This book by Marisa De Los Santos has been sitting on my shelf for a few years - I think my husband may have bought Love Walked In for me when we still lived in South Africa, which we moved away from over 6 years ago.  I am trying this year to read what is already there, even though library books are free.  And boy am I glad on this one - when I looked it up on Amazon to add the link, I discovered that it's the first of a series of 4 books - YAY. This story started a little slow for me because I hadn't read the blurb, which explained how the 2 narrators become connected, but once I realized, it was fun to read and see how it happened.  This is the story of a women and her boyfriend's daughter and how they become incredibly important in each other's lives.  I don't want to spoil the story, which definitely had some unexpected twists and turns, but I can tell you it's an engrossing story which I read in a week and had a really great ending.  I'm excited to re...

Our Catholic parish offered its members this book as a read along in Advent of 2020.  I jumped at the chance to read another of Matthew Kelly's books, and I heard God laugh did not disappoint.  I've read a few of his books, and I found this one to be the best so far.  It is a very practical guide to starting a habit of praying daily and how exactly to do that. I grew up Catholic, but nobody ever taught me pray properly and I've never had a good habit of daily prayer.   This book makes me believe that I can finally do it, and pray every day!  I think this book is best read as an extra book - while you're reading some or other fiction as well - and relatively slowly.  I don't this you would get the full benefit if you read it through in 2 days.  I also think it's a great book to read in December or January, when most of us are trying to institute some new habits to coincide with the new year.  I feel like this is especially true following the pande...

How Winston delivered Christmas is a lovely Christmas / Advent type book is written by Alex T. Smith and was  published in 2019.  In this story we follow a sweet mouse as he tries to deliver a letter he finds to Santa on Christmas eve.  He is very brave considering how small he is and how bad the weather is, and he meets some interesting characters along the way as well.  I won't spoil the story, but suffice to say it's a great ending that you wouldn't expect.   We read this one pretty quickly in the week after Christmas, and both my kids, aged 3 and 6 really enjoyed the story.  I thought it was really well written and fun to read, although if you read it quickly then some of the story seems to drag a little.  I definitely think it would be better to read as intended - 1 chapter per day from December 1st to December 25th . I would happily try reading this one again in December 2021, but slowly and perhaps we could tackle some of the activities.  ...