Elizabeth

This was just ridiculously good. Impossible to believe I haven't read it yet, but now I want to call in sick to work until I've read the rest of the series. Rich, complex, stunning.

This was a fun read but felt like it got a bit muddy in the middle. Will be continuing on with the series.

I went into this book not knowing what to expect, and goodness it was delightful! Definitely character-driven rather than plot-driven, but these characters are so endearing you don't want the story to end. I'm so grateful to have been introduced to Virgil and Homer and spent a few days in their world. Recommended.

Salten's tale of the forest is much darker and richer than the cartoon version. The animals still talk, but their interactions seem strangely appropriate, as if the author has been given the ability to sense what it actually going on in their minds. This is an unforgiving world, and the weak and hurt do not fair well. It is also a beautiful world, with captivating descriptions of Bambi's word and the creatures who inhabit his forest.

I'm not sure I expected a novel about a deer to be a page-turner, but it was. I found myself eager to return to its pages, and feel emotionally invested in the story from the first chapter. I also felt a genuine amount of tension as I read, which is not a feeling I generally get from chapter book fiction.

I'm really glad I decided to read this, and will definitely keep it on the shelves to read to the kids. I might wait for a bit - I'm not sure I'm ready for them to hear a book with quite this much death, even if it is about a deer. But this is an excellent novel, and I do recommend it for your little person library.

After several years of book blogging, I found two general rules that most of the bloggers I knew held two - don't read self-published work, and don't read Christian romance. So when I was given the chance to read this novel, I honestly thought about it for a bit first - and then something told me to give it a try. Sure glad I did.

Stones of Remembrance is a lovely novel. It has engaging, sympathetic main characters, and a plot that feels like it might actually be true. It avoids many of the problems I generally have with Christian fiction by portraying it's heroine neither as excessively pure nor perfectly holy. Allaya speaks and acts like a real person, in a real situation, and that was refreshing. I appreciated that the romance between Allaya and Finn made logical sense in its progression - it didn't feel rushed or orchestrated solely for the purposes of the story. It was emotionally compelling, and I have to admit to spilling a few tears during the reading of the book.

While not perfect - there are a few spots that felt like additional editing might have improved on the story; and in several sections the main characters talk directly to God, which I know will make some readers uncomfortable - this was an excellent example of the Christian romance genre. If more authors could write stories like this, I would happily read them. I will absolutely read more by this author. If this is a genre you enjoy, I highly recommend this novel!