Jill Williamson's Blog
November 24, 2009
Review by Gretchen Hoffman
Take a prom queen mystery, a wrestler reality show, a super hot newspaper editor, and an ex-boyfriend who keeps popping up. What do you get? Jenny B. Jones' newest book, I'm So Sure. Book two in the Charmed Life series is just as laugh-out-loud, sassy, and hands down fantastic as book one. It's one of those drop-everything-you're-doing-and-read-this kind of books. (For me, never mind that I had a huge test the next day, I sat down and read I'm So Sure in one...
November 23, 2009
Review by Jill Williamson
Gypsy girl, Mariutza, was raised in the Louisiana swamps away from all modern conveniences. When "the Badness" kills her grandfather, Mariutza must go into the city and find the prophet, Jaazaniah, but Mari feels completely out of her element. She's never even ridden in a car or tasted Sprite. Still, it's what she trained all her life to do. Find Jaazaniah, the prophet.
Jaazaniah is a musician in a bar. He has a seizure of some kind and is convinced that someone...
November 21, 2009
At the OCW conference last summer, I had breakfast with Randy Ingermanson one day and he started telling me about FictionFinder.com, a new project the ACFW board is working on. The point? Most bookstore employees don't read Christian fiction and don't have a clue how to help a customer find books. The plan is to promote the FictionFinder.com website to bookstores and libraries across the country so that readers can find books in the store using this new website.
The way it works is this. Set...
November 20, 2009
Review by Jill Williamson
A seventeen-year-old Senate page goes missing over Christmas break, and three friends—who call themselves The Triple Threat—take a personal and professional interest in the case. Federal prosecutor Allison Pierce, reporter Cassidy Shaw, and FBI Special Agent Nicole Hedges each work the case from their own angle, occasionally working together. The case digs up personal experiences and for each woman, making things almost personal. Can they separate their own emotions...
November 18, 2009
Review by Jill Williamson
In The Curse of the Spider King by Wayne Thomas Batson and Christopher Hopper, seven children go about their lives. With the exception of two siblings, these children do not know one another. But they all have two things in common. 1. An adult who has given them a very special book and, 2. A creepy man who watches them wherever they go. Tommy, the first to read his book, experiences a 3D history of Berinfell, a foreign world in the midst of a war between Gwar and...
November 17, 2009
Wayne Thomas Batson is the author of several best-selling novels. He is well-known for his : The Door Within Trilogy and his Declan Ross pirate series. A middle school reading teacher in Maryland for eighteen years, Wayne tailors his stories to meet the needs of young people, whom he cares so deeply about. Wayne writes adventures set in imaginative locals because he believes that on a deep level we all dream of doing something that matters and long for another world. When last seen, Wayne...
Christopher Hopper is a recording artist, record producer, author, motivational speaker and youth pastor. In 2006 Hopper published the first book of The White Lion Chronicles, Rise of The Dibor. Book two, The Lion Vrie, released June 2007. Since then he signed a multi-book deal with publishing giant Thomas Nelson, with his first co-authored novel, Curse of the Spider King, due out October 2009 with author Wayne Thomas Batson.
He travels internationally each year speaking and performing for...
November 16, 2009
I'm currently reading The Curse of the Spider King, an award winning new book from authors Wayne Thomas Batson and Christopher Hopper. I should have finished it already, but I've been to Young Life fall camp and the Revolve Tour in Portland (and had to drive both times!) so I've not been able to read as much as I thought. That's okay. I had fun with teenagers, which is always the point. Plus I showed them all the book I was reading–and that I'd be putting it in the church library when I...
November 15, 2009
Review by Jill Williamson
While Mackenzie Philips is camping with his children at Wallowa State Park in Oregon, his youngest daughter, Missy, is abducted by a serial killer. Horrified and brokenhearted, Mac works with the police only to reach a dead end at an abandoned shack in the Oregon Wilderness. There the trail ends cold with no hope of ever finding Missy's body or the killer.
Years pass and one day Mac gets a note inviting him to the shack for the weekend. It's signed "Papa," which is...
