Djævelporten - Vibeke Appel

Title: Djævelporten (Devil's Gate)
Author: Vibeke Appel
Genre: Childrens
Rating: 4/5
# pages: 178
Date read: January, 2013

Der skal bygges en stor domkirke i Axels landsby, og da Axel er gammel nok til at være til gavn på byggepladsen, insisterer hans far på at han skal droppe skolen og hjælpe til i stedet. Axel er ikke meget for det - han har ikke specielt lyst til at være murer, men da han finder ud af at billedskæreren, Mester Jacobus, også har brug for en lærling bliver det pludselig en helt anden sag. Han har altid elsket at snitte i træ, og er også god til det.

Men der sker mange mærkelige ting på byggepladsen... en håndværker falder ned fra et stilads og er dræbt på stedet, Axel's far falder igennem et råddent brædt og må ligge i sengen med en brækket fod i flere uger, en af Mester Jacobus' andre svende dør pludselig af noget der ligner pest, og hvad er det for nogle mærkelige papirer Mester Jacobus går og gemmer for sig selv?

Der er noget der slet ikke er som det bør være, og det er op til Axel at finde ud af hvad.

"Djævleporten" er en meget underholdende og velskreven børnebog som man sagtens kan få stor fornøjelse af som voksen med et barnligt sind. Vibeke Appel taler ikke ned til børnene, men henvender sig til dem på deres eget niveau. Handlingen er spændende og medrivende og lige tilpas skræmmende til at give et godt gys, uden at forårsage nogle mareridt.

Shades of Earth - Beth Revis

Title: Shades of Earth (Across the Universe #3)
Author: Beth Revis
Genre: Sci-fi
Rating: 4/5
# pages: 369 pages
Date read: January, 2013

Amy and Elder have finally left the oppressive walls of the spaceship Godspeed behind. They're ready to start life afresh--to build a home--on Centauri-Earth, the planet that Amy has traveled 25 trillion miles across the universe to experience.

But this new Earth isn't the paradise Amy had been hoping for. There are giant pterodactyl-like birds, purple flowers with mind-numbing toxins, and mysterious, unexplained ruins that hold more secrets than their stone walls first let on. The biggest secret of all? Godspeed's former passengers aren't alone on this planet. And if they're going to stay, they'll have to fight.

"Shades of Earth" picks up immediately after where "A Million Suns" leaves off, so I'm glad I got to read the two so quickly after each other. In many ways it's not a separate book, but a continuation of AMS.

Unfortunately I wasn't quite as blown away by this one as by the first two books in the series. It's still extremely well written, and I couldn't put it down once I got started - resulting in a couple of nights that ended up being much later than they ought to have been - but there were a number of issues in it that I didn't think were properly handled... I didn't like the way they were handled at least. A brief period of time I thought I would end up having to give this just one lone star, but fortunately Beth Revis didn't go there, and redeemed herself in the end. But I couldn't quite justify giving her the last star, so 4 it is.

But it's a thrilling - and chilling - ride, with lots of surprises along the way. At least, I certainly hadn't seen even half of them coming. I didn't think the characters were quite as well defined as in the two first books though, and missed some of the lighter banter we had seen there.

Still well worth the read though.

The Avalon Ladies Scrapbooking Society - Darien Gee

Title: The Avalon Ladies Scrapbooking Society
Author: Darien Gee
Genre: Crafts, Chick-lit
Rating: 5/5
# pages: 448
Date read: January, 2013

"The Avalon Ladies Scrapbooking Society" is a must for any lovers of Kate Jacobs, Debbie Macomber or Gil McNeil. It is the story of small-town Avalon, where Bettie - scrapbooker extraordinaire - won't let strangers be strangers for long.

The book follows a group of women in Avalon. Though not friends at first - in fact, the group includes a widow and the woman her deceased-before-they-could-get-a-divorce husband left her for - through the sharing of their trials and successes, they learn the strength of friendships.

We meet Connie who finally dares to love again when she finds a runaway goat, Frances and Reed who are trying to adopt a girl from China, Ava who's trying to scrape a living together to provide for Max after Bill died, Isabel who's trying to figure out how to live again after Bill first left her and then died before the divorce was even final, Yvonne, the happy-go-lucky plumber who's a newcomer to Avalon and couldn't care less about trying to fit into the society's standards for her.

And through it all there's Bettie. Annoying, meddling, interfering Bettie who knows better than anybody else what they should do with their lives... and unfortunately often turns out to be right.

"The Avalon Ladies Scrapbooking Society" is a wonderfully cozy book. It takes place in the same community as Darien Gee's "Friendship Bread" and features many of the same characters, but is a completely stand-alone book and can easily be read on its own. I grew to love the characters, and was almost sad to see it end, because I wanted to see what happened next - what life had in store for them after the final pages of the book.

It's the perfect comfort book, and you don't even have to be a scrapbooker to enjoy it - I'm not and I did :)