EFR REVIEWS

A series following the stories of three sisters traveling across the Pacific Northwest, beginning in 1847.... FRONTIER SERIES #1 TREASURED GRACE Grace Martindale has known more than her share of hardship. After her parents died, raising her two younger sisters became her responsibility. A hasty marriage to a minister who is heading to the untamed West seemed like an opportunity for a fresh start, but a cholera outbreak along the wagon trail has left Grace a widow in a very precarious position. Having learned natural remedies and midwifery from her mother, Grace seeks an opportunity to use her skills for the benefit of others. So when she and her sisters arrive at the Whitman mission in "Oregon Country," she decides to stay rather than push on.  With the help of Alex Armistead, a French-American fur trapper, Grace begins to provide care for her neighbors, including some of the native populace. But not everyone welcomes her skills--or her presence--and soon Grace finds herself ...

Daniel, wife Kelly, and daughter Milly appear to be the perfect family. But an old camera will expose secrets no one wants developed. Daniel Whiteley is a successful marriage counselor and bestselling author, yet his own marriage is in crisis and his daughter is drifting further away each day. To make matters worse, the deadline for his second book has come and gone, and he still hasn't written a single word. When Daniel inherits an old camera from his grandfather, he notices an inscription on the bottom: "No matter what you think you might see, the camera never lies." Daniel begins using the camera, but every time he develops the photos, they threaten to reveal secrets that could sabotage both his marriage and his career --- and destroy the life he has worked so hard to build. He's faced with a choice: keep his secrets and save his career, or come clean and possibly save his family. Which will he choose? Which will  you  choose? ★ ★ ★1/2 Professionally, Daniel Whitel...

For nine seasons Rainn Wilson played Dwight Schrute, everyone's favorite work nemesis and beet farmer. Viewers of  The Office  fell in love with the character and grew to love the actor who played him even more. Rainn founded a website and media company, SoulPancake, that eventually became a bestselling book of the same name. He also started a hilarious Twitter feed (sample tweet: “I'm not on Facebook” is the new “I don't even own a TV”) that now has more than four million followers.   Now, he's ready to tell his own story and explain how he came up with his incredibly unique sense of humor and perspective on life. He explains how he grew up “bone-numbingly nerdy before there was even a modicum of cool attached to the word.”  The Bassoon King  chronicles his journey from nerd to drama geek (“the highest rung on the vast, pimply ladder of high school losers”), his years of mild debauchery and struggles as a young actor in New York, his many adventures and insight...

    The Bible tells the story of God meeting real people in a real time and place, yet we rarely take the time to wonder,  Why there?  Maybe we have a hard time even picturing where  there  is. To begin to fully understand the Bible, we must understand the geographical settings of Scripture and how each place participates in the biblical story.  With its colorful maps,  The Basic Bible Atlas  helps us link geography to Bible study so we can understand how place impacted events in the Bible. From Eden to Egypt, from the promised land to Persia, from Bethlehem to the New Jerusalem,  The Basic Bible Atlas  is a fascinating guide to the land of the Bible.  ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆ Dr. John Beck, a theology professor for over twenty-five years, inspired by not only his studies but also his many treks across the Middle East, developed the Basic Bible Atlas as a tool to enhance bible studies for readers around the world. Beck explores and maps out m...

WILDER BOYS #1 Wilder Boys   Two brothers will need all their wilderness skills to survive when they set off into the woods of Wyoming in search of their absent father. Jake and Taylor Wilder have been taking care of themselves for a long time. Their father abandoned the family years ago, and their mother is too busy working and running interference between the boys and her boyfriend, Bull, to spend a lot of time with them. Thirteen-year-old Jake spends most of his time reading. He pours over his father’s journal, which is full of wilderness facts and survival tips. Eleven-year-old Taylor likes to be outside playing with their dog, Cody, or joking around with the other kids in the neighborhood. But one night everything changes. The boys discover a dangerous secret that Bull is hiding.  And the next day, they come home from school to find their mother unconscious in an ambulance. Knowing they are no longer safe and with nowhere else to go, the Wilder Boys head off in sea...

Okay, so today we're looking at a trilogy of Christian self-help style memoirs by Alexandra Kuykendall, plus a bonus, unrelated memoir about her unique upbringing!  works of A. Kuykendall Starting with the ... what do we call these... the "Loving My... " series? (not sure if the set has an official, collective name) #1 Loving My Actual Life: An Experiment in Relishing What's Right In Front of Me ★ ★ ★1/2 Author Alexandra Kuykendall is a writer who has also spent nearly a decade working for  MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) International . In her newest book, a memoir of sorts, she relates the things she learned about her family and herself while carrying out a life experiment in which she spent 9 months making more of an effort to love the life she has rather than the pie-in-the-sky ideal she thought she wanted and was missing out on. As a mother of four -- the youngest 3 years old, the oldest entering middle grade -- with an insane daily schedu...