Review: Loving Mr. Darcy: Journeys Beyond Pemberly

Loving Mr. Darcy: Journeys Beyond Pemberley by Sharon Lathan

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


This book is the second in the series extending the story of the Darcy's after their marriage. My complaints about the first are the same for this one, with one more ... the author cruelly leaves the reader hanging in a big way with this one. I really expected Lizzy to have the baby in this book, and she doesn't. Now I have to read book 3, but I think I'll put it off for a bit ... I can't stomach much more of Darcy's love talk right now. But again, a nice fluff read for my vacation, hence the 3 stars.

2010 Reading Challenge Wrap-Up

Well, it's December 30 and we're about to close out this year and begin a new one ... I thought I'd take a minute and take stock so to speak on how I did with the various book challenges I "signed up" for this year.

The first challenge I took up was the Christian Historical Fiction Challenge sponsored by Margaret over at http://chf.creativemadnessmama.com/.  The challenge was to read 24 Christian Historical Fiction books throughout the year.  I felt this one would be easy to accomplish since it is my genre of choice most of the time, and I was right.  I did pretty well on this one, and ended up reading a total of 27 books that fit this category.  Here's a list of what I had intended to read and what I ended up reading ... I will be adding the ones I didn't get to to next year's list!

The second challenge I entered was the Chunkster Reading Challenge put out by caribousmom@ http://chunksterchallenge.blogspot.com/, a chunkster being a book for 450 or more pages.  There were three levels in this challenge and I initially thought I would probably only do the first level.  Much to my surprise I ended up reading 9 books that were over 450 pages, which means I exceeded the number for the top level of the challenge.  Click here to see what I read in this category.

The third challenge was the 2010 100+ Reading Challenge.  This one was set up by J. Kaye @ http://j-kaye-book-blog.blogspot.com/  I thought this would be a piece of cake.  I have to say that although I've exceeded 100 (112 to be exact), I'm a bit disappointed in myself, I really thought I would have read far more than I did, especially since 47 of what I read I categorized as "children's books".  I intend to do something similar again next year and I'd like to see if I can read closer to 100 YA/Adult books.  Last spring I was taking a Children's Literature class, so perhaps that is why there are so many children's books (and the sad thing is, I read a lot of books at work in preparation for my media classes that I didn't log on this list) ... this spring I am taking a YA Literature class, so that should help some.  Of course, it would probably help lots if I weren't taking any classes and could just read, read, read!  :-)  Here is the list for this category.

The last challenge I took up during 2010 was the 2010 Christmas Christian Fiction Reading Challenge -- another challenge from Margaret over at http://chf.creativemadnessmama.com.
I ended up reading 6 books that fit into this description, and another 8 books that were Christmas related for a total of 14 Christmas books!

All in all, not too bad ... it's been fun keeping track of what I read, something I've been doing for a while now on Goodreads to a point, but joining these challenges and starting this book blog  have made me more aware of what and how much I read ... I find this stats page from goodreads interesting as well.
~Kati

Review: Mr. & Mrs. Fitzwilliam Darcy: Two Shall Become One by Sharon Lathan

Mr. & Mrs. Fitzwilliam Darcy: Two Shall Become One by Sharon Lathan

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This is the continuing story of Elizabeth and Darcy. It picks up right after their wedding and moves through the first 5-6 months of their marriage. It is good, although perhaps a bit too sugary at times ... there are times Darcy seems too good to be true and also too saccharine -- I always pictured him as loving Lizzy completely, etc. but in this book there are times when he was portrayed a bit too sweetly, it doesn't match his character. I've also never read a book where the main characters have sex quite so much. Although it's all written very PG, there are times it seems to be all they do ... Those two things being said, I still give it a 4 out of 5 stars as it was a nice easy read, great for my vacation!

Review: 1022 Evergreen Place by Debbie Macomber

1022 Evergreen Place by Debbie Macomber

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


The latest in the Cedar Cove series finds us visiting once again with old friends. This book focused on the stories of Mack McAfee and Mary Jo Wyse, and Bruce and Rachel Peyton and their struggles as newlyweds facing his daughter Jolene's distinct irritation at them now being married. There were also bits and pieces of Linc Wyse and his new wife Lori's (Bellamy)story and Shirley Bliss and her daughter Tanni also struggle with finding someone special. It seemed like this installment had a few more things going on, and there were quite a few more strings left hanging at the end than the last few have had. This is not necessarily a bad thing, although I don't like that I have to wait a year to find out what happens.

Happy Holidays!

We hope everyone has been having a great holiday season, that you have all gotten the chance to spend some time with family and friends and also get in some relaxation time.  We had a great time visiting everyone on Christmas day and the day after.  The boys got lots of great gifts (as you can see by the picture of the tree below) ... and so did mom and dad.  We've spent the past few days being extremely lazy, which is good ... and bad, as there are of course things that we should be doing.  One of the things we did yesterday was put together the model cars the boys got.  Well, I'm off to work on some of those things I should be doing while on vacation :-)  ~Kati

Our tree after Santa had visited!

David w/his '57 Chevy Bel Air

Jonathan w/his '63 Corvette Convertible

Review: A Door County Christmas by Key, Melby, Phillips, and Ruchti

A Door County Christmas: Four Romances Warm Hearts in Wisconsin's Version of Cape Cod by Becky Melby

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This was a nice collection of four Christmas stories. The stories are connected, yet independent of each other. Connected in that they all take place in Door County, Wisconsin, and one of the primary characters from the first story is mentioned in all of the subsequent stories. Other than those two facts, the stories are stand alone stories. I really enjoyed the first three stories -- I found the last story a bit confusing at the beginning, and although I did finally "figure" it out, I still didn't find myself liking it as much as the first three. Overall, an enjoyable Christmas read.

Band Concert Video

The video of David's 1st band concert is now available on the videos page. 
Enjoy,
~Katrina