Love Lifted Me by Sara Evans with Rachel Hauck

Love Lifted Me is the third in the Songbird series by Sara Evans and Rachel Hauck and is the best of the trio in my opinion. Return to the story of Jade and Max as they navigate the waters of forgiveness and try to rebuild their broken marriage. A job change throws life for this family into a whirlwind as they leave behind all they've known and head to Texas where Max is hired to be a high school football coach. A heartwarming tale that will stay with you long after you've turned the last page, Love Lifted Me is one not to miss.

About the book:

Jade never knew happily-ever-after would be this messy, loud . . . delicious.

Jade Benson embraces unexpected motherhood when her husband Max gains custody of his young son. As she and Max work out their newly formed family, an invitation to coach Texas high school football sends them on a journey.

Then a stranger reveals a painful secret, and Jade faces her hardest challenge yet. When she surrenders her heart to God and to her husband, Jade discovers the joy of love lifting her above her fears.

This book was provided for review by Booksneeze.

Learn more about Sara Evans here. Check out all of Rachel Hauck's books here.

The Common English Bible

At Christmastime many people like to go back to the Bible and read about the birth of Christ. Here's how The Common English Bible recounts Luke 2:1-20

"In those days Caesar Augustus declared that everyone throughout the empire should be enrolled in the tax lists. This first enrollment occurred when Quirinius governed Syria. Everyone went to their own cities to be enrolled. Since Joseph belonged to David's house and family line, he went up from the city of Nazareth in Galilee to David's city, called Bethlehem, in Judea. He went to be enrolled together with Mary, who was promised to him in marriage and who was pregnant. While they were there, the time came for her to have her baby. She gave birth to her firstborn child, a son, wrapped him snugly, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the guestroom.

Nearby shepherds were living in the fields, guarding their sheep at night. The Lord's angel stood before them, the Lord's glory shone around them, and they were terrified.

The angel said, "Don't be afraid! Look! I bring good news to you--wonderful joyous news for all people. Your savior is born today in David's city. He is Christ the Lord. This is a sign for you: You will find a newborn baby wrapped snugly and lying in a manger."

Suddenly a great assembly of heavenly forces was with the angel praising God. They said, "Glory to God in heaven, and on earth, peace among those whom He favors."

When the angels returned to heaven, the shepherds said to each other, "Let's go right now to Bethlehem and see what's happened. Let's confirm what the Lord revealed to us." They went quickly and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in the manger. When they saw this, they reported what they had been told about this child. Everyone who heard it was amazed at what the shepherds told them. Mary committed these things to memory and considered them carefully. The shepherds returned home, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen. Everything happened just as they had been told."

I love the language this version uses, it makes it come alive in my mind. My hope is that you share this story with those you love, and that they come to know the love of Jesus this holiday season.

For a chance to win a copy of The Common English Bible leave a comment below telling me what your favorite Christmas cookie is.

This Bible was provided for review by The B&B Media Group

Heaven is For Read Small Group DVD Kit & Conversation Guide

The Heaven is for Read DVD Conversation Kit & Guide by Todd Burpo is a nicely packaged tool for small group use. It comes with a book to guide you through discussions and a DVD to watch with interviews with the Burpo family. There are five segments to this so your group can move through it quickly.

The segments are:

1. Why should we care about Heaven?
2. What is Heaven like?
3. When does a person go to Heaven?
4. Where is Heaven?
5. Who goes to Heaven?

Todd Burpo backs up everything with Scripture while he speaks.

The DVD is filmed in a very laid back setting. Almost too laid back. There are parts that could have been edited to make it a little more professional, but I suppose that's part of the appeal (showing that these are real people).

The sessions are short and are easy to follow and understand. The question guide makes for interesting conversation. This might even be something good for a group of people who aren's sure about "the whole God thing."

This was provided for review by BookSneeze & Thomas Nelson.

Precisely Terminated by Amanda Davis

Amanda Davis is the award-winning teen author of The Cantral Chronicles, a dystopian trilogy. She enjoys reading and writing and comes up with new novel ideas while spinning yarn or running on the roads near her home. She was born and raised a Florida girl and loves the warmth of the South.

About the book:
With microchips implanted in their skulls at birth, the slaves of Cantral and Cillineese have labored under the tyrannical rule of the nobles and their computers for centuries. Monica, a noble who avoided the implanting and escaped a death sentence at the age of four, is now sixteen and is in hiding. She lives with the slaves inside the walls of the Cantral palace, pretending to be one of them while the slave council plots a way to use her chip-less state to destroy the all-powerful computers that strike down any hint of rebellion.

The fate of millions rides on Monica's shoulders. As the only chip-less person in the world, she must find a way to destroy the computers and free Cillineese from the nobles' iron fist before they strike with the ultimate punishment-death for everyone inside the city walls.

Watch the trailer:

Lynn Austin's WONDERLAND CREEK

Lynn Austin is one of those authors that I wait in anticipation for a new book from. They are all different from one another and this one was so good that I let out a sigh of satisfaction when I finished reading it. It was simply perfect.

If you have a reader in your life and you want to give them a special gift for Christmas, I suggest this book.

Alice is a librarian outside of Chicago. Her life is made up of books. She has stronger feelings for the characters in the books she reads than in the people in her life. She's young and naive and finds nothing wrong with reading a book during a funeral. This faux pas leads to her boyfriend breaking up with her. She loses her job at the library because of depression-era cutbacks and thinks her life is over. Alice remembers the boxes of books that she's been saving to take to a struggling library in the hills of Kentucky so she packs up and flees town, catching a ride with her aunt and uncle. Two weeks away seems to be the perfect amount of time for her to escape the small town gossip of her break-up and job loss.

She arrives in Kentucky and is dropped off before she finds out that she wasn't expected. Alone and confused she discovers that the library is unlike any other she'd ever known of. Pack horse librarians. An aged woman who makes potions out of herbs and roots. A burly librarian. A town at odds with each other. People desperate for love and attention and no one to give it to them. This is everything Alice finds and her two weeks turns into much longer. Will she make it home? Will she find true love? Will she know who she can trust?

Get this book! It made me giggle. It melted my heart. It made me cry.

Thanks, Lynn, for this CLEAN READ.

This book was provided for review by Bethany House.

Buy a copy here.

The Common English Bible

Aside from the fact that the cover of this Bible is beautiful and that it's easy to hold and is the perfect size for study and carrying to church, this is an amazing book.

The Psalms are written out in prose, the way you'd expect fine poetry to be on a page, and the language is fresh and alive.

This version will open your eyes and help you to see the Bible as not just a book, but as the life changing love story that God intended it to be.

Psalm 139 has long since been my favorite and this version of it is beautiful. Verse 16 says, "Your eyes saw my embryo, and on your scroll every day was written what was being formed for me, before any one of them had yet happened."

Celebrate National Bible Week and give yourself the gift of the Word of God in a fresh new language. Easy to understand and relevant. Perfect for young people or new believers.

Common English Bible Translation Background

Known for being “built on common ground,” the Common English Bible is a collaboration of 120 academic scholars and editors, 77 reading group leaders, and more than 500 average readers from around the world who joined together to clearly translate the Bible’s original Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek languages into 21^st century English. More than half-a-million copies of the Bible are currently in print. It’s also available online and in 20 digital formats.

“When we say ‘built on common ground,’ we mean that the Common English Bible is the result of collaboration between opposites: scholars working with average readers; conservatives working with liberals; teens working with retirees; men working with women; many denominations and many ethnicities coming together around the common goal of creating a vibrant and clear translation for 21^st century readers, with the ultimate objective of mutually accomplishing God’s overall work in the world; in essence, helping Bible readers live on common ground,” says Paul Franklyn, PhD, associate publisher for the Common English Bible.

The Common English Bible is written in contemporary idiom at the same reading level as the newspaper USA TODAY—using language that’s comfortable and accessible for today’s English readers. It’s available—with and without the Apocrypha—in multiple editions and bindings. Information about the Common English Bible is available on its website, Twitter stream, Facebook page, and video.

Combining scholarly accuracy with vivid language, the Common English Bible is the work of 120 biblical scholars from 24 denominations in American, African, Asian, European, and Latino communities, representing such academic institutions as Asbury Theological Seminary, Azusa Pacific University, Bethel Seminary, Denver Seminary, Princeton Theological Seminary, Seattle Pacific University, Wheaton College, Yale University, and many others.

Additionally, more than 500 readers in 77 groups field-tested the translation. Every verse was read aloud in the reading groups, where potentially confusing passages were identified. The translators considered the groups' responses and, where necessary, reworked those passages to clarify in modern English their meaning from the original languages. In total, more than 700 people worked jointly to bring the Common English Bible to fruition; and because of the Internet and today’s technology it was completed in less than four years.

The Common English Bible is sponsored by the Common English Bible Committee, an alliance of five publishers that serve the general market, as well as the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) (Chalice Press), Presbyterian Church (USA) (Westminster John Knox Press), Episcopal Church (Church Publishing, Inc.), United Church of Christ (The Pilgrim Press), and The United Methodist Church (Abingdon Press).

This Bible was provided for review by the B&B Media Group.

You can win a free copy of The Common English Bible. Just leave a comment and I'll choose a winner next week.

Departures by Robin Jones Gunn

These two recently discovered stories by Robin Jones Gunn take her fans back into the lives of Christy Miller and Sierra Jensen one last time. Packaged together under the title Departures, Christy's story, Now Boarding at Gate Ten and Sierra's story, In The Event of a Water Landing will be fun for readers to reconnect with their favorite characters.

Both are sweet stories of life as a teenage girl but I enjoyed Sierra's story much more than Christy's. Christy's story seemed hastily written and not believable. Her thirteen year old brother was treated (and acted) like he was eight or nine and not thirteen. An old friend of Christy's is getting ready to go to college, he's deciding between two schools, one in California and the other in, "North Carolina...or is it South Carolina? I can't remember," his mother says. What mother is going to forget which state her son is thinking about going to college in?

Sierra's story centers around a trip she's taking with some of her friends. After a small detour to the Mall of America, the wind up in Montana. At first it seems like the foursome will be coupling off but then teenage angst and fickleness kicks in and they all just end up having a fun time as friends.

This is an easy read for your teen reader, just under 200 pages. Clean and sweet.

This book was provided for review by Waterbrook Multnomah.