Grace-filled Tuesdays (Book Club "Meeting" #12)

Okay, it's Tuesday.  And you know, of course, that Tuesday's child is full of Grace...and Erin!  (Hardee har har.)  So here we are, book clubbin'.

I do think I'm going to have to work on a new meme for Grace-filled Tuesdays.  I'm not sure that this one is snazzy enough.  Here's one that I always loved over at Housewifespice.

It's got that great vintage look about it, and it's a very easy to recognize image.

Mine is...meh.  So-so.  (And I forgot to put the // after the http, so the Internet address is not even technically correct!)  My design team is on it, though. Look for a better meme the next time we meet.

I recently found a YouTube video showing how to make a Christmas tree out of a paperback book, so I decided to try it with a copy of Erin's Ring.  I ended up not being as impressed by the final product as I thought I was going to be, so I never added the ribbons and glitter.  And I'm not going to waste any more of the author copies I've bought from the publisher--even though it's very "circle of life": from a tree, to a book, back to a tree again.

Speaking of Erin's Ring, I was thrilled to see it mentioned in a print publication, an actual paper-and-ink magazine (something that surely doesn't happen every day!).  Catholic Library World featured a number of Catholic publishing houses in its December 2015 issue, and Bezalel Books (the publisher of both Erin's Ring and Finding Grace) was included.  Among other Bezalel works, Erin's Ring got a nice shout-out.

I told you that earlier in the month, when I spoke to some Catholic school students (including the eighth grade class of my nephew and two nieces--triplets!), once we got to the Q and A part of the presentation, the kids got pretty quiet.  Hands were not exactly shooting up in the air.  I thought I'd sort of blown it with them.  But my sister-in-law (the triplets' mom) called me recently and said that she'd eavesdropped on one of her daughters and a classmate, while she was driving them to a basketball game in her van, and my niece's friend was talking about Finding Grace.  This friend told my niece that once I'd come to visit their class, she suddenly felt that it was time to finally read it.  A teacher had recommended it to her long ago, but she hadn't gotten around to it yet.

My sister-in-law was giddy relating the details of the girls' conversation to me.  This young reader claimed that Finding Grace was one of her favorite books of all time.  For four days, she couldn't put it down; and when she finished, she wished it hadn't come to an end.  To say that this made my day would be a gross understatement!  Those are just the kind of words an author yearns to hear--especially a Catholic author who dearly hoped that she would be able to reach and inspire impressionable young people through the medium of fiction.

And book clubs are a great medium for discussing fiction.  So I'll ask you a question, dear readers: if you've read either Finding Grace or Erin's Ring, did you have a favorite character?  Why did you like him or her so much?

And do you have any questions for me?  Don't be shy now, ask me anything you want.

Okay then, until next time, I hope your life will be filled with blessings and grace.  And plenty of good books!