Review for Wisdom Hunter

I will confess that I almost gave up on this book. Halfway through the novel I felt overwhelmed with the sense of hopelessness and despair, the anger towards God, and the tragedy of loss experienced by Jason Faircloth, the main character. I wanted to give up as much as he did. The continual struggles and unanswered questions were almost more than I could bare. Honestly, it was only a sense of duty to Multnomah publishing, who had provided the book for review, that prevented me from putting the book aside.

Let me say that I am now very glad I didn't. As much as the first part of this story is filled with heartache, tragedy, anguish, and self-hate, the second part is filled with healing, renewal, and the ministry of God's faithful once they realize and accept his love for them.

This is not a "feel-good" read. It is not an adventure story. It is a thought-provoking tale of one man's journey from living life in cold, self-righteous piety to discovering God's true purpose for him: being an unreserved, compassionate, selfless servant of God.

I would like to thank Multnomah for giving me the opportunity to review this book, and Randall Arthur for having the courage to author it. I would recommend this to other adults who are willing to bare up through the pain of this novel to discover the underlying truths within its pages.

http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9781601422996&ref=externallink_mlt_wisdomhunter_sec_0908_01

--Karina Harris, author of "Second Chance"

A Review for "The Life of Bud"

What an unexpected gem! I thought I was getting a children's book on " plant life cycles". "The Life of Bud" is so much more.

Simple, vibrant illustrations beautifully match the gentle poignancy of the text in the story of how Bud begins life as an oak bud, and grows into a leaf. Laura Eckroat does a remarkable job of expressing fears of growing up, changing, and even death as she chronicles the life of a tiny oak leaf.

I cried as I read it, thinking about the lives of loved ones and the impact that we all have on each other. This book is a must have for parents and teachers of young children.

Available at Amazon.com and Barnesandnoble.com, as well as Tate Publishing.

Lessons Learned

I finally received the proof copy of "Second Chance" a couple of weeks ago. I was told this was my final opportunity to read through the novel and correct any layout or punctuation errors. I confidently and excitedly sat down to read through it, feeling certain I wouldn't find many.

Let's just say my ego has taken quite a bruising. Most of the errors I found questioned comma usage. But I had everything from missing words to backwards quotation marks. If I had a nickel for every time I asked myself, "how did I miss this?"....

I read through the book twice, listed all the possible errors, and mailed it back to the publisher today, anxious that I might have missed even more mistakes.

Being a compulsive problem solver, I have already thought of a couple of things I will do differently before signing that "content approval form" on the next novel:

1. I'm going to print out the entire book. It's amazing how different it looks on paper.
2. Before I print out the book, I'm going to change the font, so that it will have an even different appearance, because let's face it, once you've read something 15 time, you tend to gloss over parts that you "know by heart".
3. I will read it through once looking for "content" and once more looking strictly for punctuation type errors.
4. I'm going to purchase a book on grammar and punctuation usage, so I will have a reference when those annoying questions pop up such as, "should this be a comma or semi-colon".

Hopefully this will help solve at least some of the issues! Stay tuned for the release date of "Second Chance"! It should be out before Christmas.