No Safe Haven

Kimberley Woodhouse and Kayla R. Woodhouse

B&H Books (B&H Publishing Group)

softcover, 352 pages, $14.99

978-1-433-67116-6

Fact meets fiction in this taut adventure written by a mother-daughter team. 

In real life, daughter Kayla has a rare nerve disorder, a condition mirrored in the story in Andie Tikaani-Gray, 12-year-old daughter of Jenna and Marcus Gray. Andie and Jenna have been alone for a year since Marcus was killed, their lives finally beginning to find peace. 

But a plane crash turns their world into a race for safety and even for their lives. Mysterious passenger Cole Maddox is certainly hiding something, but Andie and Jenna need his help to survive the harsh Alaskan landscape and the dangerous men who want them dead. As the trio battles to make it off Sultana Mountain, forces larger than they know are gathering to demand AMI, a weapon Marcus created—and died for. Can Cole protect “his girls” long enough to find AMI and save their lives? 

The authors Woodhouse have created a novel of high adventure, exhilarating suspense, powerful divine protection and enough love to bring tears all around. Aside from action-adventure fans, potential readers will include those who have seen the family’s story on ABC’s Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. 

—Ann E. Byle

A Simple Blessing

Michael W. Smith with Thomas Williams

Zondervan

hardcover, 176 pages, $18.99

978-0-310-32756-1

GRAMMY- and Dove Award-winning recording artist Smith was so moved by the hurt and failures expressed by fans at his concerts that he fashioned a blessing for them. A Simple Blessing: The Extraordinary Power of an Ordinary Prayer expands on the roots and results of the blessing.

Drawn from the Scriptures, it is not a promise of riches or fame, but rather one to equip the Christian to live a life of God-ordained blessing. With co-author Williams, Smith explains his blessing in six short chapters. With its outward focus, the blessing requires Christians to give to those whom God would bless through their hands and hearts.

This small, well-written book is relevant to any Christian. Readers will learn more about Smith’s experience of marriage, family, career and mission, and fans will appreciate the heart of ministry that motivated him to offer such a blessing.

—Eilene Ishler

Getting to Heaven

Don Piper and Cecil Murphey

Berkley Books

hardcover, $25.95, 320 pages

978-0-425-24028-1

Piper and Murphey, the pair behind the New York Times best-seller 90 Minutes in Heaven and Heaven Is Real,reunite to tackle the subject of heaven again in Getting to Heaven: Departing Instructions for Your Life Now. Piper again relays his story of dying and visiting heaven, this time coupled with stories from others and Jesus’ final days.

Inspired by the authors’ interactions with readers anxious about the afterlife, the book explores the subject to offer a sense of peace and calm. They present dying not as something to fear, but as a transition into a paradise free from worry, disease and sorrow. 

At the end of each chapter, reader challenges—such as “If you know you will die in the next 90 minutes, who are the people you need to forgive?”—are presented for further contemplation.             

In Getting to Heaven, Piper and Murphey offer a guidebook on the eternal reward promised by Christ for His followers, with scriptural descriptions alongside observations that include Piper’s own visit.

—DeWayne Hamby

Naked Spirituality

Brian D. McLaren

HarperOne

hardcover, 288 pages, $25.99

978-0-061-85398-2

McLaren—author, pastor, speaker and statesman of the Emergent movement—compels readers to drop all pretenses of religion in Naked Spirituality: A Life With God in 12 Simple Words. This book endeavors to strip down one’s relationship with God until there is only a love for Him and one’s neighbors remaining.

To guide readers in doing this, McLaren uses 12 words—such as No, Yes and Sorry—that have helped remind him of the various “doable and durable” spiritual disciplines he has used in various stages of his life. Readers may identify with the trajectory of McLaren’s story as he journeys from an initial simplicity of belief through the confusion that can come from life in the contemporary church to eventual harmony.

One unharmonious element in this book is its ambiguity of language in the introductory chapters, which may leave some readers confused as to whether or not McLaren believes that adherents of all world religions worship the same God.

—Dave Stuart Jr.

Verily, Verily

Jon Sweeney

Zondervan

hardcover, 224 pages, $18.99

978-0-310-32025-8

Why would anyone want to read the stodgy King James Version (KJV)—with its “thees and thous”—when more palatable and accurate translations exist? Sweeney offers a host of reasons in Verily, Verily: The KJV—400 Years of Influence and Beauty.

Not only is the KJV the most widely printed and circulated version, but it also embodies the most literary power, he argues. Completed in 1611 and marking its 400th anniversary this year, the KJV has profoundly impacted Western culture. Its phrases (such as “to see the handwriting on the wall”) are embedded in our collective unconscious. Moreover, the KJV has influenced poets (Emily Dickinson), presidents (Abraham Lincoln) and civil rights leaders (Martin Luther King Jr.). 

Verily, Verily contains helpful appendices, including a glossary of archaic words, as well as links to Web sites for parallel Bibles. Readers of Sweeney’s work, at minimum, will discover a newfound respect for the heritage and impact of the KJV.  

—Brian Smith McCallum

The Vampire Defanged

Susanna Clements 

Brazos Press (Baker Publishing Group)

softcover, 208 pages, $14.99

978-1-587-43289-7

Author Clements studies how Christianity figures into vampire fiction in The Vampire Defanged: How the Embodiment of Evil Became a Romantic Hero. In chronological order, she explores Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Anne Rice’s “The Vampire Chronicles,” Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Charlaine Harris’ “Southern Vampire Mysteries” and Stephenie Meyer’s “The Twilight Saga.”

Defanged might be a simple compare-and-contrast if not for a clear progression toward the secular in the genre. Dracula is sin personified, but with each successive interpretation Clements examines, vampires have more free will—the foundation of a soul—and Christian theology matters less in the vampire universe. With “Twilight,” faith is almost nonexistent. Vampires can seemingly have it all: romance, family, physical perfection and cannibalism-free immortality. Appropriately, Meyer’s vampires have no fangs.

For Christian fans of vampire fiction, Defanged makes a useful reference point. Understanding the ideas behind the mythology helps the reader to separate theology from simple entertainment.

—John Leatherman

The Map Across Time

C.S. Lakin

Living Ink Books (AMG Publishers)

softcover, 288 pages, $14.99

978-0-899-57889-7

Lakin retells two fairy tales—The Water of Life from Grimm’s Fairy Tales and Prince Ivan and the Firebird, a Russian fairy tale—in a new and compelling way in The Map Across Time, book two in “The Gates of Heaven” series. She offers an adventure-filled story with loving relationships, as well as treacherous characters. 

The king’s son Adin—whose prominent birth defects include one leg shorter than the other—uses a unique map to take him into the past to discover the origins of an ancient curse that plagues the kingdom of Sherbourne. His twin, Aletha, follows in his footsteps as they travel through time, attempting to save the kingdom, their family and future—and follow their destiny. 

Readers of the prequel, The Wolf of Tebron, will want to continue this epic adventure. The use of “magic” and “spells” may confuse some, and these words should be discussed with younger readers.

—Jennifer Toth

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