It is time for a FIRST Wild Card Tour book review! If you wish to join the FIRST blog alliance, just click the button. We are a group of reviewers who tour Christian books. A Wild Card post includes a brief bio of the author and a full chapter from each book toured. The reason it is called a FIRST Wild Card Tour is that you never know if the book will be fiction, non~fiction, for young, or for old...or for somewhere in between! Enjoy your free peek into the book!

You never know when I might play a wild card on you!

and the book:

A Maze of Grace

FaithWords (June 22, 2010)

***Special thanks to Valerie M. Russo of Hachette Book Group for sending me a review copy.***



My dream, ever since I was a little girl, was to be a super hero. Specifically, I wanted to be one of the Wonder Twins, meeting with Superman and Wonder Woman at the Hall of Justice on Saturday mornings to fight evil and save the world. Lacking a twin, I got a law degree instead, thinking it would give me evil-fighting super hero powers. As it turns out, I was wrong.

Shortly after realizing that I hated billable hours, I ended (read: fled) my career in law, and spent the next few years trying to make sense of the world. I couldn't shake the belief that things could/should/would be different - better, somehow - if only I could figure out what really mattered. I wanted to know how things like spirituality and luck and intuition worked, and how I could make them work for me. So I embarked on a quest to find the right God, but spent much of my time trying to find the right guy. At a certain point, after accumulating a heaping pile of mistakes on both counts, I came to see that the two might be intertwined.

The good news is, after much trial and error, I finally found them both: the God, and the guy.

Now I live in Cambridge, Massachusetts with my super hero-husband Steve, and our genetically-improbable mixed-breed dog. I wrote a book about my search, "He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not: A Memoir of Finding Faith, Hope, and Happily Ever After," published by Hachette Book Group in 2008. The follow up, "A Maze of Grace: A Memoir of Second Chances" will be in stores in June 2010. And while I sit at my laptop typing each day, the Wonder Twin dream lives on...

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Product Details:

List Price: $19.99
Hardcover: 256 pages
Publisher: FaithWords (June 22, 2010)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0446545813
ISBN-13: 978-0446545815

PLEASE PRESS THE 'BROWSE INSIDE THIS BOOK' BUTTON TO READ THE FIRST CHAPTER:



Review:
One of the things that I really liked about this book was that it was more like short essays. It made it possible to read it in short installments vs. having to follow a continuing story. Ryan covers many topics in this book from marriage and relationships to body image. This book isn't just about being a Christian - it's about religion and relationships and how it all intermingles. Ryan takes examples from her own life and talks about the realities of marriage...how difficult it can be. I thought this was a refreshing discussion of marriage, it's difficulties and still being encouraged at the end of the day. This would be a great book to read for a small women's group. I can see it sparking endless discussions. For me, I enjoyed being able to read a small story, relate it to my life...and then be able to ruminate a bit on it before going back for more.

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