I read the original The Second Kiss by Gayle Rogers in Thousand Oaks, 26 years ago And my Book was never returned after loaning it out to many folks to enjoy (I wish someone would return my signed book) then in Ohio I found Nakoas Woman in paperback & reread the beautiful so true love story, with such accurate detail and historical notes It again was so refreshing to read & so haunting , then we moved & my box of books was stolen but now I found Glaydce with a C by Gayle & it picks up the two soul mates in Nathaniel as Nakoa & Mylayna as Maria I felt their presence & that as their spirits got reunited again, I was so overwhelmed with emotional feelings I was left with goose bumps & the goose bumps are still with me,just thinking about their picking up where they left off in the another world, What a GLORIOUS Feeling it truly is!! Makes one really wonder about life and death. She has so much knowledge, it is like a real learning experience & she is giving you the inside of the spirit world such as it is. Makes you really wonder whats next??? Keep writing & I also would just love to see the book in a Movie as she wrote it & described the areas , times & places . Thats my dream.

I read Nakoa's Woman about 25 years ago, and have never forgotten it, especially the haunting ending! I just reread it under a dif. title, SECOND KISS. This books speaks of the continuation of the soul, about us being on this Earth to love and grow. The poignant and heart wrenching love between Nakoa and Maria is so well written and lyrical, that joy and tears are elicited. The author deeply understands the struggles and the rapture of finding one's self, surrender and acceptance. The American Indian culture is authentically portrayed, and contrasted against the white man's world. You must treat your mind and heart to reading this book. Gayle Rogers, if you read this please mail me. Thank you for writing such a wonderful book that touched my soul.

I read this book in the late 70s, read it and reread throughout the years. It is the most romantic, spiritual, mystical love story I have ever read. It has everything in it, passionate love, spirituality, the struggle with oneself, sacrifice for love, sorrow,etc. Everytime you read this book, you learn something new about yourself, your soul, eternal love, the beautiful ways and thoughts of the Native Americans. Yes, it also teaches you. I wish Gayle had written more books, I searched and searched for more books but to no avail. I feel that when she wrote this book, she was definitely spiritually motivated almost like she had spent herself on this one book.

This book, first published in 1961, two years before the author's death, is, in my opinion, the most compact, and power packed vision of God ever to be put to paper in the last 50 years. In the edition I own, Tozer wrote a foreword in which he makes the statement that he wrote the book on his knees in prayer -- He needn't have told us this; the aware reader will sense the fact as soon as he or she reads the first four pages!

Although this is a fairly small (and short) book, it is not one that can be read quickly. Each chapter, though less than 10 pages long apiece, must be savored, read slowly and meditated upon. (I should know. I received this book as a Christmas present in 1992 and did not finish it until October 1993.) There are several reasons for this. One is that the book, though written in fairly contemporary English, is written in a highly academic style which most modern readers find difficult to read easily. Modern American readers should be careful on this point.

The primary reason for the book's difficultly however, is the sheer Presence of God which the reader encounters on every page. Beware -- to open the covers of this book and search its pages is to tread upon holy ground. It is to walk in the cloud at Sinai with Moses; it is to be standing at Horeb in the mouth of the cave with Elijah as the Lord passes by in a gentle breeze; it is to be with Peter on the Mount of Transfiguration, and it is to feel the earth shake beneath your feet with the guards at the Garden Tomb as the stone is rolled away.

Each chapter begins with a prayer for a divinely imparted understanding of that which cannot be conceived by the human mind. It then goes on to discuss a specific attribute of God, attempting to define what each is, what each is not, and the application and impact these have on our daily lives.

If you are ready for a devotional experience that will change your life, GET THIS BOOK ... but only if you have some time free to really absorb its awesome truths.

This book changed my life and my perspective of God forever, and if you read it slowly and prayerfully, it will change yours as well.

This surely is Dr.Tozer's classic work on the deeper, spiritual life of the Christian. Anyone who wants to "go on with God to perfection" and longs to know God FOR WHO HE IS, (not just what one can "receive" from God), should read this book at least once or twice or thrice. There are few today (or yesterday) who can equal the power of the pen of Dr.Tozer when he focuses on his favorite life's passion: To KNOW the depths and the heights of the Infinite and Holy and Eternal GOD of Love and Moral Purity.

My highest recommendation. LenBenHear. - Seeker and teacher.

A.W. Tozer was known as a man of God, even to those who were not religious. His concern was that the Church was loosing her once "lofty view of God." So he set out to write a book that devotionally considered the attributes of God. That he did, and did it well. His small but powerful book offers a precise and thoughtful account of who the God of the Bible is, and what he is like. Tozer accuately descrides God without limiting Him to the Human understanding. Tozer considers every attribute taught in the Bible and lays them out in plain language. The concepts expounded may be above the common man's understanding, but the language that Tozer uses is not. He puts the "cookies on the bottom shelf so the kids can get them." His thoughts about God helped me tremendously. The language is understandable, the subject is thoroughly covered and the concepts are thought provoking. This is a must read.

HOT HOT HOT are the only words to describe this Johanna Linsey Romance. With Savage Thunder, the story of half-Cheyanne/half-white Colt (aka White Thunder) and rich widow Joscelynn Flemming, Ms. Lindsey is at her best.
It seems Colt and Joscelynn are destined for each other, at a time when neither is prepared. He is wary of all white women, she is wary of everyone. Both have good reasons to be cautious, but the obsticles they overcome and their struggle to understand each other only serve to bring them closer together.
This book is filled with action and suspence and of course steamy love scenes. Joscelynn and Colt give new meaning to the term "WILD West". However it was the realistc dialogue that did it for me. You realize that these people, although fictional, are from a very real time in America when Native Americans were treated as second class citizens. (Some argue they still are)
All in All an excellent book. Very good escape reading with the primary love story not at all marred by the weighty social problems of the day. A good choice for both JL romance fans and Native American History buffs looking for a good "fantasy escape" alike. Five Stars *****!

This book makes my top 5 all time favorite Romance Novels. Johanna Lindsey is my favorite author and if I had to choose my favorite book by her, it would be this one (although Angel comes thisclose as my #1- another must read!). The hero - Colt Thunder, is a definite "mans man", but at the same time is vulnerable to his one true love. Sigh.....I read this book every summer and every summer I enjoy it just as much!

After having read thousands of romance books over the years, I still rate Savage Thunder as the best. Colt and Joselyn were made for each other. Their interplay is worth reading again and again. Is there any woman who reads this story who doesn't want to "soothe the savage beast"? Johanna Lindsey's books can vary in depth of story and characters. This the best of all of her books.

"Clay's Quilt" sings, with a voice as mighty and true as that of the fiery honky-tonk singer, Evangeline, and as sweet and haunting as the music of the passionate and mysterious fiddler, Alma, who grace its pages. I realize that "quilt" is the defining metaphor here, but for me this book was like music - a richly textured, multi-faceted, and infinitely satisfying hymn to life at its utmost. This is an impressive first novel. The writer has created people that live and breathe, and a place so real that I wanted to get out a map of Eastern Kentucky and look it up. Clay Sizemore has only vague memories of the tragic event that brought him to his mother's sister's house on a freezing night over twenty years ago. His Aunt Easter and others in his mother's family have given him a warm, loving upbringing and he appreciates it but he's determined to find some answers about his mother and father. His concentration on the past, though, doesn't prevent him from living wholeheartedly in the present. Along with his family and friends, he loves and worships and fusses and fights with great enthusiasm. These people invest their all in life House's descriptions of the physical world are heart-stoppingly beautiful. His writing is lyrical, but not without bite. I can find very little wrong with this book's construction and pace. It starts with a mystery and builds toward resolution in an altogether satisfying way. I found it refreshing that House confines the preaching and explaining which some young writers can't seem to resist to the dialogue of his coming of age characters, where it's appropriate. Two small things about the book bothered me - the extensive use of dialect, which may be essential, but which I found distracting, and some misspelled words. One of the best things I can think of to say about any book is that it stays with you. This one does. I finished it days ago and I still think about Clay and Alma, and Dreama and Gabe and Anneth and Easter. And about Marguerite and Cake and Darry and Denzel and Evangeline and the others. Did I mention what wonderful names the people in Black Banks have? In the book, it is said of Clay's mother, Anneth, that "A person so full of life couldn't just up and die..." This book is full of life. I wish it wouldn't just up and end.

Vividly poetic in its description of Appalachian natural resources, heartwarming and honest in its portrayal of people linked by their love for their environs and family, Clay's Quilt is in the top three on my "re-read often" list. In this debut novel, Silas House deftly stitches a search for understanding and love with picturesque Appalachia.

Clay Sizemore is a character any reader will quickly befriend, not only because of the tragedy of losing his mother, but because Clay is a loveable young man. House's prose places the reader, like a close friend, beside Clay. Whether Clay is at work in the coal mine, walking the mountainside, or partying at the local honky-tonk, we are there with him, feeling the grit of coal dust in our eyes, smelling the air on Free Mountain, or throwing down a whiskey with a beer chaser on a Saturday night.

There is something to be said when a reader can feel for a story's rogues. Even the villains and the socially challenged characters in Clay's Quilt are people with whom a reader will identify. House takes us into their hearts, to the places that hurt, to those hidden areas where malice and evil ferment, torment and eventually explode with terrible consequences.

Life, human and natural, pulsates through the veins of this story. Long after its first reading, "Clay's Quilt" will warm the reader.

Clay's Quilt is a powerful novel lovingly and masterfully pieced from the lives of the residents of Free Creek, Kentucky. Whether working, playing, laughing, praying, driving, crying, singing, fighting, dancing, hollering, or loving, these people do it passionately and with every fiber of their beings; these people LIVE. As a result, the novel itself lives and breathes and makes a joyful noise through the voices of its people as well as through their music. House's prose is lyrical yet unsentimental, fiercely grounded in real, concrete, sensuous and intimate details of everyday life. As the novel follows Clay Sizemore's struggle to find his place in the world and to make peace with a tragic past, we witness his tender and ferocious love for family and friends, his awe and gratitude at finally finding true love with a fiddle player named Alma, and his determination to make a home and a life for himself and his new family. House's voice is true and Clay's Quilt is a book both joyous and haunting, a story whose characters stayed with me long after I finished reading.

What delightful, innocent, clever, adventure stories Van Reid writes. I picked up Cordelia Underwood because someone said it was reminiscent of John Irving's humor, but I found the characters more like Tolkein's hobbits - full of innocence and charm, bumbling into and solving problems, and we don't have to travel to Middle Earth to be a part of the adventure. (From Massachusetts, Maine is just a 2 hour drive!) I'm looking forward to hearing more about the Moosepath League (Molly Peers, the second book rates 5 stars too.)

Usually when authors are characterized as writing in "Dickensian Style" it means they are writing about an enormous cast of characters inhabiting the squalid streets of Victorian London. However, Dickens also had a lighter side, with The Pickwick Papers being his most lighthearted comedy. Van Reid has taken much of the flavor of The Pickwick Papers and moved it to Victorian Maine. Instead of Mr. Pickwick and his man-servant Sam Weller, we now have Mr. Walton and his servant Sundry Moss. Instead of the Pickwick Club, we have the Moosepath League. There is an adventurous journey, a little romance, and in the end the bad guys get their due.

What makes this novel stand out so much from other recent novels is how very likable Van Reid makes his characters. Whether clever or addle-pated, young or old, heroic or not-so-heroic, all the characters are jovial and fun to spend time with. They are polite, tell great stories, and smile a lot. I don't often give the highest rating, but I had such a good time visiting these people that they deserve no less than 5 stars.

Van Reid has written an homage to turn-of-the-century Victorian novels with Cordelia Underwood, or the Marvellous Beginnings of the Moosepath League and its delightful sequels. It's a romance, a treasure hunt, a mystery, quirkily wriggling between genre descriptions...Wonderfully evocative of the novels of the period, but with a modern humor and sensibility. Wonderful descriptions of the small towns of Maine in 1898 as well. Having visited Maine for years, I can testify that it's a true picture of the scents and sights and sounds. Very well done, and I'm eager for the next book in the series to be published.

I have just reread this fascinating book by Marcia Davenport after 45 years. I found the original 1954 edition, published by Charles Scribner's Sons in our library, but would like to buy it to keep and have my daughter and friends read it. The story begins with the mysterious death of two elderly brothers who are found buried in a mound of trash in their town house in the 1950's in New York. In all these years, the story has effected me in two ways: trying not to keep too much junk in my house, and one day hoping to visit Bellagio on Lake Como in Italy, where part of the story takes place. Please have the publisher reprint this novel and what an excellent movie it would make!

I have read this book several times in the past. I was able to check it out at the library, they no longer have it to read, and I have searched all over trying to find it. I really want it for by own library to read again, and let other family members read it.

The story of the 2 brothers was mind boggling on the amount of trash they accumlated in their house. I am amazed this was never made into a movie.

Fran

As I recall, this book was based on the true-life story of the Collier brothers of New York. The author explains very rational reasons for all the irrational mess the brothers were found in after their deaths. The true story was never known for sure, of course. But what a great book! My mother had a copy for many years and then put it in a garage sale! What I wouldn't give to see it again.

Dennis Smith gives a great account of what it was like to be a firefighter in a time and place -- the South Bronx in the 1960's -- that most of us can only imagine.

The book does an excellent job of showing us life through the eyes of men who risked their lives every single day simply for the love of the job and for the satisfaction that they were helping in a place that in many ways was beyond help.

A quick read -- well written and quite thought provoking.

This book, when I first read it in the 70's as a kid, cemented my desire to be a firefighter. It went past the gleaming paint and chrome and really showed me the grit of the job; that it wasn't always the glorious one I had envisioned but more of a thankless one. Dennis Smith's vivid imagery makes you feel like you're in the battle right there with his company. It also shows the toll that firefighting takes on it's participants, the physical as well as the emotional scars the job leaves. Smith takes you through his personal life, discussing his humble childhood and the effect his career has on his adult life.

All in all, a wonderful story that grabs you at the beginning and doesn't let go until the last page.

Dennis Smith's Report From Engine Company 82 was a huge best seller when it first appeared in 1972 and it immediately put its author into the rarified air of commercially successful authors. No small feat considering that 1 of every 3 books published fails to make any money at all and fewer than 1% sell more than a million copies, the way this book did.

Smith captured forever the day to day grind of inner city firefighters, before air masks were used regularly. He brings the reader into the last days of pre-modern, urban firefighting, the suffocating heat, the blinding smoke, the gut wrenching fear and most of all the camaraderie that comes along with a job that requires disciplined teamwork and exacting attention to detail.

Report opens up with a fire, of course, where Engine 82 and Ladder 31 are forced to breach or break through a wall to get a teenager out of a rear bedroom of a burning apartment. The first two firefighters from Engine 82 enter without air masks and take a terrible beating before they're relieved on the line by two members who are "tanked up." Smith takes the reader through the entire event, step by agonizing step.

Smith lets us see the teeming ghetto that existed around his Intervale Avenue firehouse at the time - today, that same area is covered with single family Nehemia Homes. He takes the reader through the emergencies (gas and water leaks), car accidents, false alarms and spectacular fires, from a firefighter's perspective. In it, he chronicles the death of a fireman, from Engine 82, who fell off the back of the rig, or backstep, while responding to a false alarm. In those days, firefighters still "rode outside" the rig, hanging off the back of the Engine or Pumper by holding onto straps that hung off a rear metal bar across the "backstep" or rear of the rig.

Dennis Smith worked in the early part of a quarter century period (from the late sixties to the late eighties) that saw 30% of all the buildings in NYC burned. Entire tracts of the South Bronx and huge swaths of Brooklyn were reduced to prairie like fields. Thousands of other buildings were made vacant.

I work in the same area today...about a mile and a half west of Engine 82 & Ladder 31. When I first arrived there in 1986 there were tons of vacant buildings, left over remnants from the firestorm of the previous decade. I've known lots of firefighters who went through that period. Most of them have been put out of the job with various forms of cancer, emphysema, throat disorders etc. The effects of swallowing all that smoke are well documented thanks to their sacrifices. Most of NYC's inner city firefighters from that period are dead now.

Of course, air masks are mandatory now (thank God!) and bunker gear has been mandated as of 1994. Despite all that, New York has lost over twenty firefighters in the line of duty over the past five years alone, 764 in its history - pre-9/11.

The book is divided into numerous vignettes which cover the range of incidents Engine 82 responded to, the squalor of the South Bronx, the good natured ribbing of firehouse life, while contrasting the job and that area, to his home and family life in Westchester County, about 30 miles north of New York City.

If there is any nit to be picked with this book, it's that the other firefighters are not very well developed characters. This may have been due to Smith's reluctance to expose the real people he'd worked with. Still, it's a quick and compelling read. Smith has an engaging story telling style and a good-hearted humility and strong sense of humanity that shines through the book. A must for fire buffs everywhere and an interesting behind-the-scenes story about our very recent history for others.

The name of this book is The Boys Start the War/ The Girls Get Even by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor. This book is a really good book. The Hatford boys are playing tricks on their new neighbors the Malloy girls. Now the Malloys girls are really mad and have to get back at them. The Malloy girls are Eddie (whose real name is Edith Ann but hates it) 11 years old, Beth who is ten and Caroline who is eight, but is in third grade. The Hatford boy's names and ages are Josh and Jake who are 11 (they are twins.), Wally is nine and Peter who is seven. The Hatford boys and the Malloy girls are playing tons of tricks on each other. To find out what happens read The Boys Start the War/ The Girls Get Even.

Have you ever met some boys that you really hate? The three Malloy sisters Eddie, Caroline and Beth have. They just moved from Ohio to Buckman, West Virginia. They just so happened to move into the house where the Hatford brothers, Wally, Peter, Jake and Josh's, best friends the Bensons used to live. The Bensons told the Hatfords that if they were having trouble renting out their old house in Buckman they will come back. The Hatfords think if they can make the Malloy girls miserable enough they will go back to Ohio, and the Bensons will come back to Buckman.So now the boys have started a sort of mini war between themselves and the girls. Until their little practical jokes go too far and Caroline is taken prisoner in their shed. This was a great book. If you like excitement this is the book for you!

i definetly did.the characters are so realistic,beth(named by the boys as the weirdo)and her stephen king/r.l. stine books,eddie (called the whomper)and her baseball skills-the only thing that impresses the boys(other than the tricks the girls manage to pull), caroline(the crazy) and her actressy-melodramatic way of facing the world head-on.meanwhile their favorite ememies, josh,jake, willis,and peter are determined to move the girls out of their old friends house in hopes of having their friends move back in. the book is so funny,from caroline's pretend death to the guys trapping the girls on the roof in a rainstorm,that you wish the ending would never come so you could just read it forever.thats the way it is with good books,though.anyway,i can't wait untill the next one comes out and i definetly recommend this book and all others that follow it.

I just finished reading The Vampire's Assistant, and I found myself more than satisfied. I have to agree with many reviewers here: this book was better than the first.

The book starts were the first book left off. Darren, now half-vampire, travels with Mr. Crespley from place to place. Crespley urges Darren to drink human blood, for no vampire (not even half) can survive without it. Even though Darren doesn't have to kill his victim, he doesn't relent. He will drink animal blood but not human. He wants to keep his humanity.

Mr. Crespley and Darren go back to Cirque Du Freak, so Darren have friends and be with people who understand him more. He befriends Evra, the snake boy in the first book, and two humans, Sam and R.V. Darren grows close to Sam, but their friendship is soon in jeopardy when tragedy strikes and leaves Sam (and others) in danger.

As said, this book was better than the first. We learn more about chracters like Mr. Crespley, Mr. Tall, all the other freak members. This book has more excitment, suspsense, and dept than the first one (but I did enjoy the first one immensely). For fans of the first one, you definitely don't want to miss this installment!

Are you retculant to eat lima beans? Well, Darren Shan, the half-vampire, AKA A Vampire's assistant, is retculant to drink blood. That's right. B*L*O*O*D. His master, Larten Crepsley, the vampire AKA Mr. Crepsley, is concerned about Darren's health as he diwindles towards death-and misery.

A great book, this is. A great book, ending with a tragedy. Brr! Yet... I recommend this book for everybody who knows how to read. J/K.

Darren was an ordinary kid with and ordinary life when he and his friend, Steve, go to a freak show. Darren has to give up his humanity and become a vampire to save Steve. He hates every thing about being a vampire. He is reluctant to drink human blood. Darren and his vampire friend,. Mr. Crepsley decide to join Cirque Du Freak. He makes friends with the snake-boy and the other performers. Soon he has another friend named Sam. Little does Darren know this story will end in a blood bath.

The Holy Man is a book that is difficult to put down once you have read the first 2 chapters. Trott, through the various characters waiting in line to seek wisdom from the Holy Man, ponders the many frailties in the human condition. In simple, susinct language the reader is drawn to the life of Joe, the Holy Man, and Anna, the one that is to follow.

I treasure this book. I have given away more than 50 copies of it since it came out. I've read it to more than 25 classes of teenaged students - many of whom went out and got their own copies. I also have all of the other Susan Trott books I have been able to find. I've read several of those novels more than once. If your heart is open to it - The Holy Man can change your life.

I travel frequently and always visit my local library to check out video books as entertainment during the trip. Every once in a while I find a real gem. This month's gem is The Holy Man by Susan Trott. It is a vignette of inspirational and funny stories about the happenings of people in modern time who spend weeks or months in line waiting to see the holy man. I plan to order several copies as a gift for friends. Also, I plan to read or listen to Ms. Trott's "Journey" book.