Praying for Your Future Husband by Robin Jones Gunn & Tricia Goyer

The perfect pair for this book. Praying for Your Future Husband features Robin Jones Gunn and Tricia Goyer at their best.

Gunn is known for her books on girl(ish) stuff and Goyer for her excellent motherhood observations. Both are influential for a young girl's life.

This book gives advice on how to pray for the husband who is waiting for you.

Does this book promote the idea that marriage is better than singleness?

This question and many others are answered in 12 chapters on how to pray. Ladies are encouraged to pray for:

His Heart
He will be a God Lover
Patience
Understanding
Trust
Loyalty and Faithfulness
Strength
Protection
Intimacy
"The List"
Contentment
Commitment

Rounding out the book is a closing thought by both authors.

Each chapter has contributions from Gunn and Goyer. You will know who says what. You could even skip the parts that you don't want to read.

The way this books is written, anyone (even this guy) can feel encouraged to pray for people who aren't a part of their lives yet...

This book was provided for review, at no cost, by WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing

The Priest's Graveyard by Ted Dekker

Ted Dekker has delivered a soul-punching novel that will keep you thinking long into the night. The Priest's Graveyard is not quite the suspenseful thriller like the past couple Dekker novels, yet just as intense.

Danny Hansen had a horrific experience as a child - his mother and sisters were raped and murdered. Years later he's serving out God's judgment on those who most deserve it most.

Renee Gilmore has been a slave to her pimp for a long time. When she decides to escape, she's rescued by a loving, yet strange man with peculiar rules.

Both Danny's and Renee's path will intersect leading to a startling confrontation.

Dekker has been leading his readers on a journey through the vastness of God's love for a long time now. While that aspect of love is part of this story, you will be hit harder by a different focus.

Like all of his stories, if too much is said in a review, the plot and message could be ruined.

Rest assured, this is Dekker at the top of his game. He alternates between first person and third person perspective with expert ease and he keeps the tempo racing.

The Priest's Graveyard will be too gruesome for some readers. The argument against making books too dark will continue to be a thorn in Dekker's flesh.

This is an excellent, original story with deep questions.

Ask yourself: Would you kill someone if it protected your child? Would you kill someone if it protected someone else's child? Is it right to follow the rules?

Jolt by Phil Cooke

Phil Cooke has been around. He's produced, and driven media programming. He has now written a book designed to jump-start your future.

In Jolt, you will learn the ideas that will keep you ahead of life's curves.

Cooke believes we need to give our systems a jolt; something that will jar us away from the mundane. In this book, he gives us 5 jolts:

Jolt Your Direction - this includes learning the joys of negatives (hitting the wall, letting go of the past, and expanding your vision)

Jolt What Matters - making better choices, change your thinking habits and many others
Jolt Your Potential - continue learning, restore creativity, and overcoming fear
Jolt Your Heart - get life cheerleaders, look to faith
Jolt Your Future - let go of negative baggage, don't worry about mistakes, and leave a legacy.

All in all, this is your typical motivational book. After so many, they all end up sounding the same because they basically say the same things in a slightly different way. So with that, I was not a big fan of this book.

I'm not a fan of motivation.

This book was provided for review, at no cost, by Thomas Nelson Publishing

Tron Legacy

I was very excited to see Tron Legacy. I loved the original back in the day.

Who didn't want to own a light cycle? Who didn't love watching those tanks blow things up? And now that technology has reached a new height, I was wondering what they could do with a sequel.

This film is beautiful!

Sam Flynn, son of Kevin Flynn (from TRON) doesn't want to own his father's company. He lives on his own, causing the company all sorts of fits.

When his father sends a page from his old arcade store, Sam is sent into The Grid. It is here that he realizes an awful truth about Kevin and his creation, Clu.

You get the disc, lightcycles, amazing soundtrack and just a beautiful looking film.

Jeff Bridges does a fantastic job as Kevin and a much younger version via Clu.

Garrett Hedlund carries the swagger that is typical of Flynns.

The action scenes more than make up for the slightly boring exposition scenes.

This makes a great rental.

Grim Reaper: End of Days by Steve Alten

New York Times Bestselling author Steve Alten has had a spiritual experience and decided to create a new apocalyptic series as a result.

Grim Reaper: End of Days is the story of what could possibly happen if the plague was released in Manhattan.

Patrick Shepherd has been wounded in one of his tours of duty overseas. He has lost his arm and is looking for his wife and daughter in New York City.

There is a crazy religious woman who has worked on a genetically altered bug, called Scythe, in a military biological facility. She feels called to infect the world leaders at the U.N.

Shepherd and his therapist must traverse the landscape in order to find his family. All the while, death is taking control.

Grim Reaper is part Stephen King, part Dante's Inferno with a heavy dose of Kabbalah thrown in.

Alten is a skilled writer who can keep you guessing long after you've finished his novels. I loved his MEG series and his 2012 books as well. This new series may go a little too far for me.

While the story touches on the human condition, the teachings of Kabbalah are the thrust of this book. The last couple pages is the full on push.

There are so many characters and strange circumstances that you'll need to remind yourself that you're not reading The Stand - even if this is just as gruesome.

That being said, I did finish this book and enjoyed it thoroughly.

dot.com Dating by Drs Les and Leslie Parrott

What is your opinion of online dating? You've heard of e-harmony.com right and a number of others; do you think they are for real? Is it possible that there is a stigma about "having to resort" to online dating?

Drs Les and Leslie Parrott want to dispel any negative connotations that come with dating on the Internet with their book, Dot.com Dating.

This is a very small book. It's pretty much a gift-size book that dives into the myths about online dating, questions you should ask each dating site and ways to know if you're ready to use online dating.

The myths include:

Using online dating means you're desperate
Only liars, losers and freaks use those sites
Online dating goes against God's purposes

Some of the questions to ask are:

Does the site help you go past a picture and paragraph
Is the site lined up with your beliefs
Is it dedicated to helping you find true love

And then the kicker comes at the end.

These authors have created their own online dating service and suggest that you use their new website to find your future spouse. Isn't great that they would offer this nice advice before asking you to patron their site?

This book was provided for review, at no cost, by Tyndale Publishing

To Be Perfectly Honest by Phil Callaway

I loved this book. Phil Callaway was challenged to go one year without telling a lie and journal about his experiences.

He fails.

Most of his failures end up in To Be Perfectly Honest and they are hilarious. You get to spend a quick year with Callaway as he deals with the worship music of his church and some bizarre church goers.

You travel with him as he speaks at conferences, visits his mother suffering from dementia and scares his daughter's boyfriend.

You'll read of his battle against lust, how a romance novelist tries to seduce him, and deep anger at an old friend. While it seems perfect for our voyeuristic tendencies, this book is quite innocent.

The journal entries are short and funny which make this book a pleasure to read.

Along the way, you may be challenged with some of the characters Callaway interacts with: from the guy who is always telling bad jokes, to the Rapture/End Times fanatic, to the Mormons who think Phil is deaf.

I laughed out loud all along the way as I couldn't put this book down.

This book was provided for review, at no cost, by WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing.

Max on Life by Max Lucado

Wish you could get best selling author, Max Lucado to answer your questions? Perhaps he has in his book, Max on Life.

We have questions. Child-like inquiries. And deep, heavy ones.

In more than twenty-five years of writing and ministry, Max Lucado has been the receiving line for thousands of such questions. The questions come in letters, e-mails, even on Dunkin Donuts napkins. In Max on Life he offers thoughtful answers to more than 150 of the most pressing questions on topics ranging from hope to hurt, from home to the hereafter.

Max writes about the role of prayer, the purpose of pain, and the reason for our ultimate hope. He responds to the day-to-day questions—parenting quandaries, financial challenges, difficult relationships—as well as to the profound: Is God really listening?
 
Including topical and scriptural indexes and filled with classic Lucado encouragement and insight, Max on Life will quickly become a favorite resource for pastors and ministry leaders as well as new and mature believers.

Inside you will find answers to:

Hope: Why am I here?
Hurt: Why me?
Help: Why church?
Him/Her: Sex and romance
Home: life in the home
Haves/Have-nots: Work and money
Hereafter: What comes next?

You could read this book as a daily devotional as each question is numbered.

If you're a fan of Max Lucado or if you know of someone who needs a good pastoral answer, give this book a try.

This book was provided for review, at no cost, by Thomas Nelson Publishing.

The Fight of Our Lives by William Bennett & Seth Leibsohn

William Bennett is back with a political concern for our country against radical Islam. The Fight of Our Lives is supposed to help arm us with information to prevent our country from become a Muslim nation.

Bennett and Leibsohn do an adequate job of praising and critiquing both Republicans and Democrats when it comes to upholding what they believe the United States stands for and what we should do to stay vigilant against those who want to control us. (or kill us)

You may feel startled after reading some of the descriptions and the purpose of radical Islam. You may get crazy ideas in your head that our leaders need to "nuke 'em" just to keep us safe.

By speaking the truth, Bennett may be adding to the fire of fear but, in truth, this is pretty scary stuff.

After first talking about the Fort Hood shootings, the authors take you on a little history lesson on why things are the way they are. Then it's off to the races as they zip through many of the current terrorist activities that made it to our headlines.

With 8 chapters and an interesting epilogue, The Fight of Our Lives is a book that needs to be discussed and debated. I think we need to continue talking about this.

This book was provided for review, at no cost, by Thomas Nelson Publishing.

Revival by Richard Wolffe

Richard Wolffe returns to Obama's White House with Revival: The Struggle for Survival Inside the Obama White House.

Picking up just after Renegade, Wolffe takes us through the successes and failures of President Obama and his team to pass Health Care Reform as well as his other domestic policies.

Wolffe uses his direct contact with the President and other senior White House aides to weave a political tale of how Obama worked to unite Senate Democrats with their fellow House members against Congressional Republicans.

Wolffe attempts to be a straight shooter by offering some of the missteps and mistakes that President Obama committed but this is obviously a pro-Obama writer and the book is slightly left of center. That being said, I wish more political books were written with this kind of civility.

Revival isn't as enjoyable to read as Renegade and you'll feel like you're reliving the boring debate about Health Care reform, but with this book, you'll get a taste of what it was like from the insider's point of view. Wolffe touches on the difficulty Obama faced when trying to come up with a plan for Afghanistan (vs the military brass). And like Renegade, sometimes it feels like you're just rereading Obama's speeches.

Wolffe is no Woodward when it comes to recounting political tales and being engaging, there were many times where I had to push myself to continue reading this book, but I always enjoy reading the behind-the-scenes work of The Oval Office and our President.

Judgment Day by Wanda L. Dyson

Wanda Dyson has crafted a nice story based around our habit of instantly judging others. In Judgment Day, we are introduced to Suzanne Kidwell, a cable new anchor who enjoys stretching the facts as long as she gets the ratings.

She may have taken a step too far when her boyfriend ends up killed in a car accident intended to kill her, and the people around her end up murdered as well.

With a suspect list full of men who would want to see her show and life ended, it's up her Suzanne's ex-fiance, Marcus and his partner to investigate the killings.

This book isn't so much a "who-dun-it" but a "read and see how the characters figure it out" as you will learn the identity of the mastermind early and go along for the ride as Marcus, Suzanne and Alex piece the puzzle to an exciting climax.

Dyson does a great job developing these characters in order to keep the reader invested in the story even after the villain in identified.

It almost felt like I was watching one of those hour-long police procedurals on TV - knowing the bad guy but waiting to see how it would resolve.

The moral of this story? Don't be the instant judge. And that's ironic as the back cover includes a plot description that is different than the actual story.

This book was provided for review, at no cost, by WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing

No He Can't by Kevin McCullough

This is what you get when you have a syndicated talk-radio-Rush-Limbaugh wannabe write a book about his hatred for President Obama.

No He Can't is Kevin McCullough's reasons for why Obama is a bad President.

Seeing as the cover is in deep red with a scowling face of Obama - never-mind the title - you figure this isn't going to be a very positive book on the man or his policies. Which is disappointing since McCullough claims to be a Christian.

Actually, McCullough does give kudos to President Obama for his devotion to his wife and daughters in a couple paragraphs, but the rest of the book is how Obama is either stupid, evil and/or destroying The United States.

The book is divided into 4 parts:

Economics - how Obama's policies are destroying small business as well as the poor. (Big government and all that)
National Security - how there have been a number of terrorist attempts inside our country since Obama took office.
Erosion of Rights - how the President is redefining a person's rights to even what is a person.
Accountability - why we need clarity

Outside of McCullough calling certain people, "animals" and really lashing out at the President, there are a number of facts that go without citations. He does cite a few notes and facts but I was really missing the proof of most of his claims.

While this is probably only going to be a successful book to those who already don't enjoy having Barack Obama as our President, some of the things McCullough writes about are indeed worthy of a follow up and learn what exactly is going on in our federal government.

Obama fans will hate this book but those who actually read this it will need to step back from the venom and fact-check the claims.

This book was provided for review, at no cost, by Thomas Nelson Publishing.