by Crystal Caudill | Jan 31, 2024 | Book Reviews, Reading Challenge
It’s time to start our newest challenge: Unlocking Ecclesiastes 3. I’m so excited to join you again this year with guest reviews from our reading challenge participants. If you want to submit a review for upcoming months, feel free to email me using my contact form. If you are looking for suggestions as to what to read each month, visit my recommendations page – Reading Challenge Recommendations — or I recommend joining my Crystal Caudill’s Reading Friends Facebook group, or visiting Avid Readers of Christian Fiction or Inspirational Historical Fiction Index. I’ll also include a short list at the bottom of this post.an Fiction or Inspirational Historical Fiction Index. I’ll also include a short list at the bottom of this post.
Don’t forget to comment at the bottom of the post for your chance to win a book off my prize shelf. *The list of prizes available from my prize shelf can be found here.*
Unlocking the Past: Ecclesiastes 3
Just as Ecclesiastes has two opposites in each verse, most months will leave you with two options to choose from.
“For everything there is a season,
a time for every activity under heaven.”
January Verse: A time to be born and a time to die.
Challenge Theme: A book with a Baby or End of Life character
February Verse: A time to plant and a time to harvest.
Challenge Theme: A book with a Rural Setting OR a Major Move/Life Change
Catching Christmas
by Teri Blackstock
Review by: Crystal Caudill
Yes, I know. It’s a Christmas book and a contemporary one at that. I promise most of my future challenge books will be historical in nature, but I accidentally read this end-of-life book in December and decided to work ahead since I had a deadline in January. What do I mean by accidentally? I wouldn’t have picked it up if I knew it was an end-of-life book when I started listening to it. As a caregiver, that is just a hard subject for me right now, and the grandma, Callie, in this story dealt with a lot of memory/dementia-type issues and something else that . However, I forced myself to finish listening to it since it came so highly recommended, and Terri Blackstock has been on my need-to-try author list for a long time.
I’m still processing it. It was written in first person, one of my least favorite, but it didn’t fall under suspense or romance like I thought it would. It was fascinating to be in Finn’s perspective, and Sydney was . . . a difficult character for me. I tend to fall along Finn’s lines in that you sacrifice and give up for your family. Not that Sydney wasn’t trying her best, but I really got frustrated with her throughout the book with the decisions she made.
Genre: Contemporary Christmas
Plot Overview:
An overworked attorney’s grandmother will stop at nothing to find her a date for Christmas in this heartwarming holiday love story about finding what really matters in life.
As a first-year law associate, Sydney Batson knows she will be updating her resume by New Year’s if she loses her current case. So when her grandmother gets inexplicably ill while Sydney is in court, she arranges for a cab to take her grandmother to the clinic.
The last thing cab driver Finn Parrish wants is to be saddled with a wheelchair-bound old lady with dementia. But because Miss Callie reminds him of his own mother, whom he failed miserably in her last days, he can’t say no when she keeps calling him for rides. Once a successful gourmet chef, Finn’s biggest concern now is paying his rent, but half the time Callie doesn’t remember to pay him. And as she starts to feel better, she leads him on wild-goose chases to find a Christmas date for her granddaughter.
When Finn meets Sydney, he’s quite certain she’s never needed help finding a date. Does Miss Callie have an ulterior motive, or is this just a mission driven by delusions? He’s willing to do whatever he can to help fulfill Callie’s Christmas wish. He just never expected to be a vital part of it.
Purchase Links:
Amazon | Baker Bookhouse | Barnes & Noble | Christianbook.com
Giveaway
For your chance to win a print copy, comment with what book YOU read for this month. Use the Rafflecopter below for extra entries and to mark that you left a comment. Entries end on the 7th of each month at midnight EST, and the winner will be drawn sometime that week and notified by email. The winner will be announced on the Rafflecopter widget.
*Open to all residents of the contiguous USA, legally able to enter, and an e-book format or Amazon Gift Card will be awarded to those outside that range who are legally able to enter.
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Recommendations for February:
- Counterfeit Hope by Crystal Caudill
- Mark of the King, Jocelyn Green
- When Valleys Bloom Again by Pat Jeanne Davis
- Forsaken Dreams by MaryLu Tyndall
- Rocky Mountain Promise by Misty Beller
- Shaped By the Waves – Christina Suzann Nelson
- The Shunning trilogy by Beverly Lewis
- Forsaken Dreams by MaryLu Tyndall
What did you read for the challenge? What were your thoughts on it? Would you recommend it?
by Crystal Caudill | Dec 12, 2023 | Reading Challenge
As we close out another year of the Unlocking the Past Reading Challenge, I’m looking forward to a new year with new challenges. After taking suggestions from my Facebook Group, I’ve settled on the theme:
Unlocking the Past: Ecclesiastes 3
Just as Ecclesiastes has two opposites in each verse, most months will leave you with two options to choose from.
“For everything there is a season,
a time for every activity under heaven.”
January Verse: A time to be born and a time to die.
Challenge Theme: A book with a Baby or End of Life character
February Verse: A time to plant and a time to harvest.
Challenge Theme: A book with a Rural Setting OR a Major Move/Life Change
March Verse: A time to kill and a time to heal.
Challenge Theme: A book with a serial killer or a character in the medical profession.
April Verse: A time to tear down and a time to build up.
Challenge Theme: A book with characters or plots related to construction, remodeling, demolition, or architecture.
May Verse: A time to cry and a time to laugh.
Challenge Theme: A RomCom or a book that makes you cry
June Verse: A time to grieve and a time to dance.
Challenge Theme: A book with a funeral or with a character who is a dancer.
July Verse: A time to embrace and a time to turn away.
Challenge Theme: Second Chance Romance or Family/Friend Reconciliation
August Verse: A time to search and a time to quit searching.
Challenge Theme: A mystery or a theme of someone searching for family
September Verse: A time to tear and a time to mend.
Challenge Theme: A Tailor/Seamstress character
October Verse: A time to be quiet and a time to speak.
Challenge Theme: A mute/deaf character or a character who advocates for others
November Verse: A time to love and a time to hate.
Challenge Theme: An enemies-to-lovers book
December Verse: A time for war and a time for peace.
Challenge Theme: A book set at the end of a war
Just as this year there was a monthly prize, there will continue to be a monthly prize with this reading challenge. You don’t have to participate every month to qualify. Participate in what months you can and skip the months where life gets in the way.
Now I need YOUR help. I want to create a page, as well as posts, with recommended reads for each month. So help me out and tell me what books you’d recommend. (Be sure to say which month 1, 2, 3, etc your recommendation goes with.)
Everyone who comments will be entered for a chance to win either a signed copy of one of my books (your choice) are a book off my prize shelf. (The winner will be randomly selected on December 19 and emailed.)
by Crystal Caudill | Dec 22, 2021 | Reading Challenge
Hi guys! Apparently, I am unintentionally taking the month off or writing book reviews, but there are some other great announcements to make like . . .
After having such a great year of reading books with other historical fiction fans, I’ve decided to do it again with a different theme: Around the World.
Exciting Changes:
A New Partner
This year I am partnering with the AMAZING book reviewer, Phyllis from @AmongTheReads. Together we are going to share reviews of books that take you around the world. Phyllis is an avid reader and has hundreds of book reviews on her website in an easy-to-find way. I highly suggest you pop over to her website AmongTheReads.net to check her out and find your next great read.
Prizes
Due to the high cost of the 2021 Reading Challenge, I’ve changed up how I’ll do 2022 prizes in order to make it where this can be a long-term thing. Instead of receiving a copy of the reviewed book, winners will get a chance to pick from my stack of new and gently used Christian Fiction books which will have new additions every month. I’ll keep a list of those choices on the Unlocking the Past Webpage beginning in January after the first challenge is over. At the beginning of January 2023, those who have participated in any of the monthly challenges will get entered to win a Grand Prize Reader Basket. The prizes may change, but at the moment, the prize will include a copy of Counterfeit Love by Crystal Caudill (me), Everyday Love by Katie Orr (A Focused15 Study), a book recommended by me, reader socks, tea, and a bookmark.
Participation Requirements
Books no longer HAVE to be historical, but I will push them as a preference. With the Around the World theme, some areas are just going to be really hard to find with a historical focus, plus I’m hoping this will allow more readers to be involved.
In order to be entered to win books each month and the grand prize at the end of the month, you will still be required to comment on what you read on that month’s Reading Challenge Review post from the last day of the month. I will still use Rafflecopter to randomly select the winner. Extra entries can only be earned for that month and are only available through the Rafflecopter link. HOWEVER, if someone comments that they joined the reading challenge because of your invite, I will add three extra entries for the end of the year prize manually for each person who mentions you.
Comments for the monthly drawing must be made by midnight EST of the 8th of the month. Any comments made after that point will still get you an entry to the end of the year drawing, but will not go toward the monthly drawing.
Suggested Reading Posts
I will once again be adding monthly suggested reading posts on the first of each month. My suggestions will be a mix of historical and contemporary, with a heavier focus on historical when possible. These suggestions will not necessarily be ones that I have personally read but have been found on Among the Reads, the Inspirational Historical Fiction Index, and my connections in the author world.
Legalese
The giveaway portion is open to all eligible members of society according to their country’s and state’s laws and it is up to you know whether you are legally able to enter. Print copies are only eligible to winners eligible for media mail in the 50 states of the USA. Any winner outside of the United States (or readers within the USA who prefer an e-book) will get to choose a Christian Fiction e-book that is on sale for $5 or under on Amazon. If the winner of the grand prize is outside of the United States, they will receive an e-copy of Counterfeit Love, three additional e-books, and a snail mail letter with bookmarks. This giveaway is not associated with anyone but me, Crystal Caudill, and all winners will be randomly drawn by a third-party app like Rafflecopter (monthly) or https://miniwebtool.com/random-name-picker/ (end of the year).
Unlocking the Past 2022 Reading Challenge: Around the World
Monthly Themes
January – Africa
February – Asia
March – Caribbean
April – Eastern Europe
May – Europe
June – Mediterranean
July – Middle East
August – N. America
September – Oceania (Australia, New Zealand, all the little islands around there – Samoa, Guam, Marshall Islands, Fiji, etc)
October – S. America
November – Bucket List Country
December – Christmas in Any Country
So here’s the question: Are YOU going to participate this year? And is there anyone you can share this reading challenge with? The more the merrier. What books do you recommend for the first month: Africa?
