Michael Vetter’s Run Before the Rain is Immersing!

Posted on by May 29, 2015
Reply

Deb’s Dozen: The windows of the heavens were opened…and rain fell forty days.

Run Before the Rain: An Antediluvian Adventure—I must admit, I had to look up the word “antediluvian” before I started reading the book. The word means “of or relating to the period before the flood described in the Bible” according to Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary. So I presumed that the book was about the world between Adam and Noah.

Michael Vetter has written a wonderful tale targeted at teens and young adults, but as an older adult, I too enjoyed Run Before the Rain. Michael has imagined a technologically advanced world that uses tamed dinosaurs for transportation and has made huge leaps in the sciences of zoology, biology, and astronomy.

Seth’s descendent, Enoch, had interviewed Adam about life in the Garden of Eden and after shortly before Adam died and written it down in the Book of Adam. Adam had founded the Adam Institute where he pursued a life studying zoology, as God had given him the task of caring for the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth. [Gen 1:26, ESV]

Sixteen hundred years has passed since the time Adam was given that charge and the world had changed. In the line of Seth were Methuselah, Lamech, and Noah. Lamech said at the time Noah was born, … Out of the ground that the Lord has cursed, this one shall bring us relief from our work and from the painful toil of our hands. [Gen 5:29, ESV] After Noah was 500 years old, Noah fathered Shem, Ham, and Japheth. [Gen 5:32, ESV]

Noah, a famed zoologist like his ancestor, Adam, receives an important message from God. God is angry at the evil of mankind and is going to destroy everything on Earth. Noah is told to build a ship to carry him, his family, and samples of every kind of being safely away from a global flood.

How Noah carries out God’s task, how and why the world has become so evil, how civilization has advanced since creation, and how the task is accomplished has never been told in quite this fashion. You’ll be intrigued by the search for the Book of Adam that has been lost. I was fascinated at the society that Vetter has imagined and the technology that he posits existed. You will be entertained as well to find out how everything was completed. Although the book reads a bit slowly, the characters of Noah, Japheth, and Methuselah are well fleshed out as is the character of Miriam, Noah’s wife. Vetter’s imagination tugged me along as the story progressed. I found myself believing the times might just have been like he conceives. Four Stars.

Michael Vetter is a former US Air Force intelligence officer and has a degree in ocean engineering from MIT. He now lives in New Hampshire with his wife, Mary. Run Before the Rain is the first book in a three-volume series, followed by One World Tower and Flight From Egypt. You can reach Michael at Michael Vetter.

Run Before the Rain: An Antediluvian AdventureClick title to purchase.

Michael Vetter was kind enough to give me a copy of Run Before the Rain for my candid review.

Makayla’s Heart is a Miracle of Healing by Dell Hyssong/Holly Weiss

Posted on by May 28, 2015
Reply

Deb’s Dozen: Great expectations—a child born. Disaster strikes—tumors in heart and brain.

Dell Hyssong and his family have been an important part of our lives for over twenty-five years. Dell was our pastor at The York Gospel Center in York, PA—I served as his secretary and office manager for several years. Dell left to pastor the Rockport Baptist Church in Rockport, ME. A few years later, God called The Hyssongs to a full-time gospel music ministry. Dell, his wife, Susan, and their son, Richard, perform over 250 times a year all up and down the East Coast and into Canada. Click on this link, The Hyssongs, for more information about their ministry.

Richard and his wife, Kelly, joyfully anticipated the birth of their first child. On July 19, 2008, their daughter, Makayla, was born and they rejoiced! Shortly after her birth, as Dell watched through the nursery window, they could tell something was wrong. After a few days and many doctors, they were told that Makayla had tubular sclerosis, a disease that caused multiple tumors. In Makayla’s case, the tumors were in her heart and brain. In fact, one heart tumor was blocking seventy-five percent of the blood from flowing through the aorta. The doctors told the family that she wouldn’t survive, or if she did, she would be grossly disabled.

But God’s people prayed. Miracles began happening. Lives were changed. To read Makalya’s story, and learn about the life of a traveling ministry, buy and read this book–told from her grandfather’s perspective. Dell and his co-author, Holly Weiss, weave a wonderful web of words to describe what they went through and how they weathered the storm.

Buy Makayla’s Heart: Moment by Moment, read it with tissues at hand, and share Makayla with others. You’ll be glad you did and greatly blessed!

Click here to buy Makayla’s Heartspringsidebannerhead

Falcon by Ronie Kendig Flies Fast and Furiously.

Posted on by July 8, 2015
Reply


Deb’s Dozen: Definition of Falcon—furious, fatalistic, fixated, fragile, fearless, fearful, facetious, fierce, fascinated.

Ronie Kendig has done it again—written a series I don’t want to see end. Falcon is the last of The Quiet Professionals series following Raptor and Hawk. As a non-military background person, I am fascinated by the depth of knowledge and detail rife within her books. She has the ability to take us to the environment she writes about through explicit descriptions and fascinatingly complex characters.

Warrant Officer Sal (Falcon) Russo is furious. He thought he’d rid himself of Lieutenant Cassandra Walker and here she was back again where he couldn’t avoid her. Oh, well, he didn’t have to be nice to her or talk with her other than when duty required their interaction. Cassie wants more than anything to repair her relationship with Sal—but he has not—cannot forgive her for her part in the death of his fiancée, Vida.

The mole within the unit is still undiscovered. The unit is still being attacked and men killed. One of the first casualties is General Burnett—ambushed in a supposedly secured area. Raptor is mourning the death of the general and the other casualties—and perplexed how the enemy keeps getting into the compound. Finding the mole becomes a prime objective along with stopping the Osiris hacker, Meng-Li (Daniel) Jin.

As the cover copy says so eloquently, “The deeper Raptor digs for truth, the more betrayal seeps from the very fabric of their mission. Friends become spies and turncoats. Enemies morph into strange allies. As the tides turn and Sal rethinks his game plan, he is forced to trust Cassie again. And it might be the last time.”

My husband says this is the best Kendig book yet and I have to agree. My only problem with Falcon is you have to have read Raptor and Hawk to understand completely what’s going on in the story. Falcon does not fly as a stand-alone story without the reader having many unanswered questions about what’s happened in the previous books. If you’re the type who has to know everything, buy and read Raptor and Hawk first—you won’t be disappointed. However, despite not being “in the know,” Falcon is an exciting, dramatic read that you won’t want to put down until you finish. Five stars.

Shiloh Publishing (an imprint of Barbour Publishing) gave me a copy of Falcon in exchange for my candid review.