Tag Archive | Hodder and Stoughton

Return To The Shack by William Paul Young

Oct25

Love Promises

Return To The Shack by William Paul Young is the much-awaited sequel to The Shack, and what a powerful and rich read it is.

I absolutely loved The Shack. I love Return To The Shack even more. They are two of THE BEST books that show us the heart of the Father.

This book has many themes but ultimately, it is a book about love. It is the love of our father God for all of His children. No one is ever out of reach of His love – It is just a question of, do we know how much we are loved? – And, we can trust God’s love. “I am choosing to trust Love, regardless of everything I don’t understand.”

We learn that God’s love covers all. “Nothing… can ever separate us. Not you, not your choices, not your emotions, not your imaginations, and especially not sin.” God’s love is a gift freely given. We need to open our hands and our hearts to receive it.

We all need God. “Papa God, I need you, I really need you.” There are times when life is just too hard without Him. “I don’t want to love this man – so somehow help me find your heart for him.” When we cannot love in our strength, we need to ask God for help to love in His strength.

We need to be ‘real’ with God and with others. “Fear makes us hide the truth of our faith battles behind our triumphant smiles on a Sunday morning.” If people don’t know what we are facing, how can they help us?

When God places someone on your heart, don’t ask questions, just pray. “I woke up… and felt a burden for you and started praying.” Prayer changes lives.

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The Virgin Mary’s Got Nits by Gervase Phinn

Jan6

Heart Warming

The Virgin Mary’s Got Nits by Gervase Phinn is a very charming anthology of tales and poems set at Christmas.

We hear tales about nativities that the author experienced as he visited schools in Yorkshire in his role as school inspector. Children are delightfully honest and forthright in their opinions, which often produces much hilarity.

A child in a nativity said: “Can you tell the palm tree to shift, Miss, he’s blocking my view and I can’t see my Nana.”

An angel in another nativity when talking of the baby Jesus said: “’E’s a reight bobby-dazzler.”

There are poems scattered throughout, as well as short stories that bring a tear to your eye. My particular favourites were Happy Christmas, Miss Dunn; and A Christmas Miracle.

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The Wartime Book Club by Kate Thompson

Jan2

A Golden Thread

The Wartime Book Club by Kate Thompson is a powerful historical novel that totally consumed me and I read in just one sitting.

The novel is based on a true story of friendship, courage and resistance in times of war. It is set in Nazi occupied Jersey during World War II.

Books were important to the islanders. They provided an escape for minds though their bodies were in captivity. Librarian Grace cared for the books, hiding the banned books away. She brought books to the islanders and set up the wartime book club. “The library… represented safety and security, a sense of order that the world outside could… never offer.”

The book club united those from all different walks of life. The people bandied together receiving a collective hope that the books provided.

There was much bravery. “Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear.” Brave souls did what they could to save others as there were also those who would denounce their neighbours for a few reichsmarks. “War… was the greatest killer of trust.”

Love blossoms in times of war. We witness a love that binds. Also, a love between friends that gives each a hope, a hope needed to survive. “Hope was a powerful thing… and… she had to coat herself in, like armour.” Without hope the people perish.

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The Girl Behind The Gates by Brenda Davies

Jun27

Home At Last

The Girl Behind The Gates by Brenda Davies is an absolutely heartbreaking novel. It is the true story of Nora who was incarcerated in a mental hospital in 1939, and was still there in 1981 when a new psychiatrist, Janet, began to work there.

 This is a book of two halves. Nora’s early story in the first part, and her story as she interacts with Janet in part two.

This is a story that will shock and horrify the reader because it is true. It happened. This Nora’s story.

Nora had a home, not a particularly loving one, as her father was a bully.

In 1939 Nora fell in love as a seventeen year old and became an expectant unmarried mother. For a Catholic family, ruled with an iron rod, this was an unforgiveable sin. Nora is continually told that she is bad, and it is a lie that she tells herself. “Her mother does still love her, even though she’s wicked.” Nora is incarcerated in order to ‘pay’ for her ‘sin’.

The modern reader is shocked and horrified by the treatment of the patients – six hundred in 1939 in just one institution. This book should make us both justifiably angry, and very sad for the innocent lives locked away. In 1939 we read that “Such people [unmarried expectant mothers], since 1927 termed ‘moral defectives’, include those such as criminals, alcoholics and prostitutes – and also unmarried mothers.” This is beyond horrifying. It is appalling that innocent lives were hidden away for decades. That young girls were seen as infected with sin, and that they could infect others and also pass their ‘sin’ onto their baby. It is truly shocking to read of what happened at the birth of Nora’s baby.

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