Carolyn Astfalk's Blog, page 13

February 22, 2021

Relevant Fiction Reviews: Let’s Play Ball!

Frankly, I’m not sure when baseball begins this year. It looks like my son may have a Little League season in 2021, which didn’t happen in 2020. Beyond that, I don’t know what’s on and what’s off anymore, but I do know that the advent of spring makes me long for baseball.

Here are some baseball books – some with a little baseball on the side, some with baseball as the main course. They range from Little League (All in Good Time) to high school sports (An Unexpected Role) to minor leagues (The Bird and the Bees) to major leagues (The Thirteenth Chance, Homestands).

I don’t review my own books, so you’re going to have to take others’ word for it on All in Good Time. Here’s what one Amazon reviewer said: “Astfalk did a wonderful job handling the slow-burn romance, tackling some real-life, difficult issues with grace and care. She also brought to life realistic, flawed characters that the reader will fall in love with and remember long after they’ve closed the book.”

An Unexpected Role by Leslea Wahl
Leslea Wahl has done it again – another great book custom-tailored to teens (teen girls in particular). I’m always a little put-off by present tense narration, but I quickly grew to enjoy Josie’s voice.

Great writing peppered with humor and insight, the author captures the human tendency to hyperfocus on our own problems that can be part and parcel of the teen years.

Take a mortifying yet hardly life-threatening problem, add an alluring backdrop of sunshine, sand, and an attractive guy, and watch Josie’s self-preoccupation melt away as she forges relationships with those outside her narrow Minnesota high school circle.

Her summer escape is populated by people of different ages, races, and backgrounds, and not everyone – even those she thinks she knows – is what they seem.

There’s a nice little mystery that keeps the story moving, but the most touching moments involve Josie’s self-discovery, the softening of her heart, and, eventually, genuine romance with an upstanding guy and reconciliation with her mom.

Enjoyable for adults, highly recommended for teens. Bonus if you’re a fan of musical theater.

The Bird and the Bees by Neena Gaynor
Oh, my heart. What is it about this gentle book that made it ache so? Had to be Ketch Devine.

I didn’t know what to expect from this first-time author, but what I discovered was a unique voice, a slew of wonderful similes, and a redemptive, empowering story with the unfailing, unconditional love of God at its heart.

Part women’s fiction, part romance, with a little mystery and a heavy does of Truth, The Bird and the Bees follows broke (financial and otherwise) nurse Larkin Maybie from the hills of Appalachian Kentucky to Presque Isle, on the Pennsylvania shores of Lake Erie. (A place not so far from my native Pittsburgh, recognizable from childhood memories.)

Enter too-good-to-be-true (or at least too-good-for-Larkin) minor leaguer Ketch Devine, whose easygoing, steady, no-strings-attached friendship, slowly wears down the walls Larkin has built around her damaged, guilt-ridden heart.

If you’re looking for a selfless romantic hero, you’ll find it, but The Bird and the Bees runs deeper, with layers to uncover about what it means to live and to what or whom we anchor our lives.

The Thirteenth Chance by Amy Matayo
Amy Matayo so perfectly suspended my disbelief that she endeared me to a cocky player like Will Vandergriff with lines like “there seems to be no end to my douche-baggery.”

Speaking of endearing, there’s not much to dislike about germaphobic, slightly OCD school teacher Olivia, whose fat cat/furball Perry brings hilarity to the book.

The interplay and banter between Olivia and Will in both their dialogue and thoughts is so well done, I wanted to read more and more. But more isn’t what the story called for.

I expected something bigger to come along plot-wise that would pull these attracting opposites even farther apart. That didn’t happen, but that’s okay. The Thirteenth Chance isn’t a heart-rending, cry-your-eyes out melodrama. It’s the Crackerjack downed during the seventh inning stretch: sweet, nutty, and addictive.

The Thirteenth Chance is a near-perfect, clean, contemporary romance. Its smart, wry humor, self-deprecating wit, and charming romance maker a super fun read!

Homestands by Sally Bradley
With two very flawed characters, Sally Bradley had a lot of redeeming to do here, but by the final chapters, I’d become fully convinced of Mike’s and Meghan’s contrition, resolve, and, finally, love. The genuine, sacrificial kind, not the fickle, self-serving style of love they’d begun their marriage with. Add an element of suspense, and you’ve got an entertaining second-chance romance with some side servings of self-examination, forgiveness, and, ultimately, conversion. The professional baseball is an added bonus for this fan of the game.

BONUS: Here are couple more baseball novels I read a while back, enjoyed, but didn’t review at the time.

Home Run by Travis Thrasher

A Great Catch by Lorna Seilstad

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Published on February 22, 2021 02:30

February 3, 2021

An Open Book

Welcome to the February 2021 edition of An Open Book, hosted both at My Scribbler’s Heart AND CatholicMom.com!

My husband has been reading Consoling the Heart of Jesus: Prayer Companion from the Do-It-Yourself Ignatian Retreat by Michael E. Gaitley during his weekly Adoration hour. The book is compact—easily portable—and offers some short meditations for reading and reflection. I see my husband is highlighting passages, which means he’s finding it valuable. And since there haven’t been any in-real-life retreats happening for the better part of a year, this seems like a fruitful option.

I’ve been wanting to read Emily Jaminet’s latest book, Secrets of the Sacred Heart: Twelve Ways to Claim Jesus’ Promises in Your Life, for a while, and a CatholicMom Book Club was the impetus I needed to get started. I’m taking it a couple of short chapters at a time, watching the author’s videos, using the free journal I downloaded to accompany it, and reading the CatholicMom reflections on it. We’ve been dipping our toes into this traditional devotion for a while with a lovely painting of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (given to us by the Sister Servants of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus who had been residing in our parish) and beginning the First Friday devotions. I’m looking forward to doing an enthronement in June, and this book will be our guide.

I enjoyed The Truth about Romantic Comedies by Sean C. McMurray, a smoothly written Young Adult romance featuring Tim, a fatherless teen who spends much of his time tending to his grandma, who has Alzheimer’s and is undergoing cancer treatment. The cancer center is where he meets Rachel, a Christian girl who changes her hair color with her mood and is a firm nonbeliever in teenage love. It’s both humorous and poignant and rings true from my memories of teenage years.

Jennifer Rodewald has become one of my favorite contemporary Christian romance authors. Everything Behind Us is an atypical marriage of convenience story, one motivated by listening to and obeying God’s direction. It’s a deeply moving story that reveals the beauty of married (not necessarily synonymous with romantic) love. I’m not much of a crier when it comes to books, but I’d recommend tissues for this one.

I highly recommend The Work of Our Hands: The Universal Gift of Creativity by Patrice Fagnant-MacArthur to anyone, but especially to artists of all stripes. The short, unique reflections provide a deeper understanding of what it means to be made in the image of God, the Creator. As a bonus, it gave my creativity a little boost too. Worth reading and pondering.

The Boy Who Knew (Carlo Acutis) by Corinna Turner is the first book I’ve read about Blessed Carlo Acutis, my new go-to guy for tech problems. He’s so much more than that though. This author has a way of drilling down to the meaning and purpose of life using the high stakes matters of life and death, not just in this book but in many of her other books as well. Blessed Carlo’s story is told through a British teen faced with a leukemia diagnosis and grappling with his mortality. This book is also noteworthy for being set during a recent event: the October 2020 celebration of Carol Acutis being named Blessed. While the subject matter is necessarily a bit heavy, it’s a great introduction to Blessed Carlo and his life.

My oldest son is beginning Hamlet with his William Shakespeare class. It’s premature for us to discuss it or start watching movie adaptions, but the time is right for coloring the Hamlet page from Crush and Color: Keanu Reeves: Colorful Fantasies with a Mysterious Hero by Maurizio Campidelli, which made its way into our house as a Christmas gag gift. The coloring pages themselves are interesting, and the romanticism is hilariously over the top. If you’d have told my late 1980s high school self that Keanu Reeves would be even more popular now than he was then, I’d have laughed. But here we are!

Riding Freedom by Pam Muñoz-Ryan was a gift for my daughter. She’d previously read Esperanza Rising by the same author. In Riding Freedom, Charlotte has nothing to lose when she runs away from an orphanage disguised as a boy. The story is especially appealing to horse lovers and is based on the first U.S. woman to ever vote—disguised as a man.

Traer Scott’s Nocturne: Creatures of the Night is filled with beautiful photos of nocturnal animals and interesting facts about them. My seventh grader picked this up for a research paper on the fennec fox, but this book appealed to everyone in the family. Just a pleasure to look at and so much to learn about God’s amazing creatures.

The Story of William Penn by Aliki is the second children’s book we picked up about William Penn. The first was filled with too many details, and both the children and I thought it was confusing. This short book was well-written and provides a basic overview of the life of the founder of Pennsylvania (“Penn’s Woods.”)

We recently received Our Lady’s Wardrobe by Anthony DeSefano as a gift, and I’m delighted with it. It is a lavishly illustrated introduction to several of the most common titles of the Blessed Mother, most of which are tied to Marian apparitions. The illustrations are paired with mellifluous rhyming text that gives a thumbnail sketch of the locale and circumstances of each apparition.

Squirreled Away (The Dead Sea Squirrels) by Mike Nawrocki (Veggie Tales) is a recommendation I picked up from another An Open Book post. This eight-book chapter series begins with Michael and his friend Justin accompanying Michael’s dad to an archaeological site. The boys get lost in the Dead Sea caves. They discover some seemingly dead squirrels, Merle and Pearl, which then become re-animated.

It had been a while since anyone in the house had read Madeline by Ludwig Bemelmans. The story of the little French girl who has her appendix removed was a childhood favorite of mine, and it fit perfectly with my young son’s study of Europe and his sister’s study of France. I’d not previously noticed so many Parisian landmarks in the illustrations. The story remains a favorite.

Angelo by David Macaulay is another picture book set in Europe. Angelo restores an Italian church façade, and over the course of his years’ of work, befriends a pigeon. It’s a poignant story about craftsmanship, friendship, and what we leave behind.

I knew nothing of Ernest Shackleton until I read the graphic novel Shackleton and the Lost Antarctic Expedition by Blake Hoena with my son. (Another gap in my knowledge discovered. There are many.) The book covers Shackleton’s failed expedition to the South Pole, recounting the amazing story of Shackleton and his team’s survival. I can barely imagine the conditions these men endured.

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Published on February 03, 2021 02:30

February 1, 2021

5 Books to Read This Lent

Lent is often a time for picking up a spiritual book and delving deeper into Christ’s Passion. These five books go deeper in unique ways. With one exception, these books are, or include, biblical fiction. We know fiction builds empathy, so what a great way to immerse yourself in the life of Christ this holy season!

Praying with Jesus and Faustina during Lent and in Times of Suffering is nonfiction and can be turned to each day of Lent. Why not pair it with another book here? Walk in Her Sandals will appeal most to women and is perfect for use by groups. Awakening is geared to a teen audience. And The Thief (by a contemporary author) and The Spear (a Catholic classic) both depict a Roman Centurion present at the crucifixion.

I’ve read and recommend each book, though I’ll be working through Praying with Jesus and Faustina for the first time this Lent. The black text is the book’s description, and, for those books I’ve reviewed, my words are in purple.

Walk in Her Sandals: Experiencing Christ’s Passion through the Eyes of Women edited by Kelly Wahlquist

Pray in a new and creative way this Lent by joining the women of WINE: Women In the New Evangelization on a journey through Christ’s passion, death, and resurrection. What if you could have been a witness to the events of the last days of Jesus’ life—walking with him as he entered Jerusalem, observing his crucifixion, and embracing him on Easter?

Walk in Her Sandals, edited by popular Catholic author and speaker Kelly M. Wahlquist, takes you deeper into your relationship with Jesus by helping you relate to him in a profoundly intimate way. Looking at six universal gifts of women through the eyes of women in the gospels, the book guides you on a prayerful and creative journey through the days of Holy Week, Easter, and Pentecost.

As you imagine the experience of the women who met Jesus, you will discover how each of them expressed one of six, distinctive, feminine gifts identified in the writings of St. John Paul II. Through the eyes of an imagined woman who watched Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, you will understand how she conveyed the gift of receptivity. Through the hands of Veronica, who reached out to wipe the face of Jesus, you will discover how sensitivity is present and can grow in your own life. These gifts, along with generosity, prayer, maternity, and the Holy Spirit, come to life through the vivid portrayal of women who walked with Jesus. Their imagined stories are complemented by the real accounts of contemporary women who share their own stories of receiving and cultivating these gifts.

Walk in Her Sandals is a collaborative effort, edited by Wahlquist with contributions from twelve leading Catholic women writers, all of whom are associated with the organization she founded—WINE: Women In the New Evangelization. The contributors will help you break open the scripture, reflect upon it and apply it to your own life, and share those insights in a small-group setting through the use of questions and challenges. Each chapter unfolds in eight movements:

A Moment to Ponder: Wahlquist sets the stage for the theme of that chapter.

Entering the Scripture: Sarah Christmyer, codeveloper of The Great Adventure Catholic Bible Study, reveals the riches of the scripture that corresponds with the day, both in the biblical narrative and in the liturgical year.

Walk in Her Sandals: Stephanie Landsem, author of the biblical fiction series The Living Water, draws you into the story and allows you to experience what it may have been like for women who lived and walked with Jesus.

Unwrapping the Gift: Catholic author, speaker, and faith-formation leader Pat Gohn shows how each woman demonstrates a particular feminine gift and invites you to nurture that gift in yourself and understand anew the beauty of your dignity and vocation.

Reflect on the Meaning: Writers including CatholicMom.comfounder Lisa M. Hendey and popular media personality Teresa Tomeo offer insight, encouragement, and inspiration for your own journey through their personal stories.

Lectio and Meditatio: A prayerful reading of the scripture and a guided meditation to draw you more deeply into an intimate relationship with Jesus.

Questions for Group Discussion: Carol Younger, senior fellow at the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology, offers a helpful tool to share your experience with other women.

Walking in the New Evangelization: Wahlquist offers two ways to contribute to the New Evangelization—first by growing in your contemplative spiritual life and then by giving you practical suggestions to enhance your active spiritual life.

Walk in Her Sandals will allow you to enter more fully into life in Christ by praying over his passion, death, and resurrection. It will help you experience a conversion of heart and recognize your own giftedness.

Walk In Her Sandals takes an innovate approach to meditating on the Passion of Christ. By combining fiction and nonfiction, this little volume offers the best of both types of writing. It draws you into the heart of Holy Week with Scripture and Stephanie Landsem’s wonderful prose, then takes you a step beyond with reflection and questions designed to draw you closer to Jesus.

If you’ve read Stephanie Landsem’s Living Water Series, which I highly recommend, you’ll recognize her hand here as she draws you into the life of Christ from the margins. By offering the perspectives of women of various ages on the periphery of Jesus’s ministry, you’ll become immersed in the life-changing events of Holy Week.

Praying with Jesus and Faustina during Lent and in Times of Suffering by Susan Tassone

St. Faustina Kowalska (1905-1938) immersed herself in a vision of Christ’s Passion that became a predominant theme in her famed Diary. In Praying with Jesus and Faustina During Lent and in Times of Suffering, award-winning and best-selling author Susan Tassone presents the Diary’s words of Christ and St. Faustina on his sorrowful Passion. The book will engage you in Jesus’ horrific sufferings, giving you grace, light and strength to bear your own sufferings.

The book opens with daily Lenten meditations featuring the words of Jesus and St. Faustina on the Passion. Each day also includes both special reflections for times of suffering and a prayer. In the following chapters, St. Faustina will lead you through heartfelt prayers on the Way of the Cross, Christ’s wounds, and on the Blessed Mother’s sorrows. Susan also includes chapters on unique litanies, the Divine Mercy devotion, and confession.

In Praying with Jesus and Faustina During Lent and in Times of Suffering, you will learn to more deeply:

Meditate with Jesus and St. Faustina daily in Lent and in suffering;Participate in St. Faustina’s vision of Christ’s passion;Find comfort and strength from the Crucified Christ ;Pray the Stations of the Cross using the words of Jesus and St. Faustina;Join your sufferings to Christ’s sorrowful passion;Find refuge, consolation and mercy in Christ’s wounds;Unite your sorrows with the sufferings that afflicted of Our Lady’s heart;Pray a vast variety of litanies for the troubled times of your life;Come to appreciate the beauty and value of confession from the words of Jesus and St. Faustina;And much more! The Thief by Stephanie Landsem

Nissa is a Jewish woman with a sharp tongue and no hope of marriage. Abandoned by the God she once loved, her only recourse is to depend upon Mouse, the best thief in Jerusalem, to keep her blind brother, Cedron, fed and the landlord satisfied.

A Roman centurion longing for peace and a Jewish woman hiding a deadly secret witness a miracle that transforms their lives and leads them to the foot of the cross.

My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?

Longinus is a Roman centurion haunted by death and failure and is desperate to escape the accursed Judean province. Accepting a wager that will get him away from the aggravating Jews and their threats of revolt, he sets out to catch the thieves harassing the marketplace.

When a controversial teacher miraculously heals Cedron, Nissa hopes for freedom from her life of lies. But the supposed miracle brings only more misfortune, and Longinus, seeking to learn more about the mysterious healer, finds himself drawn instead to Nissa, whose secret will determine the course of both their futures.

Cedron, Longinus, and Nissa are unexpectedly caught up in the arrest, trial, and crucifixion of Jesus. As danger closes in on them from every side, they must decide if the love and redemption Jesus offers is true or just another false promise. How can the so-called Messiah save them from their shackles, when he cannot even save himself?

Awakening by Claudia Cangilla McAdams

Fear drives me forward as I rush down a rocky path in Jerusalem, trying to sort things out even as dusk makes it harder to hurry. Am I really an American girl, cast back to the time of Jesus? Or a delusional Jewish teen, plagued with visions of a place called America, thousands of years in the future? I don’t know anymore. But I do know that something awful is about to happen to my Jesus: they’re going to arrest him tonight, and kill him. No one believes me; they think I’m crazy. So it’s up to me to save him, hurrying down this dark path toward Gethsemane, toward the turning point of all history, the attempt to kill Jesus . . . toward the uncertainty of whether I can actually manage to change the future.

Awakening is a little bit The Wizard of Oz, a little bit The Passion of the Christ. Interesting mix, huh? But it works.

Claudia Cangilla McAdam captures the mindset and moods of a teen girl very well, making Awakening a great book for young adults anytime, but especially for Lent.

The historical scenes were well done, and the overall message strong and clear.

The Spear: A Novel of the Crucifixion by Louis de Wohl

This panoramic novel of the last days of Christ ranges from the palaces of imperial Rome to the strife-torn hills of Judea — where the conflict of love and betrayal, revenge and redemption, reaches a mighty climax in the drama of the Crucifixion. For this is the full story of the world’s most dramatic execution, as it affected one of its least-known participants — the man who hurled his spear into Christ on the Cross. Among his many successful historical novels, Louis de Wohl considered The Spear the magnum opus of his literary career.

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Published on February 01, 2021 02:30

January 31, 2021

#CatholicFictionChallenge 2021

I made a last-minute decision to bring back one of the best things I did online in 2020 – the #CatholicFictionChallenge! I’ve kept some categories the same, others are new. Still 100% fun.

So, why bring it back?

One of my “things” is to be an advocate for Catholic fiction!

What is Catholic fiction? Well, we could have a scholarly discussion on the topic, but for our purposes here, let’s say it’s fiction written with a Catholic worldview.

To help bring some of the fantastic Catholic fiction out there to the forefront, I’m again hosting an IG challenge in February that will allow us to share our favorites and not-yet favorites that have caught our eye so that more and more readers (including me!) can discover them.

If you’re on Instagram, please join in the #CatholicFictionChallenge beginning February 1, 2021. Join us for one day, every day, or somewhere in between.

This is an opportunity to promote your favorite Catholic novels, picture books, chapter books, audiobooks, etc. I’ve done my best to incorporate a variety of genres, themes, and formats. Use the challenge to promote your own books as well!

Join the #CatholicFictionChallenge! February 2021 https://www.instagram.com/p/CKuMDT6DaaW/ #CatholicFiction
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Let’s share and bring attention to Catholic fiction and discover some books we may not have heard of as well. You can find my post to comment and share in your Instagram stories at @CMAstfalk. Post link here.

You can pop in a day or two here and there as inspiration strikes or time allows. Whether you post one day or twenty-eight days, I hope you’ll watch my stories and follow the hashtag #CatholicFictionChallenge so that you can discover some great books for you and your family and friends to read and share.

(And if you don’t know what I’m talking about, here’s a handy explanation of an Instagram challenge: “An Instagram challenge is a set photo theme that’s hosted by an account or brand. They provide an overall theme, daily prompts for inspiration, and have a hashtag for everyone to use.”)

Oh, and if you’re not on Instagram, share posts on whatever platform you like! I’ll follow along and share there too, as time allows. Just use the hashtag #CatholicFictionChallenge.

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Published on January 31, 2021 12:29

January 20, 2021

Come Back to Me Now Available on Audiobook

Come Back to Me

Come Back to Me, narrated by Nicole Braun, is now available for immediate download from:

Audible Amazon iTunes

Own it for FREE with your Audible trial!

Nicole Braun dives right into the frustration and angst felt by, well, just about every character in the cast. From Alan’s loneliness and discouragement to Megan’s sarcasm and resentment, each gets the treatment deserved, even when they hit rock bottom. Listen to this contemporary Christian fiction any time, any place, when you need a short escape filled with Christian hope.

Alan Reynolds slid into marriage. When his wife kicks him out, it looks as if he may slide out just as easily. Forced to bunk with his newlywed younger brother and his pregnant wife, Alan gets a firsthand look at a blissfully happy marriage while his wife rebuffs his attempts at a reunion.

Caught in the middle, Alan and his wife’s mutual friend Megan grows increasingly unhappy with her own empty relationships. If that weren’t enough, her newly sober brother has found happiness with Jesus, a goody-goody girlfriend, and a cockeyed cat.

When Alan and Megan hit rock bottom, will there be grace enough in their bankrupt lives to right their relationships and find purpose like their siblings have?

Come Back to Me can stand alone, but for Chris and Rebecca’s story, listen to Stay With Me .

“These are 3-D characters, that are easy to relate to. The story has a satisfying conclusion, but even at the end, they all still have a lot of work to do. I like the realism of that. The author has done a nice job of storytelling here. P. S. I’ve never read a “romance” novel before. I enjoyed this one.”

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Carolyn Astfalk · Come Back to Me

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Published on January 20, 2021 02:30

January 19, 2021

5 Tips for Serving Others Despite Limitations

Once upon a time, we had calendars that included plenty of service opportunities for all of us, including our kids of varying ages. From serving at Mass to a wide-variety of parish events, school activities, group service projects, and more, there was never a loss of small needs for us to fill.

Enter COVID-related closures and restrictions and gone are, well, virtually ALL of those opportunities from Christmas caroling at homes for the aged to serving fish dinners. Nearly every opportunity has been wiped out.

And yet, there is more need than ever from people who are financially burdened, socially isolated, physically ill, and spiritually and psychologically stressed.

The need exists on this side of the service, too, by those of us feeling as though we’ve spent entirely too many months focused on ourselves looking inward (which is good, to a degree) instead of outward.

This post is as much for my benefit as for anyone else’s. I’d love to hear how you’ve been able to maintain service opportunities or create new ones to fill an existing need.

Photo by Joel Muniz on Unsplash

Here’s my short list of where to start, even when opportunities are severely limited.

Pray. I can see the eye-rolling from here either because prayer is a given or we secretly think (despite what we might say) that it doesn’t make a real difference. If we believe it does, let’s act like it does. Prayer is always and everywhere an appropriate response whether it’s able to be accompanied by another action or not.Go it alone. Brainstorm projects or tasks you can accomplish at home. Can you create and send cards or letters, assemble kits or packs, record a video, etc.?Get outdoors. Can you accomplish something outside? Roadside cleanup, park maintenance, or property cleanup?Give it away. Donate unused or outgrown clothes, household items, nonperishable foods, cash, blood, clothes, gift cards, etc. Challenge: Give the good stuff, not just the cast-offs or bargain-priced items. Pro-tip: If the local collection bin is full, do not pile your items on the ground. Wait until the bin is emptied or go the extra distance to take it to a proper drop-off point.Ask God to bring the need to you. Seriously. Ask God to present you with needs that need to be filled and watch what happens. He literally delivered a confused, elderly woman to my front door. Granted, it took me a bit to figure out what was needed, but there was my opportunity, right on my front porch.

Need some ideas? The Corporal Works of Mercy and Spiritual Works of Mercy are good places to start. I recommend these practical suggestions made by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops for practicing the works of mercy precisely during the COVID-19 pandemic.

What creative ways have you found for reaching out and helping others over the past year?

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Published on January 19, 2021 02:30

January 6, 2021

An Open Book

Welcome to the January 2021 edition of An Open Book, hosted both at My Scribbler’s Heart AND CatholicMom.com!

If you’re looking for something to read for the Feast of the Epiphany (today!), I’ve got the perfect book for you. From Afar by Roger Thomas is a fictionalized (but realistic) account of the Magi based on Scripture, history, and modern research. I had to set the book aside to tend to some other projects but am eager to dip back into the story as the three wise men are setting off on their journey.

Mistletoe and Murder: A Christmas Suspense Collection by various authors including Nancy Mehl and Lynn Shannon, is a priced-to-sell introduction to a variety of Christian suspense authors. For 99 cents, you get ten novellas, which is quite a deal! I expect the story quality to be a little uneven over that many authors, but there are sure to be some here I’ll love. From what I’ve read so far, these stories can be enjoyed any time of year.

My daughter and I have been listening to The Beautiful Pretender ( A Medieval Fairy Tale) by Melanie Dickerson while riding in the car, peeling potatoes, or coloring Christmas pages. It’s a fairly simple retelling that’s a little Beauty and the Beast and a little Princess and the Pea. Geared to a younger audience, it’s enjoyable, if predictable, and I love sharing audiobooks with my almost-teenage daughter.

The Art of Star Wars: The Mandalorian (Season One) by Phil Szostak was a Christmas gift to our oldest son, who’s a huge Star Wars fan. We’ve all enjoyed the glimpses of artwork from The Mandalorian that is shown during the end credits of the series. The book is a large, beautiful hardcover, and he’s enjoying savoring each page.

For an independent school project, my high school senior has chosen Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood. His take at the very beginning is that it is “good but weird.” I’m intrigued by the description, which reads, in part: “In search of answers, Snowman embarks on a journey–with the help of the green-eyed Children of Crake–through the lush wilderness that was so recently a great city, until powerful corporations took mankind on an uncontrolled genetic engineering ride.”

My seventh grader read D’Aulaires’ Book of Norse Myths by Ingrid D’Aulaires and Edgar Parin D’Aulaires as part of her schoolwork and thoroughly enjoyed it! She was able to have a great discussion with her father and brother about mythologies, Norse myths, Marvel superheroes, and the storyline of the video game Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. The D’Aulaires’ myth books are well-done!

The White Stag by Kate Seredy is a Newbery Medal winner about Attila and the Huns. The Huns and Magyars follow an elusive white stag to their promised land at the direction of their pagan gods. This also worked into my daughter’s curriculum and was a short read.

I think I came across Carry On, Mr. Bowditch by Jean Lee Latham in another blogger’s An Open Book recommendations. The time period (colonial America) suited my daughter’s interests, so I checked it out of the library for her. She loved this story of a genius of sea navigation. I’d like to read this one as well.

This same daughter, who out-read all of us this month, also read A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens for the first time. (I only read it for the first time myself last year.) She noted Dickens’s style of using long descriptions, running pages long in some cases, but still enjoyed this Christmas classic.

I read The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson aloud to my three youngest children. Only one had ever read it (several years ago). I looked forward to each chapter of this short book, enjoying the antics of the rotten Herdman siblings. Despite the humor, there’s a lot to think about at the conclusion of the book, especially how our familiarity with the Christmas story allows us to gloss over the details and the import of it. The Herdmans, heathens that they are, take the story to heart, and everyone is the better for it.

Before listening to Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, we read the picture book Vivaldi’s Four Seasons by Anna Harwell Celenza. I knew little of Vivaldi, so this was an education for all of us. Did you know that Vivaldi was a Catholic priest? I didn’t. Knowing more about him and the genesis of the music made me understand and appreciate it more.

The Spider Who Saved Christmas: A Legend by Raymond Arroyo was a Christmas gift for my youngest son. We were not familiar with the legend of the Christmas spider beforehand. I enjoy legends in general, and this one did not disappoint. The illustrations are dark but rich and a bit magical, and the story builds on the Holy Family’s flight into Egypt. I like how Joseph is portrayed in his role as protector, and Mary is both gentle and wise.

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Published on January 06, 2021 02:30

December 31, 2020

5 Year-End Favorite Books

Goodreads tells me I read 114 book in 2020. That’s a good rough-estimate, taking into account unpublished manuscripts I’ve read and picture books that got lumped into that total.

I’ve picked a Top 5 for 2020 in three categories: Christian romance, Debut novels, and Children’s books. Most were published in 2020; several were published in 2019, but I read them in 2020. Without further ado, here they are, in no particular order:

Christian romance

Before I Called You Mine by Nicole Deese In Spite of Ourselves by Jennifer Rodewald Just Like Home by Courtney Walsh Love and a Little White Lie by Tammy L. Gray Lake Season by Denise Hunter

Debut novels

The Vines of Mars by A.R.K. Watson The Bird and the Bees by Neena Gaynor Desperate Forest by Cece LouiseThe Woman in the Trees by Theoni Bell Beneath Wandering Stars by Ashlee Cowles

Children’s books

The Attic Saint by Tim Drake Shadow in the Dark by Antony Barone KolencGod the Father and the Best Day Ever by Gracie Jagla I’m a Saint in the Making by Lisa M. Hendey God Made the Moonlight by Erin Broestel

What was your favorite book read in 2020?

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Published on December 31, 2020 19:00

December 21, 2020

Vampires, fairy tales, & more: an interview with author & editor Karen Ullo

It’s been a while since I’ve read Twilight, but Jennifer the Damned seems to be almost its opposite. The romanticism of immortal love is traded for the dangers of disposable liaisons, as just one example. Where do you position Jennifer the Damned in terms of classic and modern vampire tales?

My editor likes to refer to Jennifer the Damned as the antidote to Twilight. The absolute inanity of modern vampire tales was certainly one of my inspirations, in the sense that I wanted to combat it with something more substantive, and I drew from those modern stories in terms of setting and tone to try to appeal to the same readers. But of course there’s a lot of Dracula in my book, too, going back to the idea that vampires pose a threat to both body and soul that only the pure of heart who are armed with Christ can defeat. The story itself is really taken from Crime and Punishment. Jennifer is Raskolnikov, testing the limits of human law and morality because she perceives herself as existing outside them. So where does Jennifer the Damned fit? I think that’s a question for readers and critics more than for me. I like to think it’s a literary novel masquerading as a teen vampire story, but maybe it’s the other way around.

You’re a proponent of the horror genre’s rightful place in Christian fiction. Can you elaborate on its role in communicating the truth?

We live in an age when we depend so heavily on science and reason that we’ve lost much of the sense of symbolism that previous generations attached to storytelling. There’s a tendency to dismiss books about monsters, dragons, aliens—anything outside reality—as fanciful nonsense that cannot help us understand our lives or our world. This idea is of course a failure to recognize that such stories, when they’re at their best, operate on a symbolic level that opens up a different kind of exploration that the “real” world cannot offer.

Monsters in literature are a way to represent sin and the fallen state of man. From a Christian perspective, literary monsters are the antithesis of the Incarnation; rather than God’s pure goodness taking flesh, we’re able to do the opposite, to give sin and evil a body, to take it out of the realm of the abstract so that we can better grapple with its implications. There is only one monstrosity for a Christian, and that is our separation from God through sin. I don’t know of any book that gives us as poignant a glimpse into the utter dependence of a creature on its creator as Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, or one that grapples with the implications of the sins of our spiritual fathers in the Church as well as The Hunchback of Notre Dame. When we put pure evil on the page, it always ends in one of two ways: either in the Nihilistic triumph of sin, or in its redemption through pure goodness. Christians should really view this as an opportunity. The greater the evil, the greater the good required to overcome it, so the horror genre allows Christian writers to use the darkest darkness as a contrast to brightest Light.

I’ve written extensively about this topic, so if you’re interested in learning more, here are some of my articles.

The Catholicity of Monsters, Dappled Things

The Spiritual Purpose of Horror Stories, Part 1, Wiseblood Books

The Spiritual Purpose of Horror Stories, Part 2, Wiseblood Books

How Monster Stories Can Be Good for Our Souls, The Federalist

Horror, Abuse Scandals, and The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Dappled Things

When we put pure evil on the page, it always ends in one of two ways: either in the Nihilistic triumph of sin, or in its redemption through pure goodness. ~ Karen Ullo #catholicfiction
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Fairy tales also teach us valuable truths, and Cinder Allia does it with intrigue and beautiful, poetic imagery. What about Cinderella inspired you to re-imagine it?

The story behind Cinder Allia is pretty funny. Once upon a time, shortly after I had finished grad school, I got together with some of my childhood girlfriends for a sleepover. We were all in our mid-twenties and still single. Sometime after midnight (and after a few cocktails), we started wondering what had happened to our Prince Charmings. Fairy tales had promised us princes! Where were they? And then we thought, what if Prince Charming had died before we could meet him? We concocted a very silly story that the prince’s guardian angel had gone on vacation and left a replacement—the Angel Vinnie—in charge, and Vinnie had been asleep on the job when the prince got whacked by a crack dealer.

Fast forward many years to a happily married, mother-of-two version of myself… and I realized there really was something to that idea. What if Prince Charming died before he could save Cinderella—and what if it was not a guardian angel’s fault, but the fairy tale version of that, the fairy godmother? Somehow, out of that very silly seed of an idea, something completely different blossomed. But if you read the dedication in the book—To L and M, whose princes have not come, and to K, who found hers—those are my friends from the slumber party, who inspired the seed.

The film rights to Cinder Allia were recently purchased by Believe Entertainment. You have a Master of Fine Arts in screenwriting from the University of Southern California. How has screenwriting influenced your novel-writing, perhaps paving the way for a movie adaption?

Screenwriting has been hugely influential in my novels. I’ve always wanted to write, and novels are my first love. But, like a lot of Christians, I didn’t get along very well in my college English department. Frankenstein’s monster as feminist repression and Huck Finn and Jim as a homosexual odyssey… no, thank you. So I had to get creative about learning the writing craft, and there’s really no better place to learn the fundamentals of storytelling than in film school. Film is a much more compressed medium than the novel. Every word, every image has to justify its place in the story because actually bringing them to life is expensive, so there’s no room for excess. You also have to learn not to rely on interior monologue to portray the characters’ motivations. Everything in film has to be externalized, so you learn to make action and images meaningful. You have to learn how to externalize a character the way an actor would, how to shape scenes and pace them the way a film editor would. All of these skills translate very well into writing novels… and yes, into writing novels that (hopefully) make good films! I’m thrilled to be on this new journey with Believe Entertainment. I know it’s still years away, but I can’t wait for the premiere!

With the launch of WhiteFire Publishing’s Chrism Press, you’re now an editor seeking to bring more Catholic- and Orthodox-friendly titles to print. What are your goals and aspirations for Chrism Press?

Chrism Press is a dream many years in the making that suddenly came true. My friend Rhonda Ortiz and I have said for years that “someday” we’re going to do this Catholic Fiction Publishing thing right… and WhiteFire Publishing has made that dream possible right now. Several small companies have opened their doors to Catholic fiction in the last five or ten years, but most are entirely focused on literary fiction to the exclusion of more popular works, or their focus is really on nonfiction with a few fiction titles just for fun… Chrism Press is all about stories. We want to fling wide the doors, and ultimately build a community where readers know they can come for fun, smart Catholic and Orthodox fiction. We want everything: sci-fi, mystery, romance, literary, you name it. Going back to my film school roots, there was only one rule at USC, and that was, “Never be boring.” Chrism Press has adopted that rule, too. We want to bring depth to our storytelling, but we also believe fiction should be fun.

We’re off to a good start. Our first three books, due out Fall of 2021, include a romance interwoven with espionage set in 1793 Boston, a Gothic romp battling werewolves and demons, and a historical novel set during the British-Viking conflict of eighth century North Umbria. We’re definitely having fun.

I know that COVID-19 postponed a novel research trip to France, a huge disappointment, I’m sure. Can you share a little about the story you’re working on and what you hoped to learn in France?

Yes… Phooey on COVID. I still don’t know whether or not I’ll be able to reschedule that trip before I finish the novel.

For several years now, I’ve been writing an adaptation of two stories from Strange True Stories of Louisiana by George Washington Cable… which aren’t true. The original is a literary hoax from 1888 that claimed to tell the story of a French countess who had fled the revolution by marrying her gardener to renounce her title, then ended up starting a new life in the Attakapas Territory of Louisiana. I am expanding it into an exploration of the eighteenth century on both sides of the Atlantic, especially focused on the French Revolution. The trip to France was to bring me through the settings of the novel so I could better recreate the world of the eighteenth century. My heroine comes from Normandy, so I had planned to visit cliffs, beaches, and châteaux there, as well as Versailles and as many of my settings in Paris as are still standing: the Palais Royale, St. Sulpice, St. Joseph des Carmes, which was one of the sites of the September massacres… But I guess I’m going to have to rely on photographs, paintings, and period writings, at least for now.

Karen Ullo is the author of two award-winning novels, Jennifer the Damned and Cinder Allia, which is now in development as a motion picture with Believe Entertainment. She holds a MFA in screenwriting from the University of Southern California and serves as an editor for Chrism Press. Prior to that, she served for more than three years as managing editor of the Catholic literary journal Dappled Things. She has been featured as a speaker at venues across the country including The Louisiana Book Festival, The Catholic Writers Guild Conferences (both live and online), the Trying to Say God conference at Notre Dame University, and Doxacon in Washington, D.C. She lives in Louisiana with her husband and two sons, where she works full-time as the music director of a Catholic parish. You can find her on the web at www.karenullo.com.

Links:

Website: www.karenullo.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/karenulloauthor

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Published on December 21, 2020 02:30

December 11, 2020

Kick Back with A Christmas Book This Season

My kids checked off their Christmas shopping lists in less than an hour of one-stop shopping, came home, wrapped their gifts, and DONE. Meanwhile, I’m still cobbling together lists, eyeing the calendar and wondering if I can get everything ordered and delivered before Christmas as our governor again tightens the reins on retail shopping.

In the waning days of 2020, let’s find a little joy, a little comfort, and a little peace by turning to a good Christmas book (or two, or twenty). I’ve assembled a list for the littlest family members on up. Eventually I’ll get my reviews completed and linked, but in the interest of sharing the list before Christmas, along with some reading and gift-giving links, here are my 2020 picks:

Wisdom Finds a Way by Cathy Gilmore

It’s his first time in a big caravan, and Amel the camel cannot see the wisdom of making such a long journey (by following a star, no less!) just to bring gifts to a baby in a tiny place like Bethlehem. After a discouraging detour in Herod’s Jerusalem, Amel learns all about love, prayer, and sacrifice as shown by Kings Caspar, Melchior, and Balthazar. Amel discovers that what is truly wise and noble can be hidden in very surprising places. Amel the camel is the not-so-tiny virtue hero of WISDOM. He invites readers to admire his hero, King Balthazar.

The Spider Who Saved Christmas by Raymond Arroyo

The Spider Who Saved Christmas spins the enchanting faith-filled tale of Nephila, a cave-dwelling spider who plays a pivotal role central to the Christmas story. This instant classic reveals the origin of Christmas tinsel and reminds us that hope can always be found even in dark places where we least expect it.

A Very Jurassic Christmas by Corinna Turner

IT’S CHRISTMAS…BUT NOT AS YOU KNOW IT!

Young hunter Joshua is looking forward to a Christmas of ice-skating and fun—until the plight of a starving mamma allosaur and her chicks upends his plans. Now he and his uncle must embark on a dangerous journey south, carrying deadly passengers.

Out in the wilderness, there’s no one to help them, they’re running out of tranquilizers—and a killer storm is gathering.

Meanwhile, Darryl and Harry risk their lives for a holiday guest in the perilous, raptor-infested mountains. Will they survive long enough to enjoy their carol service, let alone the rest of the holiday season?

“A Perfect Christmas” by Carolyn Astfalk

No tree, no cookies, no gifts. Not a single flake of snow. With sick siblings, Dad stranded, and Mom overwhelmed, will Christmas come at all to Marigold’s topsy-turvy home?

“Christmas Angel” by Leslea Wahl

Meg’s unforgettable Advent journey begins when four simple words challenge her idea of a perfect Christmas.

“A Perfect Christmas” and “Christmas Angel” first appeared in Gifts: Visible & Invisible, a collection of Christmas-themed short stories by eight CatholicTeenBooks.com authors.

From Afar by Roger Thomas

The Magi, or Three Kings, of the Nativity story are among the best loved yet most mysterious figures in all history. The fleeting and sparse account in St. Matthew’s Gospel raises as many questions as it answers. It has been so embroidered over the centuries that the original historical context has been almost completely buried. Yet the world of the early first century was as dynamic and intriguing as any legend – and much more perilous.

In his compelling novelization of the journey of the Magi, Roger Thomas draws on Scripture, history, and modern research. This swift-moving tale brings these shadowed figures to vivid life. You meet them as men of their time and culture: learned and noble, yet experienced with a brutal world and even violent when necessary. Come with them as they search for a King they do not understand, and seek for answers to questions lying in the deepest parts of their souls – providing they survive the dangers of the journey.

A Match Made at Christmas by Courtney Walsh

Hayes McGuire never believed the stories about a famous Nantucket matchmaker until she ropes him into taking over her duties while she’s off the island for Christmas.

So he enlists the help of the one person he can trust with this crazy scheme—his best friend, Prudence. Armed with a series of rules, a book of success stories and the promise of Christmas magic, the pair of old friends sets out to make a Christmas match.

Little do they know that magic doesn’t discriminate, and they soon find their years of friendship deepening into something more. Will Pru and Hayes ignore the electricity in the air between them or will there be more than one match made at Christmas?

An Ivy Hill Christmas by Julie Klassen

Richard Brockwell, the younger son of Ivy Hill’s most prominent family, hasn’t been home for Christmas in years. He prefers to live in the London townhouse, far away from Brockwell Court, the old family secret that haunts him, and the shadows of his past mistakes. But then his mother threatens to stop funding his carefree life–unless he comes home for Christmas. Out of options, he sets out for Ivy Hill, planning to be back on a coach bound for London and his unencumbered bachelor life as soon as the festivities are over.

But Christmas in the country presents unforeseen surprises, including encounters with an orphaned apprentice, the first love he disappointed years ago, and Arabella Awdry, a young lady who is far more appealing than he recalled . . . and determined to have nothing to do with him.

Will Christmastime in Ivy Hill, with its village charm, kissing boughs, joyous songs, and divine hope, work its magic in his heart . . . and hers as well?

The Diaries of Joseph and Mary by Dennis McGeehan

The lives of Joseph, Mary, and Jesus as envisioned by the Early Church Fathers and by Mystics and Visionaries are presented here in the form of a diary that Joseph and Mary might have kept. Based on stories well-known and even preached upon during the Early Church, the events of the Nativity are illuminated and give a more intimate look into the events that changed history forever. Nothing contained in Scripture is changed, rather, the opinions reached by the ancient voices on matters where Scripture is silent are offered for prayerful consideration.

Christmas Around the Fire: Stories, Essays, and Poems for the Season of Christ’s Birth by Ryan N. S. Topping

Christmas is a time for celebrating the birth of Jesus with family and friends; to gather together in sacred and jovial celebration of the Incarnation. Yet in our fast-paced, hyper digitized lives, we are losing the sense of a good story, among good friends, around a good fire.

In Christmas Around the Fire, Ryan Topping invites the reader to turn off the television set, put down the device, quiet ourselves, and gather our loved ones to share some of the best writing, in a variety of forms, about Christmas. Whether or not, your family has an actual fireplace around which to gather is not so important, but it helps!

Included within are entries from legendary novelists and poets such as Leo Tolstoy, G.K. Chesterton, Charles Dickens, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Willa Cather, and more. As well as the profound thoughts of great religious figures such as Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, Pope Saint John Paul II, and Pope Benedict XVI.

For those who love the true spirit of the “most wonderful time of the year”, and who love reading in almost equal measure, Christmas Around the Fire will quickly become a family tradition—the first piece excitedly pulled out of storage every year. This is one of those rarest of books: one around which family memories are made.