Over 40 Summer Reads, how about you? (Summer Reads Part One)

I decided to post about the books I am currently reading and will read. I know I'm not the only bookworm out there. Maybe I'm the most bookwormy, but I say readers unite! Find more books to read even though we're almost at the near end of summer. You can still read books in the school year, right? I know I'll be reading books during the school year no matter how busy life will be.

Let me tell you my own story,
Once upon this time, there is a girl who goes by the name of MaidenOfEmmanuel "MOE" (pronounce 'mow'). She loves going to libraries, bookstores, the library's sites, more bookstores, author's sites, and even more libraries. The best place to spy on her is when she's sitting in the middle of an aisle at the bookstore/library. She almost always loses her library card (MOE is on her sixth or seventh library card), but the librarians know her so well they already know her name the moment she walks in (literally they'll tell MOE she has books awaiting her the moment she comes in). Wherever the books are, you'll most likely be able to find MOE in the Christian-fiction section. If she doesn't have pen and paper, she'll take her camera and photograph the covers, titles, and authors of the books she's interested in. When she gets home she looks up the most interesting authors' sites and finds even more books by them, and by then her list just continues to grow and grow to a never-ending-to-read list.

Did you enjoy reading my story?
I'm actually very picky with the books I read. I mostly read books in the Christian genre. I do read secular books, but very few secular books. The books I read must be written well, have a good story line, have my intrigue by the summary and first chapter, along with being very appropriate. Kisses are fine in books, trust me when I say I love the innocent romance in books.
Can you tell I'm picky with the books I read? Even though I'm picky about the books I read I know a lot of good Christian authors who write very well.

Anywho, last time I went to the bookstore, I wrote down so many titles of books and authors of books that its not even funny - plus I visited some sites and realized I have a growing list of books that I'd like to share with you guys. My favorite genre is Christian fiction, more specifically I like suspense, mystery, historical-fiction, trhiller, and romance (which girl doesn't?).

Note: On my to-read list every book will be in the Christian genre, so honestly, these are books that shouldn't be offensive in an innapropriate manner.
Alllllll of these books I'm listing in a detailed manner I have not read yet. These books are all on my to-read list. If I list a book I have read, I will tell you I read that book.
I would post reviews, but that would give me the longest blog-posts ever, so I'm linking to about-the-books.

Here goes nothing (and a very long blog post).

1. Title: Red
Series: #2 of The Circle Series
Genre: Suspense.
Author: Ted Dekker
Author's site: TedDekker.com

2. Title: White
Series: #3 of The Circle Series
Genre: Suspense.
Author: Ted Dekker

3. Title: Green
Series: #4 of The Circle Series
Genre: Suspense.
Author: Ted Dekker

4. Title: The Bride Collector
Genre: Thriller/suspense
Author: Ted Dekker

5. Title: Blessed Child
Genre: Suspense.
Author: Ted Dekker

6. Title: A Man Called Blessed
Series: Sequel to Blessed Child.
Genre: Suspense.
Author: Ted Dekker

I haven't looked up more of Dekker's books (though I've already read Black, Kiss, Burn, Blink [of an Eye], Thr3e, and Obsessed

7. Title: An Eye for an Eye
Series: #2 of Heroes of Quantico
Genre: Romantic suspense.
Author: Irene Hannon
Author’s site: IreneHannon.com

8. Title: In Harm’s Way
Series: #3 of Heroes of Quantico
Genre: Romantic suspense.
Author: Irene Hannon

9. Title: Fatal Judgement
Series: #1 of Guardians of Justice
Genre: Romantic suspense.
Author: Irene Hannon.

There are more books by Hannon, I just haven’t looked into the rest of Hannon’s books. I finished Against All Odd which is #1 of Heroes of Quantico and really loved the book :).

10. Title: Nightmare’s Edge
Series: #3 of Echoes from the Edge
Genre: Suspense.
Author: Bryan Davis
Author’s site: Daviscrossing.com. Bryan Davis’s site was originally DragonsInOurMidst.com
Davis has a blog on Blogger you can just click “blog” on his site.

11. Title: Starlighter
Series: #1 of Dragons of Starlight
Genre: Suspense.
Author: Bryan Davis

12. Title: Whisper on the Wind
Genre: Romantic suspense/history.
Author: Maureen Lang
Author’s site: MaureenLang.com

This post is only part one of MOE's Summer Reading of '10.
Tell me about some of the books you're reading, seriously. You don't understand how much I'm honestly telling you to leave a comment about your summer reads or write a post about your summer reads - I want enoug books to last me a very long time.

Praise the Lord! YCF whaaa? 1 Corinthians 16:13-14

Praise the Lord my abuela is doing so much better!

My grandmother is out of ICU and now in a regular hospital room. I saw her walking a little bit across the hall of the hospital and walking in the hospital for her is a major step. She's been in bed for days and once you haven't worked your muscles for a few days walking is very hard.

Thanks for the prayers, and her hospital days aren't over just yet so keep on praying :).
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So can you believe that I've been part of the YCF since May 18th 2008 and I did not realize I did n't have the banner up?! My goodness gracious. I know have the banner of the YCF up but for those to who didn't know (though a lot of the oldie YCFers knew) that I have been a part of the YCF for a couple years now :). I'm not exactly sure when the YCF started but I know that when I was a part of the YCF we had very little amount of memebers and now the YCF has majorly grown!
____

Tell me what you guys think about my new blog layout (comment on my blog!)!
The new theme of this blog is 1 Corinthians 16:13-14, two verses I just memorized the other day.

God bless,
MaidenOfEmmanuel

Prayer Request - My abuela

Today is the third day my abuela (abuela is grandma in Spanish) has been in the hospital. She has had Crohn's disease for almost her whole life and my uncles are doctors, so when she gets sick, she just stays at their house. (If you don't know what Crohn's disease is I would suggest you look it up on Wikipedia or something rather. Crohn's disease bad, but not always fatal if you treat the disease well and a person can have a long life with it - but you get sick frequently every year for the rest of your life.) Since she stays at my uncle's houses everytime she gets sick, her going to the hospital is rather shocking and nerve-wracking. She's in her seventies and very weak right now.
She went to the ER because she had a fever of 104 and the fever would not leave. The doctors found out that the infection is actually spread in her bloodstream so her whole body is infected right now and I think they were thinking of a transfusion.
I went to visit my abuela around 6 PM and found out that she would have surgery around 12:30. My dad, my twin sister, more relatives, and I stayed there till the surgery was done and a little after.
They did surgery on her because they had a feeling her intestines were blocked and her intestines were blocked. Food wasn't going down her intestines and she couldn't use the restroom for a day or two. If they hadn't done the surgery on her she would have died in a couple days. Right now her body is fighting the infection and recuperating from the surgery and the intestines that had to be painfully expanded by the food. She'll be in the hospital for at least two weeks if not more weeks at the hospital.
I didn't get home till 3:30 AM this morning but my evening and day had been productive by just visit in the hospital and spending time making her a huge banner with my cousins and siblings.
The banner my cousins and I made for my abuela says, "Las abuelas sostiene nuestras manecitas por un rato, pero nuestros corazones para siempre." The saying we put on her banner means, "The grandmothers hold our hands for a little while, but our hearts forever." All of us cousins traced our hands and signed our names.
My abuela was too incoherent at some point to see the banner but she saw it later and she seemed pretty happy about the banner. Her words don't come out loud and clear, but the adults who know Spanish very well will put their ear down and understand what she's saying.
(My twin sister is the girl in the picture.)
My abuela has been in ICU since Saturday night and she's been there all of yesterday and she's there today. Please pray she heals.

God bless,
MaidenOfEmmanuel

Cast of Characters: Common People in the Hands of an Uncommon God by Max Lucado

I do not own this picture of the cover of "Cast of Characters: Common People in the Hands of an Uncommon God".
When I ordered this book I was intrigued by the title, the cover, and the summary. It was about the characters in the Bible! I wanted to do more of a study on some of those characters - maybe I missed something about Joseph, or even more "minor" characters.
When I opened this book, I was semi-excited and I was also continuing with my intrigue. When I actually started reading the book I was disappointed.
There were questions that I've never asked myself, but then there was a reason why I neve rdid ask those questions. I was hoping for a book that would give me Bible references and interesting points on a "character" (who is/are really just a non-fiction person/people). Instead of Biblical references, there was a question I'm quoting from the actual book, "Did Jesus and Joseph arm-wrestle? Did Jesus let Joseph win a couple times?" That is pointless in my opinion-- and second, I already know that Jesus was God in a physical form. Muscle is physical. Hence when Jesus was a young boy, I bet Joseph did win. But really - this book did disappoint me. I found things fake in a certain sense, and just not my taste.
There was a positive about this book though, and the positive of this book was that Lucado pointed out that all of these people - different sins and different stories and different actions - had a chance to play a part particularly in the ultimate plan of God (even the non-Christians) for Jesus' death.

Thomas Nelson was generous enough to give me a copy of this book to review.

This book might intrigue you in the sense of the off-subject questions, so if you'd like to read the book, go for it.

God bless,
MaidenOfEmmanuel