Wednesday, January 20, 2010

The Judas Ride by Peggy Sue Yarber




This week, the



Christian Fiction Blog Alliance



is introducing



The Judas Ride



Tate Publishing (December 8, 2009)



by



Peggy Sue Yarber



ABOUT THE AUTHOR:


Peggy Sue Yarber, PhD in psychology, lives in central California with her husband, two daughters, six turtles and two dogs. She works in the field of education.

The Judas Ride was inspired by her current and previous students. She has seen and experienced and seen similarities between the students and Jesus’ traitor, Judas Iscariot. She has always been fascinated with Judas. Yarber went to a catholic school when she was young and Judas was always portrayed like a mysterious rebel.

She ventures to say, “I guess he was my James Dean of the Bible. But in a good way! In the way that…he did something so wrong so that the entire world could be saved. He had to betray Jesus in order for the rest of the story. I have always wondered what it would be like to not do that one bad thing that would lead to that one great thing. So I had the Vader character sort of run through the paces of Judas.”

Redemption and reality are the two distinguishing features about Yarber’s writing. Not all teens find redemption in The Judas Ride. Yarber considered trying to show the negative outcomes as much as the positive. She wasn’t thinking in terms of positive and negative but she did try to balance the two sides. Yarber says she often sees people daily that , “…have even more screwed up lives than these characters.” Yarber admits sometimes there is not an ending to the madness unless someone dies and then even after the death the ripples still linger. She has written another novel TARE and a children’s book Rocketships to Heaven and the SOS Fuel Station. She loves to run, read, shoot guns and watch her daughters play soccer.



ABOUT THE BOOK


An unwed (and unwanted) teen pregnancy with two possible fathers. Abusive relationships. Drug and alcohol addiction. Rape and molestation. The struggle to understand grace, forgiveness, and free will versus predestination. The Judas Ride hits the road running in the opening pages, where Sonia and Xavier argue explosively about whether Sonia should have their unborn child and about who the father is: Xavier, a struggling Christian, or Vader, an abusive and abused drug dealer. As the pages turn, readers continue to meet a hodgepodge of troubled teens and eclectic characters, including Pastor Manny, a quirky immigrant pastor infatuated with John Wayne. Pastor Manny desires to help the tortured souls in his community but finds that it takes more than unconditional love to reach them. Secrets literally kill in The Judas Ride, an edgy, in-your-your face Christian novel that boldly explores the struggles of modern-day young people.

If you would like to read the first chapter of The Judas Ride, go HERE

Back Cover Review:
The Judas Ride is a diamond in the rough. A novel that deals with a variety of serious issues facing teens today, it reads alot like a synopsis - one that if further fleshed out contains the material for five novels. The biggest challenge of this book is that in much of it, the novel "tells" the reader without showing them. Secondly, is the broad spectrum of characters - I was unable to keep track of all of them. I feel that the story would have greater impact if it focused on the turmoil of just one or two of the teens.

Bravo to Peggy Sue for facing some topics head on that many Christians avoid. She is a great writer with alot of potential. I hope that she pursues editing with a passion and continues to develop her God-given talent!

Friday, January 15, 2010

The Last Day by James Landis






This week, the




Christian Fiction Blog Alliance




is introducing




The Last Day




Steerforth; 1st edition (September 1, 2009)




by




James Landis



ABOUT THE AUTHOR:


James Landis lives in New Hampshire.


















ABOUT THE BOOK

Warren Harlan Pease, the young narrator of this spellbinding novel, returns to his native New Hampshire from the Iraq War and spends an entire day with Jesus visiting and contemplating his own life with fresh eyes, and a willing heart. He examines his relationships to those he loves─his girlfriend, his best friend, his father, his dead mother, his daughter ─ and grapples with the pain he has been carrying since the death of his mother when he was still a boy.

While in Iraq, armed with his sniper’s rifle and his deeply held faith, Specialist Pease traveled across ideological borders and earned an appreciation for his enemy’s culture and for what connects us all as human beings. He also learned how to kill and taught others to do the same. “War doesn’t test your faith in Jesus,” Warren comes to realize. “It tests your faith in yourself.” The Last Day answers some questions and asks many more. It’s a powerful meditation on religion and war, love and loss.

This work of compassion and healing grace will resonate with skeptics and believers, be shared and discussed between friends and among families. It is a book for our time, and forever.


If you would like to read an excerpt from Chapter one of , go HERE

Friday, January 08, 2010

The One-Day Way by Chantel Hobbs

The One-Day Way produces lasting results by taking you back to basics. No more complicated weight-loss strategies. No more expensive diet plans that achieve only temporary results. Instead, you will lose weight and get fit with Chantel Hobbs’s simple, high-energy meal plans and her at-home program for cardio exercise and strength training. She will teach you how to change the way you think, which leads to new actions. Before you know it you will be strong, fit, and healthy. All it takes is doing things differently for twenty-four hours—and then repeating it.

The One-Day Way gives you everything you need to lose weight and get fit in body, mind, and spirit:
  • Break free from past dieting defeats
  • Learn a realistic, life-changing way to measure success
  • Change the way you think so you can change your life
  • Translate your dreams into goals, and your goals into lasting achievements
  • Get strong with thirty-one simple exercises, no fancy equipment required
  • Take advantage of ten ways to eat better while you lose weight
By focusing on food, faith, and fitness, Chantel shows you not only how to lose weight, but how to build the new life you were designed to live. You don’t have to wait any longer. The One-Day Way gives you all the tools for success, starting right now.

Author Bio:
The author of Never Say Diet and The Never Say Diet Personal Fitness Trainer, Chantel Hobbs is a motivational speaker, life coach, personal trainer, marathon runner, wife, and mother of four whose story has been featured on Oprah, The Today Show, Good Morning America, Fox & Friends, the 700 Club, and the covers of People and First magazines. She appears weekly on two fitness-themed radio programs and promotes her One-Day Way Learning System on television. Visit Chantel at ChantelHobbs.com for fitness updates and coaching tips.

Back Cover Review:
One year ago, I read Chantel’s book Never Say Diet. That book introduced me to her common-sense approach to exercise and nutrition. One idea from her stuck with me all year…show up to exercise each day like it’s the job you’ve always wanted.

This year, I took her challenge and implemented much of what she suggested. Only seven months later, I had lost the weight that I set out to. I now weigh about twenty pounds less and am eating better than I have since I left home 16 years ago. And for the first time in my life – I love to exercise!

The One-Day Way includes some of her same ideas – but takes many aspects of it one step further and, most importantly, one day at a time. I still want to kick my workouts up a notch – or several notches. Her encouragement to do a new exercise for thirty minutes one day or to work out for an extra fifteen minutes with increased intensity in intervals are some very practical ways to do this. She also addresses the topic of learning to not let food have control over you – something that I still need help with. One thing that she encourages the reader to do, among other things, is to fast from one meal once a week to break the power of food over your life.

Another unique approach – and I don’t know how any diet could be successful any other way – is her concept of rewarding yourself on a weekly basis. I know for myself, if I choose to not eat something for an extended amount of time (for example: chocolate), when I finally do, I over-indulge. From my experience this past year, if you are “rewarding” yourself on a regular basis, you are less likely to over-do it!

This book is the next best thing to having a personal trainer. Chantel writes in such a relational way that you just might feel like you have one anyway!

This book was provided for review by the WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group.