*Isn't this a gorgeous cover?*
I just found this new book review blog for the romantics among us. The reviewer seems to cover a wide variety of stories, everything from contemporary to paranormal, and the blog isn't deluged with blood-sucking dead guys either, unlike all the YA new release shelves around here. There's even one about an African American girl pilot in World War II, which I must have. The only requirement for all these novels seems to be that there must be a romantic relationship between the young protagonists. Some books seem to be all about the Romance while others seem to have it secondary to the main plot. Anyway, it's worth checking out! http://yaromancereviews.blogspot.com/
It's because she's 'beached' on the sofa!
We'll miss you ever so very much. Robyn has a whole bunch of stuff going on in Real Life and so she has to bid farewell to reviewing here at Enduring Romance. We'll be glad to have her back if and when she can return. While you're doing all that needs to be done, Robyn, please remember to take care of yourself too. Here's Frank Sinatra to help see her off- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmU8IoeD-fA
Good morning, Blog Buds! I just finished reading this memoir, but I won't be writing a regular review. Suffice it to say, this is a powerful story everyone needs to know about. If domestic violence has never darkened your life, it will foster compassion in your heart for those who have endured such atrocities. If you've been invaded and abused by those you ought to have been able to trust, this story will give you courage to take charge of your life. It can be found at any decent sized public library for free and just came out in paperback at the grocery store too.
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We know domestic violence happens all over the world, but when we think of girls being forced to marry men, often much older men, against their will, we think of uncivilized countries far away. This story happened right here in the United States where 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness' is supposed to be protected by law. As someone who believes God is loving and good, it's especially appalling to know these crimes are being committed in His Name. Besides violating these girls' civil rights, the *basic human right* to choose one's own mate is violated. I am totally Pro-Freedom of Religion, but when a sect violates the civil and human rights of it's members it becomes evil. That is not religion. That is dictatorship.
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Here is the Barnes & Noble synopsis-
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Synopsis
In September 2007, a packed courtroom in St. George, Utah, sat hushed as Elissa Wall, the star witness against polygamous sect leader Warren Jeffs, gave captivating testimony of how Jeffs forced her to marry her first cousin at age fourteen. This harrowing and vivid account proved to be the most compelling evidence against Jeffs, showing the harsh realities of this closed community and the lengths to which Jeffs went in order to control the sect's women.
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Now, in this courageous memoir, Elissa Wall tells the incredible and inspirational story of how she emerged from the confines of the Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints (FLDS) and helped bring one of America's most notorious criminals to justice. Offering a child's perspective on life in the FLDS, Wall discusses her tumultuous youth, explaining how her family's turbulent past intersected with her strong will and identified her as a girl who needed to be controlled through marriage. Detailing how Warren Jeffs's influence over the church twisted its already rigid beliefs in dangerous new directions, Wall portrays the inescapable mind-set and unrelenting pressure that forced her to wed despite her repeated protests that she was too young.
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Once she was married, Wall's childhood shattered as she was obligated to follow Jeffs's directives and submit to her husband in "mind, body, and soul." With little money and no knowledge of the outside world, she was trapped and forced to endure the pain and abuse of her loveless relationship, which eventually pushed her to spend nights sleeping in her truck rather than face the tormentor in her bed.
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Yet even in those bleak times, she retained a sliver of hope that one day shewould find a way out, and one snowy night that came in the form of a rugged stranger named Lamont Barlow. Their chance encounter set in motion a friendship and eventual romance that gave her the strength she needed to break free from her past and sever the chains of the church.
But though she was out of the FLDS, Wall would still have to face Jeffs—this time in court. In Stolen Innocence, she delves into the difficult months on the outside that led her to come forward against him, working with prosecutors on one of the biggest criminal cases in Utah's history, so that other girls still inside the church might be spared her cruel fate.
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More than a tale of survival and freedom, Stolen Innocence is the story of one heroic woman who stood up for what was right and reclaimed her life.
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A while back I mentioned another book, ESCAPE. It's about a woman who escaped this same cult with her eight children. She'd been forced to marry a dirty old fart when she was only 18 years old.
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Here's the synopsis-
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Synopsis
The dramatic first-person account of life inside an ultra-fundamentalist American religious sect, and one woman’s courageous flight to freedom with her eight children.
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When she was eighteen years old, Carolyn Jessop was coerced into an arranged marriage with a total stranger: a man thirty-two years her senior. Merril Jessop already had three wives. But arranged plural marriages were an integral part of Carolyn’s heritage: She was born into and raised in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS), the radical offshoot of the Mormon Church that had settled in small communities along the Arizona-Utah border. Over the next fifteen years, Carolyn had eight children and withstood her husband’s psychological abuse and the watchful eyes of his other wives who were locked in a constant battle for supremacy.
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Carolyn’s every move was dictated by her husband’s whims. He decided where she lived and how her children would be treated. He controlled the money she earned as a school teacher. He chose when they had sex; Carolyn could only refuse—at her peril. For in the FLDS, a wife’s compliance with her husband determined how much status both she and her children held in the family. Carolyn was miserable for years and wanted out, but she knew that if she tried to leave and got caught, her children would be taken away from her. No woman in the country had ever escaped from the FLDS and managed to get her children out, too. But in 2003, Carolyn chose freedom over fear and fled her home with her eight children. She had $20 to her name.
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Escape exposes a world tantamount to a prison camp, created byreligious fanatics who, in the name of God, deprive their followers the right to make choices, force women to be totally subservient to men, and brainwash children in church-run schools. Against this background, Carolyn Jessop’s flight takes on an extraordinary, inspiring power. Not only did she manage a daring escape from a brutal environment, she became the first woman ever granted full custody of her children in a contested suit involving the FLDS. And in 2006, her reports to the Utah attorney general on church abuses formed a crucial part of the case that led to the arrest of their notorious leader, Warren Jeffs.
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To learn more, click on the following links-
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Barnes & Noble's page on STOLEN INNOCENCE
Okay, Blog Buds, this one's on my list, but I'm afraid I won't get to it before it leaves the stores. So, I wanted to link you to a review now. http://www.paranormalromance.org/reviews/review.php?id=30663 A heroine who starts the story shy and petite and has to grow into her role? It's positively revolutionary! Stereotypical Kick-Butt Heroines take note.
I reviewed OTHER SIDE OF THE ISLAND there today, quite possibly the single best book I've read so far this year.
