The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug is a perfect storm of predictability. If you decide to adapt a single novel into a movie trilogy, the middle story, the bridge, is the hardest one to pull off successfully. Having the middle story as part of a prequel makes the project a recipe for failure with The […]
Wounds, by long time, successful Christian author Alton Gansky, delves into the victims of a serial killer whose motive is evil and whose crimes are biblical. Gansky’s approaches the subject matter in a way I love, not as Christian fiction, per se, but as a book that has characters who are actively Christian. This is […]
“I have an image of Prim in a white room, strapped to a table, while masked, robed figures elicit those sounds from her. Somewhere they are torturing her, or did torture her, to get those sounds.” In my last podcast I talked about the process of adapting a screenplay to a novel. The opposite path […]
The Book of Jotham, written by Arthur Powers, is a novella written from the perspective of a mentally challenged man-child who becomes a disciple of Christ. Jotham is cared for by Mary and others during Jesus’ ministry and his innocence gives him insight into Christ’s real identity. Some of the apostles question why God would […]
Awakening, by Claudia Cangilla McAdam, is a marvelous book that expertly weaves many of the Bible accounts around the events of Good Friday into an enjoyable young adult novel. McAdam uses a simple and effective device to bring this ancient world to new life and does so with such wonderful invention and skill that you […]
There is a lot to like in Catholic, Reluctantly, however it is missing enough dramatic weight to make it memorable. This book, published by Chesterton Press, is the first in a series of young adult Catholic novels that revolves around the students and parents involved in creating a new Catholic school called John Paul II […]
A Pius Man: A Holy Thriller, by Declan Finn, is equal parts intriguing and frustrating. As a self-published novel, it is one or two professional edits away from being a top-notch thriller. A Pius Man is the first in a trilogy of books and deals with the threats against a newly elected Jesuit Pope and […]
