by Kimberla Lawson Roby ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 21, 2016
Thrilling for fans of the series.
The Rev. Curtis Black extended-family saga returns with Black’s son Dillon at the helm of a new megachurch in Mitchell, Illinois.
Dillon may have a congregation of more than 1,000 souls at New Faith Christian Center, but he lacks something every minister ought to have: a true calling from God. Knowing quite well that he’s a pastor called to the pulpit only by his own greed and his desire to avenge his father’s refusal to acknowledge him as a child, Dillon nonetheless prays daily, although his hopes for a true calling are buried underneath several other pleas for fame and fortune. When Raven, Dillon’s beautiful wife—whom Rev. Curtis has spurned for embezzling funds from his own church—decides she has also been called to the pulpit, the wheels of jealousy and vengeance begin to turn. Dillon doesn’t want to share his pulpit with anyone and certainly not with his wife. Nor does he want to give up the attentions of either his wife or his mistress, Porsha. Meanwhile, Dillon’s sister Alicia is finally happily married to Levi, the man whose love not only drove her to infidelity, but also drove her and her previous husband, Phillip, to a fatal altercation over a gun. Phillip’s death haunts Alicia, and she’s begun to hear disturbing voices urging her toward suicide. Will Alicia’s troubles and Dillon’s plans for retribution finally bring down the Black family? With so many novels and novellas in the franchise, Roby (Best Friends Forever, 2016, etc.) must deal with a lot of back stories, which slows down the pace; in several scenes, Alicia and Dillon spend more time ruminating about their pasts than acting in the present. Fortunately, all the breathless exposition often works well to establish Dillon as a heartless villain/protagonist.
Thrilling for fans of the series.Pub Date: June 21, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4555-5959-6
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 2, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2016
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by C.S. Lewis ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 1, 1942
These letters from some important executive Down Below, to one of the junior devils here on earth, whose job is to corrupt mortals, are witty and written in a breezy style seldom found in religious literature. The author quotes Luther, who said: "The best way to drive out the devil, if he will not yield to texts of Scripture, is to jeer and flout him, for he cannot bear scorn." This the author does most successfully, for by presenting some of our modern and not-so-modern beliefs as emanating from the devil's headquarters, he succeeds in making his reader feel like an ass for ever having believed in such ideas. This kind of presentation gives the author a tremendous advantage over the reader, however, for the more timid reader may feel a sense of guilt after putting down this book. It is a clever book, and for the clever reader, rather than the too-earnest soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1942
ISBN: 0060652934
Page Count: 53
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1943
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by C.S. Lewis
by Heather Morris ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 4, 2018
The writing is merely serviceable, and one can’t help but wish the author had found a way to present her material as...
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An unlikely love story set amid the horrors of a Nazi death camp.
Based on real people and events, this debut novel follows Lale Sokolov, a young Slovakian Jew sent to Auschwitz in 1942. There, he assumes the heinous task of tattooing incoming Jewish prisoners with the dehumanizing numbers their SS captors use to identify them. When the Tätowierer, as he is called, meets fellow prisoner Gita Furman, 17, he is immediately smitten. Eventually, the attraction becomes mutual. Lale proves himself an operator, at once cagey and courageous: As the Tätowierer, he is granted special privileges and manages to smuggle food to starving prisoners. Through female prisoners who catalog the belongings confiscated from fellow inmates, Lale gains access to jewels, which he trades to a pair of local villagers for chocolate, medicine, and other items. Meanwhile, despite overwhelming odds, Lale and Gita are able to meet privately from time to time and become lovers. In 1944, just ahead of the arrival of Russian troops, Lale and Gita separately leave the concentration camp and experience harrowingly close calls. Suffice it to say they both survive. To her credit, the author doesn’t flinch from describing the depravity of the SS in Auschwitz and the unimaginable suffering of their victims—no gauzy evasions here, as in Boy in the Striped Pajamas. She also manages to raise, if not really explore, some trickier issues—the guilt of those Jews, like the tattooist, who survived by doing the Nazis’ bidding, in a sense betraying their fellow Jews; and the complicity of those non-Jews, like the Slovaks in Lale’s hometown, who failed to come to the aid of their beleaguered countrymen.
The writing is merely serviceable, and one can’t help but wish the author had found a way to present her material as nonfiction. Still, this is a powerful, gut-wrenching tale that is hard to shake off.Pub Date: Sept. 4, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-279715-5
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 16, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2018
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