The Magic(The Secret) by Rhonda Byrne

In the book's predecessor,  The Secret, Rhonda Byrne teaches us about the Law of Attraction.  Like attracts like.  So if you think positively, you attract positive things to you.  If you think negatively, you attract negative things to you.  It's the law of the Universe.

In The Magic, Rhonda advises the reader to practice saying "thank you" and meaning it.
Say thank you deliberately and with meaning.
The more you say thank you, the more you feel gratitude.
The more gratitude you give out, the more abundance you will receive.  

With practice, the book could teach you how to improve your life in the areas of love, health, wealth, and happiness. 

If you think, "I don't like my job," "I haven't got enough money", "I can't find my perfect partner," "I can't pay my bills," "I think I'm coming down with something," "My child is a problem," "My life is a mess," or "My marriage is in trouble," then you must attract more of those experiences.

But if you think about what you're grateful for, like, "I love my job," "My family is very supportive," "I had the best vacation," "I feel amazing today," "I got the biggest tax refund ever," or "I had a great weekend camping with my son," and you sincerely feel the gratitude, the law of attraction says you must attract more of those things into your life.  It works the same way as metal being drawn to a magnet; your gratitude is magnetic, and the more gratitude you have, the more abundance you magnetize.  It is Universal Law!

I believe and I think you should read this book.  What could it hurt?  

Wonderland Creek by Lynn Austin

Wonderland Creek by Lynn Austin

I have to admit when I first started reading this novel, I almost lost interest.  The first few pages seemed like young adult and as I've stated in previous book reviews, I am not into young adult fiction but I kept at it and within the first chapter, I was hooked.

Alice Grace Ripley is a dreamy librarian who always has her nose in a book and is always wishing for a happily ever after story of her own. She finds it when she loses her librarian job in Illinois due to the Great Depression and goes to Kentucky to deliver donated books to a library in a poor mining town. Her life becomes the story when she stumbles onto the scene of murder, betrayal, family feud, and true love.

The characters are endearing and you feel yourself becoming involved with them early on in the story.   Mack, the librarian and his 100 year old roommate and former slave, Lillie, four packhorse librarians, Ike the fiddle player, Belle (Lillie's horse),  as well as various troubled and colorful townspeople of Acorn Kentucky.  Also, I'd like to note that there are similarities to Alice in Wonderland in the story.

This is one of those books that you wish would never end.  There are laugh out loud moments, tearful moments, and sitting on the edge of your seat moments in this book that I won't forget for a long time.   I can't wait to read more by Lynn Austin.  I give this book 5 stars!

Published in 2011 by Bethany House Publishers.

*Note:  President Franklin Roosevelt founded the relief program, the New Deal in 1933 to help alleviate the effects of the Great Depression.  One of the most innovative programs of Roosevelt's Work Projects Administration was the Packhorse Library Project.  The program employed mostly women to deliver books on horseback to neighbors and school houses in rural and remote areas of Kentucky.  The packhorse librarians provided not only entertainment in the form of books and magazines, but they also offered practical help on home health care, cooking, agriculture, parenting, canning hygiene, and machinery.  They also opened the world to these isolated people allowing them to learn not only about their own government and country, but of lands and people across the globe.

When Elves Attack by Tim Dorsey

When Elves Attack:  A Joyous Christmas Greeting from the Criminal Nutbars of the Sunshine State by Tim Dorsey

It's Christmas time in Tampa, Florida.  Criminal mastermind and modern day Peter Pan, Serge Storm and his pot smoking sidekick Coleman are doing Christmas BIG this year.   Dressed in elf costumes and with help from their warranted lady friends City and Country and the G-Unit, a foursome of elderly escapees from a Bayshore convalescent center, they set out to end the war on Christmas.

Some of their escapades include flattening the mansion of a disgraced hedge fund manager so that the insurance could be used to pay back all the people he ripped off, poisoning a criminal who stole and scrapped memorial plaques from a VFW, beating up a mall cop for yelling at little kids, and decorating their rented South Tampa house with the biggest Christmas display ever!

This fast read is absolutely hilarious and was written by a former reporter for the Tampa Tribune.  I can't wait to read more of his shenanigans!  Just don't read it in public or your giggles will illicit oogles.

Published by Harper Collins in 2011.

The Wolf Gift by Anne Rice

The Wolf Gift by Anne Rice

Twenty three year old reporter, Reuben Golding, is doing an interview for the sale of a huge mansion when he desperately falls in love with the place and the owner, thirty year old Marchent Nideck.  While in the house, the woman is killed by thieves and Reuben is bitten by a wolf man.  In classic Anne Rice form, he soon turns into a glorified werewolf, killing only the evil hearted. He can only hide so long until he is hunted by authorities but then he is saved by the "pack".

I was decidedly disappointed with this book because I couldn't ever feel a connection with the characters and I quickly grew bored with the overload of detail at every turn.  But it is Anne Rice and we all know she is a true master of the art of writing so I persevered and all in all, I'm glad I did.  I wouldn't have wanted to miss it even if I wasn't left howling at the moon.

Published in 2012 by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc. New York.

Grace by T. Greenwood

Where to begin?  Thirteen year old Trevor Kennedy has been bullied at school for as long as he can remember but now his fear has turned to rage.  But he isn't the only troubled Kennedy as his father, Kurt, is consumed with a failing business, a wife who wants more than he can give, and an aging father with a hoarding problem.  His mother, Elsbeth, has a lustful need for things and is stealing from the local stores and dotes all her attention on Gracy, Trevor's six year old sister.  The only one who sees the trouble this family is going through is eighteen year old Crystal who works at the local Walgreens where Elsbeth has been stealing.

I normally wouldn't read a book with the flair of young adult fiction but I persevered and I'm glad I did.  Miss Greenwood has complete control over this book as it twists and turns at every chapter.  She leads you to expect the complete opposite of what actually happens.  That got my attention early on and kept me reading.

This book was published by Kensington in 2012 and was selected as BookSense76/IndieBound pick for 2012.

The Maid: A Novel of Joan of Arc by Kimberly Cutter

It's the fifteenth century during the Hundred Years War and Jehanne d'Arc is a dirty abused daughter of a farmer in Domremy France who is spoken to by God and the archangel Micheal and the saints Catherine and Margeret.  She is instructed to drive the English from French soil and restore the rightful heir to the French crown to King Charles VII.  We all know that Jehanne or "Joan", as we know of her, succeeds in her mission from God but how she gets there had me spellbound in this delightful graphic novel from Ms. Cutter.

Joan is a fierce warrior who leads ten thousand of France's best men into war and slaughters the mighty English army.  But as the voices have warned her she would die in less than two years and she is taken prisoner by the English and thrown into prison to await her sentence of death by burning at the stake.  She tries to kill herself by throwing herself over a tower 70 ft tower but is uninjured.  The restored King has turned on her and refuses to pay her ransom and she is ultimately burned.

When I first saw this new book at the library, I walked right past it because I normally wouldn't read a war novel but the picture on the front cover got me.  I went back to the shelf the book was propped up on and picked up, went home and started reading and didn't put it back down til I was done.  I highly recommend this book even to those who wouldn't normally read historical fiction.  It is fascinating, divine, and gruesome all at the same time.

Published in 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Nightwoods by Charles Frazier

From the author of Cold Mountain and Thirteen Moons comes a new and thrilling suspenseful novel called Nightwoods.  A young woman named Luce, the caretaker of an old lodge in small-town North Carolina, becomes the guardian of the twin children of her murdered sister. In turn, she must defend them from Bud, their former stepfather, who killed their mother while they watched, and who believes the traumatized children know the location of some stolen money.

Meanwhile, the owner of the Lodge has died and his young grandson, Stubblefield, has shown up to claim his inheritance which includes the lodge and other various businesses and lands around town.  Stubblefield is soon smitten by the young Luce and becomes her ally in protecting the children and Luce.

I loved Cold Mountain and I think this book is a lot like it in it's settings, plots, and flow of writing.  And although the book, to me, is a cliffhanger, I did enjoy it very much and was disappointed that it ended so quickly.  Hopefully, there will be a sequel in the near future.

Published September 27th 2011 by Random House Publishing Group.