What Am I Reading for My 2010 New/Old Reading Challenge?

Thanks to several sleepless nights this week, I finished reading Redemption in record time (for me). I hope to share an interview with the author, Susan Dayley, soon. While we're waiting, I've moved on to my second "new" read: Flame-Colored Taffeta, by Rosemary Sutcliff. Flame-Colored Taffeta is a historical young adult novel. Here is the back cover blurb:

When twelve-year-old Damaris discovers a young man who has been shot in the woods near her house, she doesn't stop to worry that he may be a smuggler or a spy wanted by King George's Customs House men. Instead, she turns to those she can trust--her best friend, Peter, and Genty Small the Wise Woman--for help in saving his life. And after Tom Wildgoose recovers enough to be able to talk about himself, but chooses to be evasive when answering Damaris's questions, she doesn't really mind. What is important to Damaris is that he will be leaving soon, taking away all the adventure and mystery he had suddenly brought into her life.

But then Tom is captured by Mr. Farrington, who threatens to turn him over to the authorities. In a true act of loyalty, Damaris jeopardizes her own safety to try to rescue the mysterterious young man and set him free once again.

I will share a Tuesday Teaser from Flame-Colored Taffeta on Tuesday.

If you would like to join my 2010 New/Old Reading Challenge, it's not too late! Click here and here for more information. And remember, there are prizes involved if you join us!

Norman Conquest Day 2010

Before the battle

The Norman cavalry attacks the Saxon foot soldiers across the field of battle

(You understand this cake is representative only?)

After the battle

Happy Norman Conquest Day 2010!

Visit my past Norman Conquest Day celebrations for 2008 and 2009.

What Am I Reading for My 2010 New/Old Reading Challenge?

Okay, I've selected my new read! It's Redemption: The story of Jonah, a historical novel by Susan Dayley.

Here's the back cover blurb:

It is the eighth century BC. No Hebrew will purposely venture into the Assyrian Empire, whose practice of barbarous slaughter casts a shadow of fear over all of Israel. But God calls Jonah, an Israelite prophet, to cry repentance to the evil empire's capital--the great and terrible city of Nineveh. Fearing the Assyrians and doubting the wisdom of the divine call, Jonah flees in the opposite direction. But in a series of miracles, God gives Jonah a second chance to obey.


Journey with Jonah in a wealth-lade ship of Tarshish, hear his prayers inside the belly of a great fish, witness his struggles working in a desert caravan, and feel his terror as he finally arrives in Nineveh. And while Jonah does eventually preach in the great city, the prophet still has some lessons to learn...


With historically accurate details, Redemption is a story of repentance, trust, and God's love for all his children.

I will share a Tuesday Teaser from Redemption on Tuesday.

If you would like to join my 2010 New/Old Reading Challenge, it's not too late! Click here and here for more information. And remember, there are prizes involved if you join us!

Tuesday Teaser

Tuesday Teaser is a weekly bookish meme (rhymes with “cream"), hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. (I’ve borrowed it from LDS Women’s Book Review.) Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share at least two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page

BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)

Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR lists if they like your teasers!

I'm adapting the rules slightly. I'll be quoting some random lines from the last chapter I read before I post of teaser. I'm a slow reader, so you may get multiple teasers per book. Here's my third teaser from These Old Shades:

"Well, ma mie, what now?"

"Now it is just as it used to be," Léonie said wistfully, and sat down on a low stool beside the Duke's chair.

His Grace poured out a glass of wine, and looked down at Léonie with a questioning lift to his brows.

Léonie clasped her hands about her knees, and stared deep into the fire.

From These Old Shades, by Georgette Heyer, p 241

(Actually, I finished this book Monday night. I probably could have finished sooner, but I kept re-reading my favorite parts over and over again. :-) I haven't picked my next read yet, so that's why you get a third teaser from this one.)

If you'd like to share a teaser from a book you're currently reading, I'd love you to do so in the comment section. And you don't even have to share it on a Tuesday! Be sure to include the title, author, and page number in case others would like to check out the book you're reading, too.

I'm all at 3s and 4s! Oh, my!

Some people are all at sixes and sevens. Tonight, I’m all at threes and fours. To be specific:

Medieval Threes:

The Holy Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit

Three days Christ spent in the tomb

Three Epochs: Before the Law (Adam to Moses); Under the Law (Moses to Jesus); Under Grace: (Christ to Judgment Day)

Three Theological Virtues: Faith, Hope, Charity

Medieval Fours:

Four Evangelists: Matthew, Mark, Luke, John

Four creatures of Revelation: first like a lion; second like a calf; third had a face like a man; fourth like an eagle (Revelation 4:6-8)

Four horsemen of the Apocalypse: conquest, war, famine, death (Revelation 6:1-8)

Four humors: phlegmatic, sanguine, choleric, melancholic

Four points of the cross

What do the threes and fours have to do with my WIP? You’ll find out if it ever turns into a book! (If I don’t edit them out first, that is.)

Book Blog Hops, coming up soon!

So what, you wonder, is this all about?

This is a fantasically spooktacular chance to win a gazillion books, Amazon gift cards, or other book related prizes! Okay, so maybe not really a gazillion. But still...lots! On October 25, I'll be listing a string of book related blogs (review sites, author sites, etc), each of which will be giving away a prize. All you'll have to do is "hop" from blog to blog and follow each blogger's directions to enter their giveaway. So far, there are 36 blogs lined up to participate, but there may be many more by October 25th! Fortunately, you'll have until October 31 (Halloween!) to check out all the blogs and enter all the contests. Doesn't that sound fun?

And just because we love you, on the chance that you don't win anything at the Spooktacular Book Blog Giveaway Hop, we'll be following up with a second blog hop in November that looks like this:

This one will be running from November 17-27, and there are (as of 10:30 PM EST on Oct 5, 2010) 84 BLOGGERS participating in this one! Again, I suspect there will be even more by the time November rolls around.

So check back often. I'll share more details as I receive them from the inspired genius behind these two blog hops at I'm A Reader, Not a Writer. (She has some cool book giveaways going on right now. You might want to check her blog out!)

Tuesday Teaser

Tuesday Teaser is a weekly bookish meme (rhymes with “cream"), hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. (I’ve borrowed it from LDS Women’s Book Review.) Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share at least two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page

BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)

Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR lists if they like your teasers!

I'm adapting the rules slightly. I'll be quoting some random lines from the last chapter I read before I post of teaser. I'm a slow reader, so you may get multiple teasers per book. Here's my second teaser from These Old Shades:

"Hey, hey, here's a pretty coil, to be sure, for, faith, I don't know where I am, and I don't know where Léonie is, nor she where I am, and at Avon they don't know where any of us are!"

From These Old Shades, by Georgette Heyer, p 143

If you'd like to share a teaser from a book you're currently reading, I'd love you to do so in the comment section. And you don't even have to share it on a Tuesday! Be sure to include the title, author, and page number in case others would like to check out the book you're reading, too.

Abandoned Houses

I was doing more sorting in the house today and came across a collection of writing essays/exercises that I did with a writing friend way back in 2003. Not all of them are worth sharing, but maybe a few of them are. Here’s one that I still like. Hope you enjoy!

The writing prompt was: abandoned houses

*************

Abandoned! The house on the moon where the Old Man lived. Where has he gone? Off into the stardust. Why did he go? No one believed anymore.

In the far away past, before the hollow age of Science, those with illuminated hearts saw the Old Man’s world in all its magical beauty. His soaring mountains, his plunging valleys, his wide, wide plains. And the seas. His wonderful, disparate seas! Frigid seas. Foaming seas. Serene and Tranquil seas. Seas of Showers. Clever Seas. Storm, Wave-beaten seas. Seas that teemed with Serpents. Misty, Cloudy seas. Seas that hovered on the Edge of forever.

But then Science sent probes, followed by human footsteps, and men returned to the earth and pronounced with their limited, human vision: “There are no seas. Only cold, hard rock and dust.”

That’s all they said the moon really was.

The Old Man stayed long. He tried to whisper the truth. He tried to sing it for the world to hear.

“I am here. I am real. I watch over you in the night, chasing away your nightmares when I send a beam of my light through your window shades in the still, dark hours. I sing you sweet lullabies to hush you softly, sweetly into sleep.”

But then they stopped believing. “There is no Man in the Moon,” the said, “only rock and dust, cold, cold nothingness.

Until it broke the Old Man’s heart. And he faded away in the stardust.

(c. Joyce DiPastena, May 19, 2003. See Lunar Seas and Oceans for names of the lunar seas quoted above.)

Coming soon!

Stay tuned for more information!