20 Questions!

So a Twitter friend posted this last year I think, and I loved it and decided it should be a blog post. So here goes. :) (These are answers relating to fiction works. I read lots of non-fiction too.)

1. My favorite genre to read last year was fantasy/allegory and historical fiction. So far I seem to be continuing that trend. I loved finding new authors and the ones I found usually wrote from those two genres. I love historical fiction because I can learn things while having people and places come alive through past events. I love fantasy because really it's someone writing about our world and our lives, just in another place and setting.

2. Currently I'm rereading Chuck Black's Kingdom and Knights of Arrethtrae series. I'm on book 3, Kingdom's Edge, and it's every bit as good as it was the first time. (So were 1 and 2, too.) It's like an extended allegory of the Bible, including Shadow and Silent Warriors (representing demons and angels, respectively). Jewish history, and the Messiah, and daily life combined, and it is written simpler for younger people, but adults love them too.

3. The first book I remember loving was Norman the Doorman. I haven't seen any other kid read it ever and I don't even know if it's being published anymore (that makes me feel old). It's about a mouse, and it was a horizontally long book (not the regular size or square kids books). It had lots of pictures and I remember asking dad to read it over and over again. I still remember phrases from it. The first chapter books I remember loving were The Black Stallion series, and the Misty of Chincoteague series. Both about horses...animals I still love and ride today. The list of books I loved just grew from there on.

4. A book series I wish would be adapted to film would be the Kingdom/Knights of Arrethtrae series and Black's other series Wars of the Realm. A stand alone book I wish would be made into a movie would be Crowning Heaven (Emily Hayse), Pendragon's Heir (Suzannah Rowntree) or Counted Worthy (Leah E. Good).

5. This one is hard...favorite protagonist is probably Ben from War of Loyalties (Schuyler McConkey) or Reese from the Oneness series (Rachel Starr Thomson). I really can't decide. :P

6. Favorite antagonists really aren't my thing. I don't tend to like them at all and typically can't imagine them being a favorite. I'll keep thinking...

7. I wrote simple stories for school when I was little, but I'm not a story writer as such. I do remember writing a story about a dog sled team and about a rabbit who needed a friend, but I've written non-fiction and poetry in greater quantities as I've gotten older.

8. So I used to believe the Lord of the Ring movie series were better than the books. However, having read them through a second time, I have changed my mind. The books are so full of amazing quotes (so are the movies), and rereading them makes me just want to read them again. However, I will say that the Hobbit movies are better than the book (though I did enjoy the book). It's a lighter story (and it was meant to be so), but I love the deeper side of relationships and life that the movie brings out.

9. Best book this year so far, is The Return of the King (3rd book in the LOTR trilogy).

10. I don't have one favorite author, so I'll list lots. :D Angela Hunt, Rachel Starr Thomson, Mesu Andrews, Lynn Austin, K.M. Weiland, Chuck Black, Patrick Carr, Suzannah Rowntree, Schuyler McConkey, Emily Hayse, Leah E. Good, Rosemary Sutcliff, C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Douglas Bond, and Nadine Brandes. To name a few. ;)

11. I'm not sure I have a least favorite genre. I usually like books from all different genres. It really depends on the author and the book, not so much the genre for me. There are some very obvious genres I would refrain from reading, but typically, I'm willing to try most stories in different settings.

12. I have way too many books that I'd recommend to friends. After all, I have six bookshelves (might be seven soon), so I'm not really sure where to start. The last book I recently loaned to a friend was Crowning Heaven. I'd also recommend War of Loyalties (Schuyler McConkey), Exile (Rachel Starr Thomson), Pendragon (Suzannah Rowntree), and A Time to Die (Nadine Brandes).

13. I haven't really watched many film adaptations of movies, and the ones I've watched recently, the book was written after the movie. However, I do love, love, love the extended edition of The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. I also recently watched Paul, Apostle of Christ and read the book by Angela Hunt. Super well done.

14. Probably the Bible. I haven't counted, but I am quite sure that I have reread the Bible more times than I've ever read any other book. I don't often reread, though it is my goal to do it more this year.

15. Well, the books I don't expect to like are the ones I haven't read yet. I usually expect to like a book and often I do. There are few that I have read and not liked in some way. Usually that happens with non-fiction, more than fiction.

16. I'm very bad at reading classics. If Little Women and Little Men are classics, then I love them (also the movies). Same with Swiss Family Robinson. I have Emma and Pride and Prejudice on my shelf, but I haven't read them yet. My reading habits so far have consisted of reading ancient books (that nobody knows about) or brand new authors (also which nobody often knows about, it seems). But it makes an amazing platform for sharing new stories. :)

17. Different books have impacted me at different stages of life, so truly there is no one book, and often times they happened to be non-fiction works. However, Dreamlander (K.M. Weiland), War of Loyalties (Schuyler McConkey), and Renegade (Rachel Starr Thomson) have been the most influential in the last five years or so. I love the challenges of faith, and journeys of friendships in each of them. Basically I love seeing faith meet real life and how it plays out in peoples' lives.

18. Actually, I have met two authors already. One being a friend, and the other a Sunday school student of mine. :) However, I think that meeting Nadine Brandes would be amazingly fun. I love her Instagram stories (especially of baby-life), and her YouTube videos are so friendly and personable. But I'd love to meet Angela Hunt and Emily Hayse and K.M. Weiland and ask them All the Questions about why they wrote their stories.

19. I think more people should know about Rachel Starr Thomson. I can't remember where I was first introduced to her, probably social media somewhere, but the first book of each of her series is free on her website. She has a large following and also speaks at conferences and retreats and such, but everyone I mentioned her to doesn't seem to even know about her. Her insight into Scripture is amazing and she writes stories that take spiritual matters and make them tangible (or so it seems). She writes the hard stuff in ways that people would readily accept. And she has a membership for readers so you can get access to all her new books first (because why ever not?).

20. My favorite series is the Oneness Cycle by Rachel Starr Thomson. Favorite book...well, I'd have to have one for each category and genre. There's no way I could have a favorite book. However, I think most of my favorite books are mentioned in this post, so read them sometime and let me know what you think! You can also find reviews of many of them on the Alphabetized Book Reviews page.

What would be some of your answers to these 20 questions?

Where We Belong by Lynn Austin

From Amazon:
In the city of Chicago in 1892, the rules for Victorian women are strict, their roles limited. But sisters Rebecca and Flora Hawes are not typical Victorian ladies. Their love of adventure and their desire to use their God-given talents has brought them to the Sinai Desert--and into a sandstorm.

Accompanied by Soren Petersen, their somber young butler, and Kate Rafferty, a street urchin who is learning to be their ladies' maid, the two women are on a quest to find an important biblical manuscript. As the journey becomes more dangerous and uncertain, the four travelers sift through memories of their past, recalling the events that shaped them and the circumstances that brought them to this time and place.

I have a Lynn Austin book on my shelf that's been sitting there for several years now. But I haven't read it yet. See, I'm one of those people who doesn't read a series unless she has all the books and has done research to make sure they're worth reading. And since that book is the first in the series, I still haven't read it yet. Thank goodness Nuts for Books decided to put a stand alone book up for review, otherwise I might not have discovered some good, deep historical fiction. 

I wasn't exactly sure what to expect of Austin's writing...after all, how could two rich girls who have no memory of their mother, go off running about the world, ending up in the Sinai desert...how could that be managed from a writer's point of view without compromising Christianity? Well, I'm not sure yet that I like the way all the ethics and morals are handled in this book, but even when situations are handled in a questionable manner, the characters' focus is on God and what His purpose is for them and mankind. 

Rebecca and Flora have been born wealthy. That's all they know really, but that doesn't stop them from finding adventure and begging their father for international trips. They have little recollection of a mother in their life, but their father does a decent job of caring for the young girls. I really appreciated the way he interacted with them and reared them. Some readers might think he's distant and uninvolved and to a certain extent he is, but he is always willing to listen to them and provide them with whatever he can to broaden their education and mature them. In plain, he treats them as adults, and while the sisters may not always act like adults, the father's training does more to influence them and teach them than they probably know. 

Later on the father remarries, much to the girls dislike. I don't appreciate that the "evil stepmother" character is used, because I think there are some good stepmothers out there, but Mrs. Worthington's character is needed to point the girls in the direction of  their future. Rebecca is a thinker and knows that God has a plan for her even though she doesn't know what it is yet. Flora is gentle and sweet and doesn't want to offend or hurt anyone. But she's a follower and often allows her sister to lead. Mrs. Worthington brings with her all the ideals of the wealthy and precious little about faith in God. Flora acquiesces to her demands and decrees, but Rebecca notes that none of it is important for finding God's will for your life. And yet despite the fact, that the girls' lives are order about (for a time) by a proud stepmother, they don't allowed the fact that they are wealthy to turn them into snobs. In fact, one time they dress up as if from part of the slum area of town and get hired in a factory to see what the conditions are like, in order to attempt to understand how to help the poor people better. 

This book is divided into four parts, each written from the view of one of the main characters: Rebecca, Flora, and then their two servants, Peterson and Kate. It tells all of their faith journeys and includes a bit of their past history, but this doesn't interfere at all with the natural flow of the story. 

I could tell immediately that some of the refutes for Christianity and research of the Scriptures came from Lee Strobel's books The Case for Christ and The Case for Faith, as Austin notes in her Author's note. It brought a refreshing reminder of the truth of Scripture to the whole book and an example of how to witness to the unsaved. 

There are some elements of lying in the book that I don't agree with, and some other ideals that I'm not sure I'd practice in my own life, but they are not big situations, and all in all Where We Belong is a book of growing in the Lord and seeking His will for your life despite what authority and society might desire. Join Rebecca and Flora through their adventures as girls and later as grown women as they navigate marriage, relationships, the Lord's will, and personal safety in order to mature into the women that God would have them be. 

*Book has been provided courtesy of Baker Publishing Group and Graf-Martin Communications, Inc.