Some Favourite Fiction Books

My brain is fried. Part lack of sleep, part too much editing, part still stuck in the fantasy world of the book I just finished, it’s just not working for me this week. So, instead of writing any sort of inspirational blog post (like the five I’ve started and put aside because they’re not making any sense), I thought I’d share with you some of my all-time favourite fiction books. Because, well, I have books on my mind. 

In no particular order, here are nine books/series I absolutely love:

1.    A Noble Masquerade – Kristi Ann Hunter

I laughed my whole way through this book, when I wasn’t being blown away by the spiritual truths written in it. I remember the first time I read it (okay, might have been the second too…), being so captivated by the prologue that it took me forever to get to the first chapter. This one is a historical romance about a very proper young woman who can’t quite manage to follow all the rules expected of her. She starts writing to her brother’s friend, a duke, as kind of a makeshift diary, never intending on him ever seeing the letters. Only he does one day – and not only finds them amusing but writes back. Tee hee. 

This one is my favourite by this author but all of hers are absolutely brilliant J

2.   Firebird – Kathy Tyers

Probably the first sci-fi book I ever read, I can’t even remember where I found this one but I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve read it. It’s the story of a young woman (Firebird) who’s spent the first eighteen years of her life being told (and believing) that her only worth lies in dying well in battle. But instead of dying, she’s captured by her enemy, a race of people with an ancient faith who believe her life is worth living. It’s a book full of epic space battles and royalty and telepaths but what keeps drawing me back is Firebird’s journey to faith, love and worth. 

3.    Divergent – Veronica Roth

Like Firebird, this is one I pull out fairly frequently, either to read the whole thing or just my favourite parts. Another coming of age story where Tris, the main character, finds not only who she is but something worth fighting for. I’ll admit, the love story is pretty sweet too. 

4.    A Matter of Trust – Susan May Warren

This one is book three of the author’s Montana Rescue series, all of which I loved, but this one is by far my favourite. They’re all based around a close-knit team of rescue workers (think mountain/snow/harsh terrain rescue teams), each book telling a different team member’s story. This one is Gage’s story – a one-time world-champion snowboarder who made a decision which cost someone’s life, and has regretted his fame ever since. 

He’s now joined the rescue team and is using his boarding skills to find a couple of lost snowboarders on a mountain. I loved the descriptions – totally made me feel like I was caught up in the snow right along with them, the wind whizzing past my ears – but also the challenges he has to work through as he figures out what is the guilt speaking and what is God. 

5.    The Merchant’s Daughter – Melanie Dickerson

Set in a medieval land, this is a stunning retelling of Beauty and the Beast. The descriptions are amazing but it was the honour and integrity of the main characters and how they seemed to come alive off the pages as they discovered the Bible for themselves and what it meant to truly live it that had me captivated. 

The Healer’s Apprentice (a retelling of Sleeping Beauty) is another one of my favourites by this author. 

6.    The Red Door Inn/Where Two Hearts Meet/On Love’s Gentle Shore – Liz Johnson

Okay, so I can’t quite choose which of this series is my favourite so I’ll just cheat and put them all. Set on Prince Edward Island (of the Anne of Green Gables variety), these are the stories of three women who find hope, healing and love at a BnB called the Red Door Inn. Which I totally want to go visit. Even if it’s not real. Absolutely beautiful stories which had me captivated from first page to the last and went way deeper than I ever expected. 

7.    Like Never Before/Keep Holding On – Melissa Tagg

Okay, I’m cheating again naming two books but really, I love every single book Melissa has written. Easily one of my top five (if not top three) favourite authors. All her books are hilariously funny, poignantly sweet, challenge my faith and view of the world, take me deeper in my relationship with God, remind me how much I love family and are just really, really beautiful. And, like the Red Door Inn, I really want to go visit the (sadly fictional) town of Maple Valley. 

8.    The Chronicles of Narnia – C S Lewis

Don’t need to say too much about these since I’m pretty sure everyone knows them. Yep, they’re in my favourite books list. I remember my mum reading them to my siblings and I when I was little, so they’ll always be special because of that, but they’re also just brilliant. I read them for the first time as an adult – all seven in a row in a week or so – and few years ago and struggled for a couple of days after to find my way back to reality. The Lion, the Witch and The Wardrobe would probably be my favourite because of its allegorical nature, but I love them all. 

9.    Harry Potter (series) – J K Rowling  

I’ll admit, this one is probably a little controversial but really, they’re brilliantly written and a lot of fun. That said, I won’t be giving them to my kids any time soon, certainly not the last four or so as they get very dark, but I do really enjoy reading them. 

Colour Me Humbled

I’ve never been a fan of colouring in. I was that kid back in grade one who got told to use more than one pencil to colour a picture. Seriously. It happened. I have to smile when I watch Prep kids do it these days because, yep, that was me. I really had no interest in colouring. 

Nothing much has changed. I still don’t like it. I’ll do it, on occasion (once or twice a year, always while sitting chatting with kids) but it’s not something I find relaxing nor am I any good at it. Believe me, if you want something coloured beautifully, ask my sisters. Not me. They can shade and everything. 

So, when an author I follow on Facebook came up with the idea of getting her readers to colour a Scripture-based colouring page each week as an exercise in stillness and contemplation, I balked just shy of opting out altogether. 

I loved the idea – people across the world focusing on one particular verse each week while colouring a page and sharing at the end of the week what God had taught us through it (and the page, if we were game), but the actual colouring? Um, no. Especially when I saw the first week’s page – an incredibly detailed mandala. Not sure what would have given in first, my eyes or my arthritic hands. Nope. That went in the ‘nice idea but too hard’ basket. 

Enter my seven-year-old daughter, who saw the page sitting on the bench and asked if she could colour it.

And, four hours later, handed me the finished product. Yep, for four hours, she sat at our dining room table and coloured every single detail of that page. Using every single pen she had. Where I looked at the page and thought it too hard, she saw the potential and spent the time making that black and white shell of a design a rainbow of beautiful colour. 

I might not have coloured that page, but God did speak to me through it, and her patience. In those four hours, while she sat there colouring, I saw a picture of God’s heart for us. 

I look at my life sometimes and put it in the too-hard basket. Others’ lives too. We’re complicated people. I see the potential for beauty but getting to that point? Nope. Too hard. Too painful. Too long a journey. 

But God sees something different. He sees the beauty. Right from the start. And yes, though it’ll be a long, complicated journey – in which he’ll probably get hurt and have us mistake his intent in the process – he wades right in to our mess and starts making something of it. It’s not too long a process for him. It’s not too difficult. 

He doesn’t rush over the details either, like I’m prone to do (hmmm…how many things can I colour purple? Oh look, those can all be green, those too. More trees? Green, green, green…). He pulls out each one – every dot, every line, every swirl – and makes them beautiful. 

God is patient. Even more so than my daughter. He’s not rushing his work in our lives, wanting to move on to something more important or getting bored, he’s patient, wanting to bring out his best in us even when we can’t see it. 

We’re not too hard for him. Nor too complicated. Nor too broken. The things that overwhelm us? They don’t overwhelm him. He’s big enough, powerful enough, gentle enough and patient enough to deal with them. 

I don’t know about you but I find that really humbling. That God would care that much about me as to not find my messiness overwhelming. That he would want to delve into the complications of my life and not just look and walk away. That he would love me that much as to want to be part of my mess. That the God who commands planets and thunder and universes beyond my imagination would think me worth taking the time to make beautiful. 

Wow! Colour me humbled. 

Parting Waters

Instead of writing my own post tonight, I wanted to share with you a song that’s been a huge encouragement to me this past year. I love the imagery of it all and the reminder that God is working in ways we’ll never know to answer the prayers our hearts ache to see realised. He’s not a passive God, sitting there, listening to our desperate prayers, saying ‘oh, that’s nice.’ He’s working – for us, in us, through us, around us. He knows our prayers before we pray them and is already at work to see them through. 

God is faithful. So, so faithful. He hears your prayers, he sees your heart, he wipes away your tears. He’s on your side. He’s moving mountains. I hope this song encourages you today too. (Listen to it here, or the lyrics are below)

STILL – Hillary Scott

I believe that you are God alone

But sometimes I still try to take control

Cause I get scared when I can’t see the end

And all you want from me is to let go

You’re parting waters, making a way for me

You’re moving mountains that I don’t even see

You’ve answered my prayer before I even speak

All you need for me to be is still

I bring my praise before I bring my need

Cause there’s no fear you’ve not already seen

I rest my heart on all your promises

Cause I have seen and know your faithfulness

You’re parting waters, making a way for me

You’re moving mountains that I don’t even see

You’ve answered my prayer before I even speak

All you need for me to be is still

And know that you are God

Be still and know that you, trust that you are

Parting waters

Lord, you whispered my name

You answered my prayer

You’re moving mountains

You’re parting waters, making a way for me

You’re moving mountains that I don’t even see

You’ve answered my prayer before I even speak

All you need for me to be

Is still

Where is my Heart?

For my birthday last year, I thought it would be fun to have a high tea with my kids and mum. I enjoyed planning it and putting it together as much as the actual party - starting with trawling through op shops to find beautiful, mismatched tea cups. 

Miniature cheesecakes, fruit cups, tiny quiches, cucumber sandwiches, chocolate macarons, cupcakes topped with handmade fondant flowers, a table set with lace and glass serving displays. It looked and tasted as beautiful as I’d imagined. We dressed up, sipped (iced) tea in our delicate tea cups and shared a perfect afternoon tea. Bonus being two of my sisters had days off that day and could come too.

My kids loved it so much that they begged to have another one over the Christmas holidays. Remembering how special a time it was, I happily agreed. And then Christmas happened, and New Year and the craziness of getting ready for school and fitting in everything we’d planned on doing on the holidays, and somehow it got to the last few days and we still hadn’t had one. 

I was totally run down from being up what felt like half of every night with a teething toddler and not feeling all that great but couldn’t bear the thought of disappointing my kids. So, I threw a tea party together. In one afternoon. 

A few pastries and lamingtons on sale at Coles, some chocolate custard spooned into little glasses and topped with whipped cream, cucumber sandwiches, a tub of strawberries and a three-tiered cardboard display I found in the cupboard leftover from a party years ago. I didn’t even remember to pull out the teapot and cups until my daughter reminded me. 

No chocolate mousse cups, no special little cheesecakes, quiches or the tiny little ham and lettuce scrolls my older daughter loves which I'd planned on doing. I sat there, eating and laughing with my kids, taking silly photos, and feeling like a failure. I’d promised them a special tea party, and hadn’t even had the energy to make one thing myself. 

But as we were sitting there chatting, I asked (probably trying to make myself feel better by remembering my past success) which tea party they liked better, absolutely shocked when my daughter said – without even a thought – “this one!”

I couldn’t understand it. Sure, it was nice but it was nothing compared to my birthday one. I’d spent days preparing for that one. Put hours of effort into each bite. So, of course, I asked why. Her answer ripped through me. 

“Because we get you to ourselves at this one.”

She didn’t care whether I’d spent hours making fondant flower toppers or two seconds grabbing a box of pastries. It was the time spent with me which made this one special. I felt honoured and ridiculously challenged all at once. 

I love serving God. Really love it. I’ve been involved in lots of various ministries within the church over the years from youth leading to singing on a worship team to serving in a coffeeshop to helping abused women feel like they matter. It’s such a buzz and a privilege to be able to serve God with what he’s given me. 

But I wonder how many times I get so caught up in the buzz of serving that I forget why I’m doing it. I want everything to be perfect before I come to God, forgetting that it’s my presence he wants far more than my list of accomplishments. 

God wants our best, sure. He loves it when we give all we have to him. But he loves our presence the most. He’s not asking us to run ourselves ragged trying to put on a show for him. He simply wants our hearts. Our attention. 

It’s a real challenge for me to stop doing and just be. I feel like I have to prove to myself every minute of every day that what I’m doing is worth something. That I'm worth something. I want the things I care about to be perfect and therefore throw everything I have into what I do. And I don’t think there’s anything exactly wrong with that – until it distracts us from the point. Which is God. And people. 

My daughter didn’t need fancy food to make a tea party special, just my attention. That half hour (before my son decided chocolate custard was far more fun to paint with than eat) when I sat down with them and focused on nothing and no one else but them. No lists, no cleaning, no cooking, no running around trying to get everything done or accidentally ignoring them while I chatted to someone else – just being there. 

God loves your service but he loves your attention even more. In all your running about serving, don’t forget the reason you’re doing it. Because God loved you first. And he can’t wait to sit down – everything else aside – and spend time with you.

My Something

I watched a movie with my girls on the weekend called Ballerina. It’s about a girl who escapes from an orphanage with her best friend to go to Paris and make her dream of becoming a ballerina come true. Such a beautiful movie! Along the way, she has a mentor/teacher who asks her over and over why she wants to be a ballerina. She gets a little frustrated with both the mentor and the question, answering each time that it’s because she loves it. It isn’t till the end that she realizes the truth – that dancing isn’t just something she loves, it’s who she is. How she connects with the world. That it’s as much a part of her as breathing. 

I’ve been asking myself a lot lately why I write. The main character in the novel I’m currently working on is a lot more complex than I originally thought and is causing me no small amount of frustration. I wrote the first draft of the first book in this series – her friend’s story – in two months. This one has taken over eighteen months already and been a struggle the whole way along. I’ve cut tens of thousands of words from it and restarted the whole thing five times. I’ve wondered more times than I’d care to count why I’m bothering. Why am I putting myself through this stress? Why do I put aside other things I could be doing (sleep being pretty high on the list!) to write?

For a long time, I’ve answered pretty much like that ballerina – because I love it. Because there’s something about creating characters and getting lost in their stories which invigorates me. Of course, that answer doesn’t really cut it when I’m so angry with the story and its characters that I’m ready to throw it in the bin and happily walk away. And yet, I haven’t (yet :p). Because there’s more to it than that. 

I found the answer as I was reading my Bible a few weeks ago.

Acts 4:20. “As for us, there’s no question – we can’t keep quiet about what we’ve seen and heard.”

Peter and John, disciples of Jesus, knew what it was like to face opposition. I fight with characters in my imagination. They stood up to people with the power to kill them. In this chapter, they’d been hauled once again before the law of the time and threatened with prison or worse if they didn’t stop telling everyone about Jesus. And yet, they didn’t stop. Because they couldn’t. Because God had placed a message in them which they couldn’t keep silent about. 

I love writing, sure, but the reason I keep at it on those days when it hurts is because God’s put in me a message I have to tell. Sure, it comes out in different ways through various characters’ lives but the message is always the same – because of God, there is hope, and what we see now is not the end. 

I found another verse this morning which confirmed it again. It’s in 1 Corinthians 12, where Paul is talking about spiritual gifts. I love the way The Message puts verse seven: “Each person is given something to do that shows who God is.”

Writing is my something. One of the ways I can show others who God is. His character. His love. His grace. The hope that comes through knowing him.

So, as I head back to battling this headstrong character of mine and trying to finally finish the first draft of her story, I’m asking you, what’s your something? Why do you do what you do? What gifts has God given you which show others who he is? 

Praying God gives you the courage this week to use them. Just like God needs me and my stories, he’s needs you and your gifts. 

Fight Like a Warrior

I’ve been challenged a lot about prayer lately and the way I pray. It’s been one of those things which keeps coming up without me even really looking for it. First, a series of YA fiction books I read turned out to be based on the spiritual battles going on around us and the power we have through prayer to change things. Then a devotional I was doing worked its way through prayer and different prayers in the Bible, which led to me watching the movie, War Room (which, while corny in parts, is an incredibly powerful movie and one I’d highly recommend). Then there was the lesson God’s been teaching me about simply asking (see my last post for that one).

Whether or not we feel it, there is a battle going on around us. In the past few months, I’ve been more aware of it than ever. But alongside the battle, I’ve been aware of my part in it and the fact that God has given us the power, through Jesus, to fight in it.

One of the most powerful prayers I’ve ever heard prayed was by an elderly man the week before he died. The visit was precious but tough, knowing how close he was to leaving earth forever. He struggled to remember our names and phased in and out of consciousness. He barely had the strength to sit in his chair. But as we were leaving, he asked to pray with us. And suddenly, his words were strong. He might not have remembered our names, but he knew God. He prayed for us – my mum and me – and the wider church. He prayed using Bible verses and the words of an old hymn.

Those verses were so strongly settled in him that they bypassed his failing memory and came straight from his heart.

I want that. I want God’s word and truth to be the first weapon I pick up. I want to be able to fight with them, believing the power they have. I can pray my own prayers from my heart, and I know God loves that, but there’s something so powerful about speaking aloud God’s word. Claiming word for word his promises.

There are a lot of things I can’t do – heal people, change other's attitudes, be in more than one place at a time, embrace people I don't know who are hurting, be an actual soldier – but there is one thing I can do and that’s pray. And know that those prayers are making a difference.

I don’t know what you believe or know about prayer. Maybe you spend hours a day waging war against the supernatural, maybe you grew up reciting the Lord’s Prayer and never considered praying anything else, maybe you’ve given up on prayer altogether. Whatever you believe, know this, there is power in prayer. Whether you claim God’s promises in faith or timidly come asking hoping it to be true, God hears you and what you say makes a difference.

I mentioned the movie, War Room. The final song in it sums up pretty well both the challenge and privilege we have in praying. I hope you take the time to listen to it but more, I hope you find in it the encouragement to not give up hope. The greatest thing about this battle we’re fighting in is that we’ve already won.

Warrior - Steven Curtis Chapman

I see the smoke on the horizon.

I feel my heart pounding in my chest. 
I hear the war raging all around me. 
And somehow I feel like I was born for this. 
I can taste the fear, but I choose courage 
As I raise my shield and lift my sword.


And I fall on my knees and I fight like a warrior 
I am a warrior on my knees. 
I call on the Name of the One Who is Conqueror 
I'm more than a conqueror when I believe. 
The enemy trembles every time 
'Cause he knows the battle is no longer mine 
When I fall on my knees and I fight like a warrior

Daughters and sons, we can hear your calling 
Broken and weak, we can hear your cry 
And even though our enemy roars like a lion, 
The Lion of Judah is on our side. 
And He will go before us and behind us 
Fighting on the left and on the right


Our weapons are trust, our weapons are hope 
In the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords 
He says, "I am with you so don't be afraid, 
'Cause I've already won this war." 
So fall on your knees and fight with me, 
We are the Warriors when we are on our knees 
The enemy trembles...