call this a religious book. 

 

I'd like to thank the publisher for making a review copy available via NetGalley. Grade: C. 

 

Review: Real Presence

 

Real Presence

About the Book:

Most Catholics don’t believe that Jesus is really present in the Eucharist. Rather, they see the bread and wine of Holy Communion as mere symbols of Christ’s body and blood. Is that disbelief just a misunderstanding or is it a blatant rejection of one of the central beliefs of the faith?

In Real Presence, University of Notre Dame theologian Timothy P. O’Malley clears up the confusion and shows you how to learn to love God and neighbor through a deeper understanding of the doctrine of real presence.

A 2019 study by the Pew Research Center found that almost seventy percent of Catholics don’t believe that Jesus is really present in the Eucharist.

O’Malley offers a concise introduction to Catholic teaching on real presence and transubstantiation through a biblical, theological, and spiritual account of these doctrines from the early Church to today. He also explores how real presence enables us to see the vulnerability of human life and the dignity of all flesh and blood.

O’Malley leads you to a deeper understanding and renewed faith in Catholic teaching about transubstantiation and real presence by helping you learn

• how the doctrine of real presence is rooted in divine revelation and how the Church’s teaching regarding transubstantiation is spiritually fruitful for the believer today;
• how to make your own the doctrine of real presence by worshipping Christ in the Eucharist and therefore making a real assent to real presence;
• how the Eucharist, although not the exclusive presence of Christ in the Church’s liturgy and mission, is crucial in growing our capacity for recognizing those other presences; and
• the important relationship between Eucharistic communion and adoration.

My Comments:

I've had an hour of Adoration--prayer in the chapel where the Eucharist is exposed--for over ten years now.  I have committed to my parish to be the person in the chapel during that hour each week.  Some weeks it is a great way to end the work week (I go on Friday nights); other weeks, I'll admit that skipping crosses my mind.  Sometimes I really feel His presence in the chapel; other times I don't.  I've always accepted the doctrine of the Real Presence in much the same way I've accepted a lot of other things I've been taught over the years--the people who were supposed to know this stuff taught it to me and I never came across a reason to disagree.  

I selected this book hoping for fodder for meditation or inspiration or something.  As I had read another book in the same series I was expecting a relatively easy read. Unfortunately I never really connected with this book.  It talked a lot about Eucharistic theology and quoted some mystics from the middle ages as well as relatively modern people like Dorothy Day.  Still, I'd read a few pages and when I thought about them, I'd have a hard time recalling what I read.  I tried reading big chunks and small and in the end I abandoned the book about 3/4 of the way through. 

I'd like to thank the publisher for making a review copy available via NetGalley.  Hopefully it will speak to you more than it did to me.  Grade:  C.  

Review: Two Week Wait

 

Two Week Wait

About the Book:

For the last two decades, Jane has been trying for a baby. She knows all about surviving the agonising two-week wait between ovulation and test. Increasingly desperate, Jane opens her laptop, clicks, ‘TWW Forum: New Thread’, and types. ‘Anyone else starting their two-week wait? Shall we wait it out together?’

Four women respond to Jane’s message online; all strangers, all embarking on the same emotional two-week journey. All wanting just one thing. A baby.

This fast-paced, light-hearted read explores the heartache of infertility through the bittersweet stories of five women;

Mandi is young and eager. She needs all the help she can get.

Becks already has one child and is stuck in the hellish limbo of secondary infertility.

Instagram sensation, Star, is living and selling a false dream, online and off.

Finally, feisty Fern is scheduling a pregnancy in between film shoots

.

Five women, five stories, waiting to find out if it’s their turn for a baby. Love, heartache, shattered dreams and broken relationships. The two-week wait pushes them all to their limits.

My Comments:

This wasn't the book for me.  I knew I was older and at a different stage in life than these women, and luckily infertility was not the cross I was chosen to carry, when I chose to read this book.  I liked the premise of an online support group as I have (and do) belong to some, but I never really warmed up to any of the women and in the end, well, I hated the ending.

Chapters are dated throughout the 14 days between ovulation and pregnancy test.  Each chapter contains the messages on the forum, which are full of internet forum lingo (DH, TWW, etc) and then the story of what is happening in the characters' lives. 

As I said, I hated the ending.  Toward the end, one of the women tells the others she is pregnant--and we know who she is.  The others have all gotten negative tests and say their goodbyes--maybe they'll get together again in two weeks to start another TWW.    Then one posts to the forum that she too has a positive test--but no one responds and we don't know who it is.  Nope.  Not the way I like a book to end.  If you are going to get me invested in characters, tell me what happened to them.  

I'd like to thank the publisher for making a review copy available via NetGalley.  Grade: C