Welcome to the "Spring Cleaning" book giveaway! Somehow I have managed to get extra copies of some books and while I declutter my shelves, you will get a chance to add them to your collections!
Simple rules this time:
1) If you want to win the book being highlighted under the "Spring Cleaning" listing, just post a comment and answer my spring cleaning type question.
Today's question: What is your least favorite household chore to do? I have several: ironing, mopping, and cleaning out the garage.
2) I'll post all the winners on April 6, no matter what day the book drawing is posted. I'll try to email you if you win.
Today's books: Mars Hill Classified Series by Austin Boyd.
When I first saw these books, I was afraid I wouldn't like them as I am not usually big on "space" type things. I was totally wrong! In fact these books ended up being on my list of favorites for 2007. They are suspenseful, intriguing, and meaningful. Totally good books!
Description:
No amount of training could prepare a man for Spring 2011. As Navy Commander John Wells and his crew watch hopelessly from their space station perch, terrorists cripple the nation's capital and security systems. While the world looks to the Middle East for blame, sudden images off the plains of Mars offer a staggering alternative. With a sophisticated alien culture seemingly confirmed on the Red Planet, a disorganized U.S. government struggles to formulate their next steps. Caught in a web of politics, torn by his family commitments, and called to serve not only his country but his God, John Wells must take a giant step for mankind.
More About Austin Boyd at his website: http://www.austinboyd.com/
My Original Review:
It took me a bit of plodding to get started with this book, maybe because space is not really my thing, but once I got a few chapters into it, I was hooked! It was a suspenseful ride and I couldn't stop reading!
Much of the story revovles around John Wells, an astronaut at work in a space station. Meanwhile, the US is under attack. The book takes you back and forth between Wells in space and the well-planned attacks. The link between the two will remain a mystery for quite some time. John is a man of faith and he learns to rely on God during the time of fear and confusion for him and his family during their separation. The story is also about his wife, Amy, and her struggle to survive the separation from her husband while raising their four children without him. It is also about a determined FBI agent who pursues the complex issues surrounding the US attacks and who seeks out John's expertise even from outer space to try to help him figure it out.
400 plus pages flew by in a brief amount of time as I traveled along with Austin Boyd's characters. I knew the CFBA book tour of the third book was this week and I knew I wanted to read the whole series, but I had no idea how much I would devour the books!
remain a mystery for quite some time. John is a man of faith and he learns to rely on God during the time of fear and confusion for him and his family during their separation. The story is also about his wife, Amy, and her struggle to survive the separation from her husband while raising their four children without him. It is also about a determined FBI agent who pursues the complex issues surrounding the US attacks and who seeks out John's expertise even from outer space to try to help him figure it out.
400 plus pages flew by in a brief amount of time as I traveled along with Austin Boyd's characters. I knew the CFBA book tour of the third book was this week and I knew I wanted to read the whole series, but I had no idea how much I would devour the books!
The Proof by Austin Boyd (Mars Hill Classified Series book 2)
Description:
Is There life on Mars?
That’s what Captain John Wells and his NASA colleagues hope to discover, in this second installment of The Mars Hill trilogy, whenthey undertake an aggressive mission to the Red Planet. However, from the outset, nothing goes as planned.
An uncanny prophesy coupled with an unexpected alien starship escortends in a series of catastrophic events that give John plenty to thinkabout as he makes the interminable journey back to Earth. The mysteriesof Mars, woven into a complex tapestry of international intrigue, willlead him to answers even the most faithful fear. As he starts to putthe pieces of the universal puzzle together, the pieces of his lifefall irrevocably apart, but, as he must constantly remind himself, God does indeed have a plan for him.
My Original Review:
Another great read in this exciting series!
Again we are treated to a story that includes John Wells and his wife Amy and their struggle to be close even while he is on a journey to Mars that will last over 400 days. We readers are again seeing a ego-driven "pastor" and his desire to proclaim a new race of people under his control and the throngs of people who buy into his scans and the "alien" life-forms he successfully predicts will appear; but we readers know there is more to this story and all is not as it seems with him and his "martians." We get to watch FBI Agent Kerry circle the globe in his quest to find the man responsible for the attacks on the US. We are treated to a firsthand "viewing" of Mars through the eyes of Michelle and Sean as they explore the planet.
I was entranced by this book and read it cover to cover in nearly one sitting. I felt Amy's pain at the separation and loneliness without her husband, John's excitement turning to despondence when things go wrong on his trip home from Mars, and the thrill of the chase as the "bad guy" was sought after. I found myself led to prayer for our country, knowing that this was fiction, and yet fearing the possibility of times like this in our future where corrupt leaders would take advantage. I was reminded that God uses times like that too, as he did with Joseph, and as he does with John and Amy Wells.
IS SEEING BELIEVING?
Six years after completing a manned mission to the Red Planet, Admiral John Wells is set to make another journey to Mars. But this time his crew is not alone, as John's team encounters a secret colony comprised of individuals pursuing John Raines' strange religion, the "Father Race."
While John begins to uncover a web of lies on Mars, his wife and daughter are struggling for survival on earth. Now John must survive his dangerous mission and find a way back home, even as a shocking plan begins to unfold millions of miles away on earth.
Austin Boyd is back with his third thrilling novel in the Mars Hill Classified series, full of high-tech intrigue, memorable characters, and adventure that transports readers to another world.
From the Back Cover:
With nothing left for him on Earth, Rear Admiral John Wells didn't hesitate to lead a third NASA team to Mars, but he never dreamed that one day they'd look out their laboratory module into the lights of a slow-moving vehicle not their own. In the third installment of the Mars Hill Classified series, life on Mars becomes increasingly more unpredictable as the past collides with the future and nothing, not even the dead, is as it seems.
Meanwhile, back on Earth, the fate of hundreds, including John Wells' family--presumed dead these last six years--rests precariously in the hands of Malcolm Raines, self-proclaimed Guardian of the Mother Seed and Principal Cleric of Saint Michael's Remnant, and his insidious plans for the Father Race.
Wells will find himself in a race against time and all odds to expose the truth: about Mars, about Malcolm Raines, and, if he's very brave, about himself.
My Reivew:
Wow. The suspense and excitement leading up to this third book was carried through to the last page of this installment. I found myself forgetting that these characters were fiction and wanting to reach out and talk to them like they are real! (I know, it's crazy, but I really did immerse myself in this book so I could finish it today) The story had one surprise after another, starting with John Wells and his team on Mars meeting up with a colony of humans already inhabiting Mars. Then seeing the demented power-hungry Malcolm Raines and his followers and the evil plans he has set in motion to create a "perfect race" of people. I was also full of angst knowing that John thought his family had been killed in a helicopter crash at the end of the second book whereas they had really been kidnapped and were being held somewhere awaiting someone to rescure them after six years of waiting on God... Can you see why I couldn't put it down?
I was mesmerized by John Wells' faith, and his determination to hold onto God even in the darkness of the presumed loss of his family. I was almost envious of Amy's faith (not her horrible plight, but her reaction to it) as she labored day after day in her prison and yet held on to hope and trust in God to provide for her and her family. I was thrilled to see the pieces of the mysteries come together through the workings of Agent Kerry and his wife.
