Happy New Year!!!

What a year of reading it’s been!! I read over 100 books in one year for the first year ever.

With the year now ending… or over, depending on when you read this, this is my last post about books I read in 2022. It went by so fast!

Mid-month this meme below described how I felt.

Now I realize that even though I didn’t finish all the books I wanted to, I still managed to read a good amount of books.

Also, no one actually asked about my reading goals.

Check out the books I finished in December below!

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His Christmas Wish by Melissa McClone

This one was a pretty okay read. Like it’s not 5 stars, but wasn’t bad. It was deep with grief from all characters and how they processed it differently over the years and then trying to come together for a special occasion. This is the first of this series and I may get the rest!

Free ebook on this one – thinking I got this from an email from an author I follow.

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52 Hebrew Words Every Christian Should Know by Dave Adamson

This is a great book that highlights 52 Hebrew words with personal commentary from Adamson (whom I had never heard of before) and gives applicability to words we may not fully understand. There were a few that I gleaned new perspective on and some of these words I will be blogging about!

Easily something to pick up every day and grab a word to learn. I obviously did not do this every day since I finished it in less than 52 days… I started with 2 a day though and then got too into it to put it down. This would also make a great resource to come back to for quick Hebrew word reference.

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Angel falls by Kristin Hannah

A story of heartache, love, and family. This was a tearjerker. In some ways, it was like reliving my Dad’s short time between cancer diagnosis and passing in the hospital again – with all the weeks this family spent within the walls of the hospital and the feelings that go along with the unknowns. I don’t read many stories like this and I haven’t really read many that deal with hospital stays.

Even with the hard topic and grief accompanying this book, I would definitely recommend it for the family element and the importance of faith.

Honestly… there were some really good quotes in this. I only thought to grab these.

Tragedy was like that, a razor that sliced through time, severing the now from the before, incising the what-might-have-been from reality as cleanly as any surgeon’s blade.

Kristin Hannah, Angel Falls

It was like that these days. The best of times were quiet moments like this one, tucked into the corners of what passed for everyday life. They were learning, each of them, to notice the things they’d once taken for granted.

And to be thankful for the life that was left.

Kristin Hannah, Angel Falls

This is the first book I’ve read by Hannah though I have more on my shelves that I’ve had for maybe a year and never have gotten to. This makes me want to get into those. I’ve only heard good things of this author from my friends!

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The Christmas Bargain by Shanna Hatfield

This was cute!! It took me a while since it was an ebook and I don’t read full novels very often in that format. If you read the synopsis, you can probably tell how this ends… but it was really cute.

Free ebook via email from an author I follow is how I obtained.

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The Santa Trial by Tess Thompson

Well, actually, I liked the first half. It’s the second half, maybe the last quarter, I can’t get over. Lots of mention of Jesus and Santa both, but no real faith maybe? Seemed like the characters said they were followers, but didn’t live that way. Not my kind of book, but maybe I’m being too judgey… on what I voluntarily choose to read. 🙂

I wouldn’t recommend. The plot was missed, it was rushed and didn’t meet expectations.

Free ebook via email on this one too.

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A Season to Love by Nicole Deese

Love love love Nicole Deese and her writing. This book held so much depth dealing with grief, loss, anxiety, family dynamics (that made me LOL!) and learning about oneself.

This is probably one of my all time favorite books. Main characters were ALL THE HEART EYES. There was so much chemistry and growth in these pages.

Of course I’ll recommend this one.

I want to climb into the pages and live it over and over. It was a little after 11pm when I finished it and as I type out my thoughts almost 2 hours later… I don’t know how I’ll get over it in a day. I’m also thinking about how I don’t have book three and need book three now.

This is book two in the Love in Lenox series. 🙂 I read the first a while back, and it was just as swoon worthy. (It was also mentioned in my Christmas Reads post!)

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A Christmas Spark by Cindy Steel

Cute easy read! With 15 years of history between these two characters, the banter and secrets fly when trapped in one cabin for the week leading up to Christmas.

I gave it 4 stars on GoodReads because it was better than I anticipated actually, but not one of my 5 star reads. I was pleasantly surprised.

I also read this one first – it’s the first book in a series that can be read as stand alones, but you know I can’t do that. I wanted to read the second one so I got this one on Kindle using my Kindle rewards cash. 🙂

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Hope Springs Books 1-3 by Valerie M. Bodden

I’d had this book in my Amazon cart for a while. I finally hit checkout on it a couple of weeks ago and here I read the whole thing in a few days. When I ordered it, I thought it was three books in a box or wrapped collection, but when I received it was this huge (thick) book. Only 700 and some pages.

This book was amazing. I now… I now have yet another author I enjoy. So great.

The third book in this collection, Not Until You, was my favorite, it also happened to be the longest! It was a deeply woven story. It made me tear up and laugh. It tugged on my heart in the best and most meaningful ways. I love a story of forgiveness, of redemption and reconciliation. It also dealt with being equally yoked in a relationship and knowing where the other is in their spiritual walk, if they have a spiritual life to begin with. It was interesting how they played into this story so well. I admire Violet! You’ll find that all here! Really in all three stories, they were all so good, but something about the third one just got to me. Guess who has to order the next book soon…

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Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis

Wow. What a great and thought provoking read! This is my first book I started by C.S. Lewis and on our reading schedule, my friend and I reading this together, were not going to get this read until another two or three weeks, but I couldn’t wait.

C.S. Lewis walks through Christianity in a logical way, which I appreciate. He can pretty much take you from “being a good person is good enough” mindset to “being a good person isn’t enough for Christianity” and tell you why. He tells you straight up how it is with real life explanations and upfront let’s you know the examples aren’t perfect because God is out of this world.

If you haven’t picked this one up, I highly recommend! I have my eye on a box collection at Mardel and I anticipate reading more (and more) of C.S. Lewis in the future. 🙂

Check out these quotes from Mere Christianity:

The perfect surrender and humiliation were undergone by Christ: perfect because He was God, surrender and humiliation because He was man.

The Practical Conclusion

He has room for people with very little sense, but He wants every one to use what sense they have.

The ‘Cardinal Virtues’

For many of us the great obstacle to charity lies not in our luxurious living or desire for more money, but in our fear – fear of insecurity.

I may repeat ‘Do as you would be done by’ till I am black in the face, but I cannot really carry it out till I love my neighbor as myself: and I cannot learn to love my neighbor as myself till I learn to love God: and I cannot learn to love God except by learning to obey Him.

Social Morality

…it was through Pride that the devil became the devil: Pride leads to every other vice: it is the complete anti-God state of mind.

…each person’s pride is in competition with every one else’s pride.

Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man.

The Great Sin

The great thing to remember is that, though our feelings come and go, His love for us does not. It is not wearied by our sins, or our indifference; and, therefore, it is quite relentless in its determination that we shall be cured of those sins, at whatever cost to us, at whatever cost to Him.

Charity

The whole purpose for which we exist is to be thus taken into the life of God. Wrong ideas about what that life is will make it harder.

The Three-Personal God

You are as much alone with Him as if you were the only being He had ever created. When Christ died, He died for you individually just as much if you had been the only man in the world.

Time and Beyond Time

There are lots of nice things you can do with sand: but do not try building a house on it.

Let’s Pretend

Those who put themselves in His hands will become perfect, as He is perfect – perfect in love, wisdom, joy, beauty, and immortality. The change will not be completed in this life, for death is an important part of the treatment.

It costs God nothing, so far as we know, to create nice things: but to convert rebellious wills cost His crucifixion.

Nice People or New Men

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Love Delivered by B.M. Baker

This story spoke to my soul. I live in books, I speak books, and I’m horrible when it comes to stepping out of the pages and living in reality. I would love if my person arrived this way, plus, I just love handwritten sentiments and I love mail.

So now I have dreams of this happening.

This will be in 3 years.

Honestly. Look at her. She would turn thirty in November, and look what she’d done with her life. Absolutely nothing. She didn’t even have a beau. How many romance novels had she read over the last two decades? How many times had she longed for one of them to be her love story? But hers never came. And now with her banished at Grandmother’s, Elita had no hope of ever gaining the attention of a man.

Page 40

I enjoyed the faith journey of Elita throughout and that Sidney was adorable with his infatuation. If I was Elita, I would not be so trusting, but I would be dreaming just as much as she did about receiving letters.

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Sit Stay Love by Dana Mentink

This one was cute!! I loved all the dog’s antics throughout the book. This was a fun and light read with a touch of family dynamics and conflict mixed in with the whole celebrity problems, but nothing real deep. Would have been a great Saturday afternoon read to be honest.

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Hope you’re 2023 is off to a great start!!

It’s time to set your reading goal for the new year… let me know what your new goal is in the comments along with what books you read this past month!