Book Review: The Latter Rain by James M Conis

The Latter Rain by James M Conis is a great book for those who want to gain a better understanding of the Book of Isaiah in the Old Testament. The full full title, The Latter Rain Using the Book of Isaiah as the Key to Unlock Bible Prophecies That are Relevant Today explores the types and symbols in Isaiah and strives to bring better understanding of what they mean for us in this day and age and how we can apply those teachings into our lives.

The word rain in the title of the book, is used to symbolize God's communication with man. Traveling through the rich rains of the Old and New Testament times when God's prophet's were prevalent on the earth. Then moves to the time of drought when there was no communication through a living prophet,up to today with the Latter rain or communication.

Through out the book, Mr. Conis invites the reader to utilize the tool of prayer as they go through the book to ask about the things taught. This way the reader has their own testimony of what is being said, and doesn't go by Mr. Conis's words alone. This helps the reader to learn to listen to the communications of the spirit and teaches them to recognize what that sounds like to them. And brings to mind one way God interacts with his his children today.

Mr. Conis walks us through many different aspects of The Old Testament beyond just Isaiah as well. Working us through the Old and New Testament teachings and bring it to relevance for us today.

I enjoy reading the scriptures and learning from them, but I will admit that Isaiah has left me stumped a time or two. I really liked the easy way that Mr. Conis presents his points about Isaiah. I felt as if he was in the room with me, kicking back on the couch conversing and explaining his take about the scriptures of Isaiah with me. The points that were made were easy to understand and I could see what he wanted me to learn, and although were a few things that his view differ from mine, I felt that the over all message was clear and would help anyone understand the difficult to understand teachings of ancient prophets. He broke down symbols and types and explained them in a way that any one could understand. And showed why they were important and what it meant for us in today's world.

I really liked that the scriptures being referenced to were included in the book itself. It made it so much easier to know what was being talked about with out having to look it up or pull my scriptures out and search for the references. They were already there, which made the flow of reading and understanding that much better.

I am grateful that Mr. Conis would share his insights and knowledge which makes the sometimes difficult task of understanding ancient scripture that much easier to grasp. If you would like to get your own copy of The Latter Rain click here to visit the website and type in the promo code Tour when you check out and receive 20% off. Pretty sweet deal!

You can also purchase your copy here at Amazon.

Disclaimer: While I do at times receive copies of the books I review, my opinions are and will always remain my own.

Book Review: Double Deceit By Stephanie Humphreys

Today I get to review Double Deceit by Stephanie Humphreys. It is a LDS suspense novel with plenty of twists and turns that keep you wondering if what you think is going to happen actually will.

Back Blurb:
Someone is watching . . .
As a young widow, all Elaina Bryant wants is a fresh start. Determined to put ten painful years behind her, she returns to her hometown and moves in with her sister, Natalie. Elaina soon accepts a job working at a small bookstore owned by the handsome Ryan Hill and his mother. Despite her reluctance to become romantically involved with anyone, she is drawn to Ryan and finds herself falling in love.

But someone isn’t happy with Elaina’s new life and is watching her every move. Her tormentor seems determined to destroy her sanity and her future, but Elaina can’t convince anyone the threat is real. Natalie is preoccupied with her own blossoming romance, and their friend Peter, a police officer, seems to believe the threat has been manufactured in Elaina’s own mind as a result of her guilt and grief.

Now Elaina’s plans for a new start are crashing down around her. She knows she will have to find the answers before she can overcome the past and enjoy love and happiness again. But how can she protect those she loves when she doesn’t know whom to trust?



My thoughts:
Double Deceit is one of those books that when you pick it up you know that you are going to want to know the end right away. The challenge of course is not to peak to see if all your guesses and deductions are correct. For me I will admit that I succumbed to the temptation. And wanted to see what happened, but it didn't ruin the story for me. I still had to find out how things got to the final conclusions.

Stephanie does a great job of building suspense and leave you guessing, and wondering if what you think is the truth is actually the truth after all. I was surprised along the way to find how certain characters reacted in certain situations. And at times I wanted a different outcome, but still it was fun to see how all the little plot twists and turns culminated in the end.

I like watching Elaina's growth through the story as she found that she could be stronger than she realized and take her life back and control the outcome. I liked that she realized how important it is to rely on others and that she learned how to reach out to others when she needed them. I liked that the other characters in the story had their flaws they had to overcome as well, and weren't just there to support the main character.

I also enjoyed how well Stephanie could make the images jump from the page. I had a clear picture of what was going on in my mind the entire time, from the forests to the city and even the details of the little book store was vivid in my mind.

I felt for Elaina and the difficult experiences she faced to the point that she even began to doubt herself. I wanted to comfort her and tell her she would make it through her trials.

Double Deceit is a book I would have not issues with my children reading. It is appropriate for ages 12 on up. And it is a clean read. There is plenty of mystery and a bit of fun romance along the way. To get your copy of Double Deceit click here.

Stephanie is running a really fun contest on her blog to go along with her book tour. Please click here to see what all the excitement is about and to learn more about Stephanie and her other accomplishments and books.

Disclaimer: While I do at times receive copies of the books I review, my opinions are and will always remain my own.

My 23rd Anniversary and Goal Results

Here is a super quick flash on how I did this month with my goals! It is my Anniversary after all and so I need to be about celebrating it with my honey!! But first a brief check in on how my goal results turned out.

So I got in 3 posts a week for a month, counting this one~ since I started on the 4th of July, I think that's fair. It was fun to post so much!

I got my writing goals accomplished. I even slightly modified I achieved what I set out to do! Yahoo!

And as for adding followers, I got 25 plus new followers this month but fell short of my goal of 100 by 16. But that is ok, I plan to get them soon enough. If any one has any cool ideas on how to do this, please I am all for hearing them.

I ran out of time to work on my blog that way when I spent a week visiting my family. They wanted a lot of my time and were jealous of my computer and on line time either on my blog or on my WIP or on email. OH well!! No biggie.

So I need to devise some new goals for the month of Aug and when I do, I will let you know what they are! If you have any goals that you are looking to achieve, let me hear about them and we can spend the month of Aug working on them together!