Monday, December 13, 2010

Brilliant Disguises by William Thornton

Alerting my Readers,

I have had the privilege of reviewing this book, and I have to find Mr. Thornton's e-mail address.
I greatly appreciate his allowing me to review his work! This is one INCREDIBLE self-published book, and worth the time you need to take to read it.

Brilliant Disguises follows a large time frame in the life of Leon Cameron. Leon takes a job that requires him to be a Christian, so instead of having a one-on-one relationship with Christ, Cameron gets involved in a church and learns to play the Christian game.

(I can't tell you how many people over the years I have felt  have been doing this! My own Grandfather was a Pastor. He said his ministry was to the lost, but that his mission every Sunday was to reach the lost church members!)

Cameron finds out what church his boss goes to, and he joins. He excels in wearing the mask, playing the Christian game, and is good at his job that he has secured by doing so. The head of the company and ministry, Dr. Foster, has his directives sent down, but few people ever meet him. Sometimes it seems he isn't even real!

Cameron marries a good Christian wife. He helps council those in need as he sees their issues, and figures if nothing else that knowledge gives him power. He wrestles with his Sister In Law begging for him to speak to her in Peter's voice. You see Cameron is a good imitator. He can imitate his deceased brother Peter.
He can imitate being a good husband, and he can imitate being a Christian. As the years of his life go by in this book, things just get in deeper and deeper.

In the course of the book Cameron comes to realize that almost everyone he knows is wearing a mask. He gets quite good at figuring out what their mask is, and why they wear it. But Cameron can't figure out one of the most important things... himself. Cameron lives among Christians, but he is not going to loose control and let God have him, and so he has a very odd "relationship" with God, and all those around him. He can quote the Bible quite well, and tends to understand the meanings that he should, but it is all head knowledge, and not from the heart.

And through it all, God himself never stops reaching out to Cameron, waiting, being who He is, our ever loving Father, waiting. The end of the book was good, but shocking.

This is the kind of book that "sleeping" Christians need to read! This is the kind of book that will provoke you to think, and think you should! I can see how it might really offend some people, how some people will be aghast, and then I can see how this book has the potential to help many. I am very glad I got to read it.

In the grouping of books that make you think, Brilliant Disguises and Imaginary Jesus are on the top of my list for this year. If you are able to et a copy, grab one quickly!

Carol


  Product Description

"Cameron Leon is the best man in his church,
but he doesn’t believe a thing.
He assumes many guises but runs the risk of losing everything.
Except himself. He lost that a long time ago.
Only One can give it back to him.
And Cameron has been imitating Him all along..."

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

The Charlatan’s Boy by Jonathan Rogers

Hello Dear Readers,


Get a copy of this one under the tree this year for any of your young'uns. This book would also be great for Grandpaw to read to the the whole family each night. The Charlatan's Boy  is quite captivating. 


Enter the world of Grady, and the Feechie. As you read about them, you will probably realize you might have see a Feechie, in disguise probably acting like civilized folk.  Grady isn't a real Feechie, though he would rather think he was sometimes than wonder where he really came from. Being shown off as the World's Ugliest Boy isn't much fun, but what is a feller to do for a living? Grady often longs for another life, but at the same time can't bring himself to leave the only man he has ever know, the one who has raised him, Floyd. 


Floyd will not tell Grady where he really came from, and sometimes it is just heart rending for Grady to not know who his parents were, but at the same time he can't blame them because who would want to keep a child as ugly as him? 


Grady's got a good honest soul, and he would rather work in the Feechie trade than several of Floyd's more dishonest ventures. A man has to eat, but Grady would rather do that with a kind of fun and prank that feels more honest and has more showmanship to it than selling folk fake liver pills, or bottles of cod liver oil type things to make you young again. 


About when things are at their worst Floyd decides to make sure that the whole island knows that Feechie aren't dead or gone. They are alive and well, and scary! To help everyone believe again Grady and Floyd set out on a grand scheme to create quite a scare. Grady even winds up using a "roaring machine". I remember hearing about those from my Grandparents. Seems they make such a dreadful noise that they were outlawed in some place for scaring cattle. 


And I am not going to tell you what happens from the great Feechie scare on. You are going to have to The Charlatan's Boy for yourself to find out if the Feechie are going to wind up murdering people in their beds at night, or eat'n up all the cows on the Drover's trail. 


Carol :)  



“I only know one man who might be able to tell me where I come from, and that man is a liar and a fraud.”

As far back as he can remember, the orphan Grady has tramped from village to village in the company of a huckster named Floyd. With his adolescent accomplice, Floyd perpetrates a variety of hoaxes and flimflams on the good citizens of the Corenwald frontier, such as the Ugliest Boy in the World act.

It’s a hard way to make a living, made harder by the memory of fatter times when audiences thronged to see young Grady perform as “The Wild Man of the Feechiefen Swamp.” But what can they do? Nobody believes in feechies anymore.

When Floyd stages an elaborate plot to revive Corenwalders’ belief in the mythical swamp-dwellers known as the feechiefolk, he overshoots the mark. Floyd’s Great Feechie Scare becomes widespread panic. Eager audiences become angry mobs, and in the ensuing chaos, the Charlatan’s Boy discovers the truth that has evaded him all his life—and will change his path forever.

________


“Jonathan Rogers has created a new kind of story—part fantasy, part southern fiction. It’s sad and funny and heartwarming. Imagine a southern version of a C. S. Lewis story or a Christian version of a Mark Twain tale. Imagine a world where dragons are alligators, the American South is an island kingdom of cowboys and swamp dwellers, and ugliness, it turns out, is profoundly beautiful. Jonathan Rogers, a Georgia boy with a PhD, a strong faith, and a healthy imagination, gives us a timeless story no one else could have written. I loved it.” —Andrew Peterson, author of The Wingfeather Saga
___________


Book link  - http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0307458229
Author’s blog/web site - http://jonathan-rogers.com/ (Be sure to check out the Feechie Film Festival for some fun!!!)



In conjunction with the CSFF Blog Tour, I received a free copy of this book from the publisher. 

Participants’ links
Sally Apokedak
Amy Bissell
Red Bissell
Jennifer Bogart
Thomas Clayton Booher
Keanan Brand
Beckie Burnham
Jeff Chapman
Christian Fiction Book Reviews
Valerie Comer
CSFF Blog Tour
D. G. D. Davidson
April Erwin
Andrea Graham
Tori Greene
Katie Hart
Bruce Hennigan
Christopher Hopper
Becky Jesse
Cris Jesse
Jason Joyner
Julie
Carol Keen
Shannon McDermott
Allen McGraw
Matt Mikalatos
Rebecca LuElla Miller
Nissa
Donita K. Paul
SarahFlan
Sarah Sawyer
Chawna Schroeder
Tammy Shelnut
Kathleen Smith
James Somers
Donna Swanson
Robert Treskillard
Fred Warren
Phyllis Wheeler
Nicole White
Elizabeth Williams
Dave Wilson