Dreaming Big
  • Home
    • Staff
    • Members Only
  • Contact
  • Our Books
    • Non Fiction
    • Fiction
    • Poetry
    • Children's Books
    • Audio Books
  • Coming Soon
  • Blog
  • Opportunities
    • Call For Submissions
    • Submissions Guidelines
    • FAQ
  • Gifts and More

Children’s Christian Book Review for ‘The Beginner’s Bible Kid-Sized Devotions’ by Zondervan

10/29/2015

0 Comments

 
 
 
Another book with the well-known and loved Beginner’s Bible name that we all grew up with, this is a devotional book for small children containing 365 short devotions.  The book is hardcover.  The price is extremely reasonable at 9.99 and will make a great addition to your home library for any Christian family.

Each devotion is only one short page, which makes it perfect for a quick morning reading before heading off to work and sending the kids to school. If a parent can utilize this quick bonding time with their children in the morning, it would make for a healthy routine.

The pages are laid out with the bible verse on the top, followed by a brief story and a picture to go with the story, and a moral statement if that’s what you want to call it on the bottom which sums up the lesson.
5 stars.
 
 
 
I received this book for free from the publisher through the BookLook Bloggers <http://booklookbloggers.com> book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review and the opinions and thoughts I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255

0 Comments

Fiction Book Review for ‘Zombies v. Ninjas 2: Domination’ by R.A. Barnes and Marble City Publishing.

10/29/2015

0 Comments

 
 

I won this book in a giveaway on LibraryThing and the publisher was nice enough to send me book 1 to read as well.  I’m glad I had the first one to read, which helped set the story in my mind better. In book 2, the zombie plague is spreading and the ninjas are the only people equipped to stop it.  Just like book 1, I enjoyed it.  I’m always a sucker for a good zombie story. 

Critiques: I’m going to give this a 4 star rating because I really did enjoy the story but I did have some content issues with it. In book 1, the main character is flirting a lot with a female colleague even though he has a wife at home.  He is still flirting with her here, but there were some changes to the dynamic I was glad to see.  One was that the wife noticed and actually spoke up about it for once. I’m glad she did.  Although it didn’t seem to affect Ruby much at all.  In fact, he seemed intrigued whenever he saw the two women together, almost like he was having a typical male fantasy and hoping to be able to have them both.  It is this characteristic about the character that was a big drawback for me.

I was pleased to see that his wife had more of a character in this book than the first one.  She apparently is a scientist in her own right, and a pretty good one.  She leads a team in developing an antidote for the zombie venom, and thus ends up saving a lot of lives.  She had no major role in the first book and I assumed she was a housewife only.  I don’t know why it took a whole book to have her skills be brought to light. 

Another content issue I had was that the media had imposed a blackout so as not to report this zombie problem to the rest of the world, but in this day and age I don’t know how something like that could ever be enforced.  Too many people are carrying around cell phones and posting things on social media.  Realistically, word would have spread and no media blackout would have stopped it.

Disclaimer: I received this book from LibraryThing for free in exchange for posting an honest review.

0 Comments

Fiction Book Review for ‘Zombies v. Ninjas: Origins’ by R.A. Barnes and Marble City Publishing.

10/29/2015

0 Comments

 
Fiction Book Review for ‘Zombies v. Ninjas: Origins’ by R.A. Barnes and Marble City Publishing.

Overall I liked this book. It was an easy and enjoyable read. The main character is a psychiatrist who takes martial arts classes for a hobby and to help keep in shape.  When the dead started coming back to life, it was his martial arts class that led the charge on hunting down these zombies and chopping their heads off. I think that the explanation for how these zombies possibly came to be is quite ingenious.  It is speculated in the book that a local meat packing/slaughterhouse company was trying to cut costs by feeding the cows feed that had cow meat in it as filler, therefore turning the cows into unintentional cannibals and triggering a curse that was thought to be just stories.  Apparently the undertakers had a “code” of sorts and had all been taught to cut the heads off of the dead to prevent them from rising again.  The undertakers were the only ones who were privy to the zombie information and had been keeping it from the general public, but something happened to make them start rising sooner than they were used to, and they could no longer keep it a secret. There was also an interesting twist to a zombie story by having them reproduce.  The female were becoming pregnant by parthenogenesis.  I thought that was neat.

Critiques: I’m going to give this a 4 star rating because I really did enjoy the story.  There are a few things that stuck out to me though that I will mention here.  One is about the punctuation.  I’m in the US, so I don’t know if this is common in other countries, but in this book the author used single quotation marks instead of double.  I’m used to reading single quotes only when used inside of double quotes so this was a bit distracting.

One content issue that I would have pointed out if I had edited this is that one zombie got her head chopped off in a hair salon and nobody seemed to notice or react to it.  The hairdresser just happened to be the daughter of one of the undertakers, so knew about zombies, and was also a member of the ninja club.  Her regular customer walked in and at first she didn’t know something was wrong and began to work on her hair. As soon as she realized the woman was a zombie, she chopped her head off.  I don’t know how nobody in town noticed this, unless there was absolutely nobody in the shop but herself, and nobody outside on the streets looking in.

The other issue is that to me, the main character, Ruby, was hard to relate to. He was too much of a male pig for my tastes.  Throughout the book he blatantly flirts with a doctor colleague that he has a crush on, yet he has a wife and children at home. He seems to disregard his wife as anything other than someone who takes care of the kids and cooks his dinner.  I got the impression that he didn’t really respect her at all and took her for granted.

Disclaimer: I received this book from LibraryThing for free in exchange for posting an honest review.

0 Comments

Dessert and Booze Hacks: 75 Amazingly Simple, Tricked-Out Sweets and Drinks

10/19/2015

0 Comments

 
OVERVIEW: Massive sweets craving and only your cabinets to scavenge? Friends coming by at the last minute to pre-party and you can’t run to the store? Have no fear, hacks are here. Raid your freezer to find the fixings for a no-bake ice cream sandwich cake or combine three ingredients into an epic sangria. The 75 ideas in Dessert and Booze Hacks are just what you need to pull together awesome-tasting treats and tipples that will blow your mind.
MY THOUGHTS: The book was a disappointment.  Who has these ingredients just sitting in their cabinets already?  Yet that is what it is designed for, or at least advertised for.  I know I don't have things like raspberries or Andes mints in my cabinet on a regular basis.  I don't know of anybody that does. So the whole basis of the book is flawed.
Then there is the name.  I know the word HACK is used on the internet all the time, and I hate it.  In fact, I almost didn't get this book for that reason.  The word means to cut with heavy blows, use a computer to gain unauthorized access to data in a system, and in urban dictionary it means a professional who does a crappy job.  Nowhere does a formal definition of HACK say to make things easier, so I don't know how or why it began to be used in this way.  In fact, whenever I see it come across my facebook newsfeed I block it.  The things in this book are things people can access easily on their social media or the internet.  Nobody needs to pay this high price for this information when you can get it free.  The person who put this book together did indeed HACK information into a book format and put it out there for sale.
The only redeeming quality is that it is a board book.  I wish all cookbooks could be in this format.  It keeps the pages clean in the kitchen.  But I think it is also what made it so expensive.

I received a free copy of this book from Blogging for Books in exchange for an honest review.

0 Comments

Nonfiction Book Review for ‘Tiger Heart’ by Katrell Christie and Shannon McCaffrey

10/11/2015

1 Comment

 
Picture
ABOUT THE BOOK: Tiger Heart is a memoir of Katrell Christie’s experiences in India doing mission work to help empower impoverished young women go to college and have a career.  Through her tea shop that she owns in Georgia, Dr. Bombay’s Underwater Tea Party, the author got involved in this work in India. Her website can be found here. http://www.drbombays.com/#our-team

Her tea comes from Darjeeling, and she sells tea as a fundraiser to help raise the funds for these trips and also scholarships for these young women.  Katrell started The Learning Tea project http://www.thelearningtea.com/ and this book chronicles the time from when she first got interested in going to India through almost two decades of work in India with these women. 


I GIVE IT 4 STARS.

WHAT I THOUGHT ABOUT THE BOOK:  The opening of the book seemed more suited to a fiction novel. While a great read and certainly attention-grabbing, it seemed a little fantastical and hard to believe to me.  I have done a lot of mission work and also have tried to raise funds for projects that are for a good cause, and people just aren’t interested. However, the first chapter made it sound to me like funds for this project were simply handed to her.  In the first chapter the author somehow gets a meeting with some men high up in the government of India, and one promptly writes her a check for the amount she asked for.  I’m sure it was not as easy as it seemed, but that was the impression I got from reading the opening.  As if one could simply go to leaders in a country and ask for money for a project like this and they would simply hand it over.  I also never quite was able to place that first chapter in a chronological timeline in my mind of where it fit in relation to the rest of the story, so it stood out to me as being a bit disjointed. This is the reason for 4 stars instead of 5.  The writing style was perfect for grabbing a reader's attention and making them want to read the rest of the story though.

As you read, you do see more of the struggles that the author had to go through to get the funding for this project.  It was not as easy as it seemed in the beginning chapter. A lot of hard work, a lot of mistakes, and a huge amount of dedication was put into this by the author to make it happen.  Many people would have given up due to the circumstances she faced in her travels and the difficulties she had, but this was something dear to her heart and these girls were like family to her, and she was willing to do what it took to take care of her "family". 

The author’s style and personality is refreshing to read.  It is self-deprecating at times, has a touch of personal information included which helps the reader to relate to the author, and highlights some of her weaknesses as well as strengths. Anyone who has a problem with the occasional cuss word here and there might get offended.  This isn’t a churchy religious mission to save souls.  The author tells you in the book that she has tattoos, smokes cigarettes, and has a tendency to cuss at times.  She also has a huge heart for these women and continued to find ways to help them better their station in life. 

The Learning Tea does not give handouts.  It gives a hand up.  Provides an opportunity for women who ordinarily would not get a chance to make something of their live to have that chance. These are young women from the poorest class in India who have been abandoned to orphanages and are kicked out to live on the streets upon reaching adulthood.  Many would turn to prostitution or end up being trafficked for sex or manual labor if they didn’t have this chance at a better life. The Learning Tea provides housing in a dorm-like setting with a housemother, pays for their tuition to college, and covers all their living needs and supplies such as clothing, visits to the doctor, etc. The girls are carefully handpicked and must maintain a good GPA in school. The author personally goes to India twice a year to check in on the girls and do any work that needs to be done while she is there.  This way she knows the money is going to the girls and not to some con artist who just wants to line their pockets.  She also provides the girls with her phone number and email address so they can contact her in between her visits there in case they have an emergency and need to get in touch with her.

As a social worker with a heart for projects such as this, I was glad to be involved in reading and reviewing this book for publication.  I delighted in the revelations that the author had at times such as when some of the girls turned down the help she was trying to give them.  She learned what I as a social worker have to help families understand all the time - and many of them never understand this - that a person has the right to self-determination. Basically, we cannot force someone to do something that we think they should do. We can educate and offer help but as the saying goes, "you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink".  Katrell shared some moments such as this in Tiger Heart when she realized that she couldn't save every girl she came in contact with.  But what a difference she has been to the ones she was able to help!  

I received a copy of the book for free as part of being involved in a virtual book tour through TLC Book Tours.  The book is a very enjoyable read, and some of the proceeds of the sale of the book goes to help fund more scholarships for these young women.  Anyone who purchases this book will be helping in some small way make a difference in the life of these women.  So please consider adding Tiger Heart to your reading list and purchasing a copy!  And if you are ever in Atlanta I am sure you can find a moment to grab a cup of tea and say hi to the author yourself.




Picture
1 Comment

Fiction Book Review for “Here They Lie: The Bloodstone Legacy” by D.K. Barrow

10/10/2015

1 Comment

 
Picture
Picture
 
Book & Author details:
 
Here They Lie by D’Ann Burrow 
(The Bloodstone Legacy #1) 
Publication date: October 5th 2015
Genres: New Adult, Southern Gothic

Synopsis:
Reese Everett’s aunt picked a bad time to die.  Just weeks after a car accident left Reese’s mother unable to travel, her aunt’s house needs to be emptied and sold, leaving Reese as the only member of the family who can do the job.  She typically wouldn’t balk at the opportunity to sift through her aunt’s collection of antiques, but when she arrives in Devil’s Vale, Georgia, she discovers the family house in a state of disrepair she won’t be able to handle alone.
Colton Waters is back in Devil’s Vale – whether he likes it or not.  After he loses his acceptance to medical school with no explanation, he’s left with a single job offer…one that will return him to the hometown he’d hoped to escape.
When an errand to help his sister ends in a meeting with Reese neither will easily forget, Colton takes a job as her temporary handyman.
The longer Reese stays in town, the more she realizes the condition of her aunt’s house isn’t the only thing she hadn’t expected when she made the trip to Devil’s Vale.  Reese isn’t the only gifted member of the family – her aunt Kate has been practicing the family business…the business Reese has been sworn never to discuss.
After a ghostly visitor arrives one night, Reese and Colton learn Kate wasn’t the only one practicing the darker arts.  They begin to uncover secrets that refuse to stay buried.
Here They Lie won the Young Adult Romance Writer’s 2014 award for New Adult fiction.

MY REVIEW:
I was pleased when I saw a quote from Macbeth in the beginning of the book. The setting is southern, which makes it a perfect read for me since I live in the South.  On page 7 I even saw a small town near me mentioned.  That was cool.  Not many people have heard of Waynesboro.  The main character has to go pack up her aunt’s estate and ends up having to go do it alone because neither of her parents could make it.  Her mother is recovering from an injury and her father had to stay and run the family business in New Orleans.  Real estate by day, ghost tours by night.  This might sound funny or weird to some people, but if you have ever been in the south, especially New Orleans, you would know this isn’t unusual at all. Ghost tours in New Orleans are a great way for the locals to make money.

However, the start of Chapter 2 confused me.  The book is written in first person and apparently the point of view for Chapter 2 is a different character.  Someone else entirely, yet there was nothing to indicate this. It was quite confusing until I was able to put it all together that the character was someone different. I think the story would be a lot better if it was written in third person or if there was more indication of which character was which. I spent too much time trying to figure out how the character that just got dropped off at her aunt’s house to pack things up somehow was cleaning up a coach’s office in the next chapter. Then back to the other character in chapter 3. Other than that, the writing was very well done.  I didn’t see any spelling, punctuation, or grammatical errors that jumped out at me.  The flow and pace of the story makes it a fun read. 
 

AUTHOR BIO:
D’Ann Burrow once told her preschool teacher she wanted to be a witch when she grew up. That simple comment signaled the start of a life-long fondness of things that go bump in the night. As she grew older, she could most often be found with her nose buried in a book, and she was especially fond of the Nancy Drew series as well as anything by Christopher Pike or Stephen King.  Occasionally she’d take a trip to the world of the classics where The Scarlet Pimpernel and A Little Princess reigned among her favorites.  She’s lost count of the times she’s read Little Women.

Today, D’Ann enjoys the world of Supernatural, stories about guys with fangs, and she’s seldom met a disaster film she hasn’t liked.  When she grows up, she’d like to work at the Haunted Mansion. Until then, watching Ghost Hunters will have to count as research.

D’Ann writes about secrets people keep.  Even the bravest heroine or a guy with a heart of gold has a few skeletons in the closet they’d rather not share with the world. When those secrets get out, things get interesting.

A Texas native, she knows making great guacamole is an art form. As a theater mom, she’ll happily chat about Broadway musicals by the hour.  Molly and Lizzie, the family furry ones, are frequent stars of her Instagram account.
 
 
Where can you buy a copy of this book?  Here are the links:
Kindle - 
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B01638N2I4
iBooks - https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/here-they-lie/id1046047369?ls=1&mt=11
Kobo - https://store.kobobooks.com/en-us/ebook/here-they-lie
BN - http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/here-they-lie-d-k-burrow/1122740209?ean=2940150953215
Google Play - 
https://play.google.com/store/books/details/D_K_Burrow_Here_They_Lie?id=74ulCgAAQBAJ&hl=en
 

 
Want to read more reviews for “Here They Lie”?  Follow the virtual book tour here to see what others are saying about this book:

http://xpressobooktours.com/2015/08/26/tour-sign-up-here-they-lie-by-dann-burrow/


Enter the Giveaway Here:

a Rafflecopter giveaway
1 Comment

Nonfiction Book Review for ‘Best Hair Book Ever!’ from Faithgirlz

10/4/2015

1 Comment

 
Picture
 
This book is aimed at middle school to high school aged girls, but I think would be useful for girls of any age.  My first thought when I saw this book was “why would someone pay money for hair tips that they can get for free off of the internet?”  There are a ton of YouTube videos and other tutorials on how to fix hair.  Then I remembered that this book was put out by Faithgirlz, and I had to remind myself that not all parents are letting their children on the internet, so some girls might not have access to such tutorials online.  Therefore, this is a great book for those who do not have access to the same information for free.

I like that from the very beginning this books helps you know what type of hair you have.  Instead of just showing tips for fine, medium, or coarse hair, it helps you determine which type your hair is.  This is helpful. There are a ton of hairstyles in this book.  Braids have always been hard for me, and this book has many how-to’s for braids and other hairstyles.  Washing and care tips are included for every hair type, and since each type of hair needs slightly different care, this is helpful as well for someone who might not know they need to wash every day, or perhaps they need to skip a day or two between washing.  Overall, pleased with this book and would recommend.  I could see this being used at a sleepover as well.

 
I received this book for free from the publisher through the BookLook Bloggers <http://booklookbloggers.com> book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review and the opinions and thoughts I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255


1 Comment

    Archives

    January 2022
    December 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    June 2021
    April 2021
    February 2021
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015

    RSS Feed

    Picture
    Picture
    Challenge Participant
    Parajunkee Design
    I review for BookLook Bloggers
    Professional Reader
    Book Reviewer Sign Up

    1888PressRelease
    YA Bound Book Tours

Services

Ask A Therapist
Blog
Our Books
Coming Soon

Company

About Us
Staff
​

Support

Contact
FAQ

Find and follow us on social media 
© COPYRIGHT 2015. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.