Emma Who Saved My Life, by Wilton Barnhardt (Old Favourites #11)

After surviving the sense of loss that came when I finally finished reading Masters of Rome, after failing to be engrossed by The Friday Night Knitting Club, what could I do but turn back to another of my Old Favourites — those tried-and-true books that have pulled me through the best and worst times of [...]

The Friday Night Knitting Club, by Kate Jacobs

The Friday Night Knitting Club is one of those books that fits very comfortably in the “women’s fiction” niche — commercial rather than literary, but much better-crafted than most genre fiction.   Heartwarming, tear-jerking, and just a teensy bit formulaic, this novel was an enjoyable read but not one I’ll be stirred to read again.
It’s the [...]

Masters of Rome (series), by Colleen McCullough

This is a series of books so epic, the word “epic” doesn’t really do it justice. The seven gigantic books (average length seems to be about 700 pages) sweep through over a hundred years of Roman history, from Julius Caesar’s forerunners Marius and Sulla, up to Caesar Augustus.
I started this series years ago, when [...]

The Seduction of the Crimson Rose, by Lauren Willig

OK, this one wasn’t inspirational fiction, but I picked it up at the library while I was waiting for one of the McCullough books to come in on hold. It’s part of the same series as Masque of the Black Tulip, which I read a couple of years ago — a series of novels [...]

Martha and Mary, by Patty Froese Ntihemuka

Patty Froese Ntihemuka’s second Biblical novel brings to life the two sisters from Bethany, Mary who sat at Jesus’ feet and Martha who stayed busy — and resentful — in the kitchen. In fleshing out the few scriptural references to these women and their brother Lazarus, the author has also drawn on the tradition that [...]

Club Sandwich, by Lisa Samson

The few breaks I’ve taken this summer from reading my way through Colleen McCullough’s immense Masters of Rome series (to be reviewed at summer’s end!) have mostly been to pick up a few lighter novels published by Christian presses for some Sabbath reading. I write for a Christian publisher myself, and I have a [...]