Myth – Lit World Interviews

Jesus vs. Santa: Christmas Misunderstood by @JERoyle #Book Review by @RonovanWrites

In Jesus vs. Santa: Christmas Misunderstood, Jason Royle tackles THE big question of Christmas; Is Santa evil? Okay, maybe he doesn’t quite put it that way, but you know a lot of Christians have issues with Santa.

After reading, enjoying, and reviewing Judas: Hero Misunderstood (click HERE for the review of that one), and then bringing Jason onboard LWI as our Christian and Inspirational book reviewer, there was no doubt I was going to read this new one.

One thing about both Jason and I, we are Christians. We are by choice, living it Christians. That means even though Jason works here, he gets an honest review from me. He expects one as well. If his book was so bad I couldn’t finish it, I would do like I do with other books like that, I send an email explaining things instead of putting it out there to the world my opinion that it was bad. The fact there is a review here should give you an idea if I liked the book or not.

In Jesus vs. Santa: Christmas Misunderstood, Royle takes you through the history of Christmas, from the real Saint Nicholas to the daddy of Thor, in a brief and painless way. (I was a History teacher, so I know about painful history lessons.) You’ll learn where the answer to how we handle the issue of Santa with our kids begins. A great deal of what you find in Jesus vs. Santa you can use in everyday life with not only your children, but yourself as well.

As a minister and a father, Jason has to balance the question we all face as parents each Christmas with even more pressure than the rest of us. You might think he’s going to go full force in one direction on this subject, but read. If the answer is as clear as that, why would I read it and review it? If the answer is as simple as No More Santa, I would not waste my novel writing time reading the book and then even more of that time writing a review.

As an ordained Deacon, former Youth Minister, and Sunday School Director, I feel the pains Jason goes through in a family moment he shares. My son is 11 now, and the question of Santa is a big thing at the moment. He’s not asking, but you can see how realization is setting in. Fortunately, I’ve done some of the things Jason mentions in his book, so my hope is things transition well.

If you are about to enter the Santa zone with your kids, are in the middle of it, or coming to the end of it, read this book to find out how to handle things in a way that keeps your kids on the right path of Jesus not only at Christmas, but year around.

5 out of 5 Stars

Bet it at Amazon by clicking HERE NOW for Kindle/Paperback for $2.99/$5.99.

ABOUT JASON E. ROYLE

“Writing, for Jason, is a way to express the ongoing story of theology. With every book or article, he hopes readers get a sense of the complexity of God and the necessity of faith. Captivated by the spiritual component of life, Jason loves to read everything from the Greek classics to the Sunday comics. While serving as pastor of a congregation near Memphis, TN, Jason wrote a weekly column in a local newspaper called Sermon in a Nutshell and has had devotions published in The Secret Place, among others.”

Click the image to follow the latest from Jason on Twitter!

About the Reviewer

Ronovan Hester is an author, with his debut historical adventure novel Amber Wake: Gabriel Falling due out in Valentine’s Day of 2016. He shares his life as an amnesiac and Chronic Pain sufferer through his blog RonovanWrites.WordPress.com. His love of poetry, authors and community through his online world has lead to a growing Weekly Haiku Challenge, a Weekly Fiction Prompt Challenge, and the creation of a site dedicated to book reviews, interviews and author resources known as LitWorldInterviews.com.

Subscribe to Blog via Email

@RonovanWrites

The Judas Apocalypse by @DanMcNeil888 “At times his encounters are humorous, deadly, and explosive.”

He’s been referred to as the new Dan on the block of historical fiction conspiracy theories. I don’t agree. Dan McNeil handles his subject with a better hand than Brown ever has. Yeah, sure, you want to knock him across the room at times but who doesn’t want to read something that gets them on an emotional level at times? If you want a fluff read, skip this review. McNeil isn’t about fluff.

Dan McNeil? You know, I normally have a few ideas to start off with for a review. The problem today is—McNeil throws numerous things into The Judas Apocalypse that are intriguing and varied. And they appeal to me on a DNA level. That meaning he has inclusions which spark my interests.

McNeil gives us a story that spans two thousand years, not year by year or hanging out in that distant past for so long you want to skip pages, and that story threatens to devastate a world, a way of life, and rewrite history. And he does so by piecing together historical facts with bits of legends and myths that are most familiar and some not so to the average layman. He brings some new twists to the saying “everything old is new again”.

I’ll tell you this, I know the legends, the history, and the names of the real people mentioned in The Judas Apocalypse. And McNeil gets them right AND he brings some to life in a most interesting way. Why do I know these things? I was a world history expert and teacher with special courses in Nazi and European History under my belt. I taught delinquents to the point they blew the national average in World History testing away.

History is still a major love of my life. This is why one day, not so long ago, I chose to pick up this book and begin reading for pleasure, yes, a Book Reviewer was going to read for pleasure with no intent on reviewing. But my motto is “Read a Book, Write a Review”.

Then I got either interested or ticked off because McNeil was writing about the same characters I used in a YA book I had written a few years ago. (It’s still in one of the draft stages on my computer.)

Dr. Gerhard Denninger, a Jewish Archaeologist in Nazi Germany is spending his years in of all places the Ahnenerbe, the Heritage Bureau of the Third Reich, headed by Heinrich Himmler himself. This is the department that searches for religious relics in the hopes their power will bring victory to the Third Reich.

He comes in contact with a fellow member of the Bureau, one Otto Rahn and off we go on the adventure of a life time. Denninger’s love of the legend of the Cathars and their missing treasure has consumed his life and now he finds himself doing whatever it takes to find it. This includes lying, cheating, and risking death at the hands of the Nazi regime as he makes his way closer and closer to his dream come true. At times his encounters are humorous, deadly, and explosive.

But what happens when he stumbles across four US Army soldiers, who make modern day Reality Shows look like the cast of My Three Sons, wandering France in search of their unit? It gets even stranger and more nerve racking.

McNeil unites four soldiers that represent a broad range of US culture and forces them to be a close knit unit to survive.

Who is good?
Who is bad?
Who is nuts?
Who can be trusted?

Honestly, the answers may not be as clear as you think, not even to Dr. Denninger who gets a ringside seat to the soap opera that occurs as they all continue on the hunt for the Cathar Treasure.

This is one well researched piece of fiction and you don’t feel like you’re reading a research article like you do in some novels who get lost and forget they are writing a story to entertain. There are times when you completely lose yourself in Dan McNeil’s world. You see and hear things. You feel remorse at times, even surprisingly for characters you can’t stand. McNeil makes you have emotions and thoughts, or perhaps maybe I should say he has you examine things about yourself at times that may make you wonder.

Dan McNeil makes mention at the beginning about the religious content of The Judas Apocalypse. For those on either side of the hill about their faith, this book need not worry you. Read as it was intended, a good, fun time to let your imagination flow from a man who obviously has some obsession with history and loves to piece together the pieces from different puzzles to make a new picture. I personally was able to read it with no problems and knew enough and felt enough about what I believe to enjoy the story.

Personally, I believe a book that gives one pause at times is a good book. I like to have a think as a result of something I have read rather than have my time and thoughts filled with something I won’t get anything out of. Dan McNeil’s The Judas Apocalypse is a book that will make you think. And at times some of you will shout at him. Don’t worry, he won’t hear you, and if he did, he would laugh and applaud, for that’s what he was hoping for, I’m sure.

Dan Brown? Indiana Jones? Neither. This is a unique story with characters not fitting nicely into anyone else’s pigeon hole. Similarities of feel? Maybe, just so you have that frame of reference where this might genre might fall, and find yourself comfortable in, but the story is its own story.

RECOMMENDATION

I recommend this book for lovers of history, WWII fiction, and some of those archaeological adventure stories.

Character Believability: 4
Flow and Pace: 4
Reader Engagement: 4
Reader Enrichment: 4.5
Reader Enjoyment: 4.5
Overall Rate: 4.2

GET THE JUDAS APOCALYPSE

Amazon.com Amazon.ca Amazon.co.uk

Visit http://www.danmcneil.ca/ for other outlets.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dan McNeil is a born, raised and currently residing Canadian and proud to say so. After a song-writing partnership brought some fame and continued own into a music career, Dan spent many years behind the scenes of television as a camera operator learning the art of storytelling, whether it be good or bad. He became senior editor of the station and often composed the music for many of the local productions. Then it happened.

His first book, “The Judas Apocalypse” was published in 2008. He fully enjoyed the experience and decided to write another. His latest offering is “Can’t Buy Me Love,” a light hearted romp about a heist during the Beatle’s first visit to the United States in 1964, to be released in the summer of 2012. He currently is fending off his friends and fans constant clamoring for more. As if there isn’t more in the works.

CONNECT WITH DAN

@DanMcNeil888

http://www.danmcneil.ca/

https://www.facebook.com/judasapocalypse

ALWAYS SHARE LITWORLDINTERVIEWS.COM BOOK REVIEWS AND ARTICLES!

Ronovan Hester is an author, with his debut historical adventure novel Amber Wake: Gabriel Falling due out in December of 2015. He shares his life as an amnesiac and Chronic Pain sufferer through his blog RonovanWrites.WordPress.com. His love of poetry, authors and community through his online world has lead to a growing Weekly Haiku Challenge and the creation of a site dedicated to book reviews, interviews and author resources known as LitWorldInterviews.com.

Subscribe to Blog via Email

@RonovanWrites

LitWorldInterviews #Book #Review of The Nibelung Gold by Koos Verkaik.

I received this book for an honest review from the author. A very nice man who I have exchanged several emails. How nice? He wasn’t upset that a recent illness that messed with my short term memory problems, which I suffer from due to a concussion, had made me lose track of his review. Fortunately he emailed me and it clicked. I found my notes.

Being a historian and lover of myth and legend, when this book was made notice to me as available for review I jumped at it. I don’t often do that. Less and less these days.

The story is about a man with an obsession. At first Willem Wolf wants to know if the paranormal is real. He and his partner Jacob spend their time exposing false spiritualists as the frauds they are, that is until they meet Wera Keller. Keller makes a believer, of sorts, out of Wolf.

With his meeting with Keller coming to an unexpected end, Wolf finds himself on a hunt for answers that turns into more and then even more than he ever thought he was getting in to. Included in that is a group involved in the occult and of course a major villain.

The Nibelung Gold is a well researched, detailed book that engrosses the reader but you do need to give it your attention. There is a lot of information to glean from the reading and you at times might think you are reading a man’s research, which in a way you might say you are. I think that is part of the charm of the book. It’s not simply a story but it IS research as Wolf is trying to make discoveries. This is a mystery.

Take your time with the book and don’t expect a quick read, unless you are just that sort of reader. This is one you want to take in slowly so you can absorb it all. It’s nice having books like that sometimes. Or it is for me.

The author, Koos Verkaik gives us a view of late 19^th century spiritualism in Amsterdam, which is something unusual to read about.

You will discover if Wolf finds out if the paranormal is real and there is of course the Nibelung Treasure itself.

Recommend:

I would recommend this to anyone interested in historical pieces with myths and paranormal elements, and history period. It’s a brain piece, as I call them, but an enjoyable one that is not over the top for an average reader, you get the sense of a great imagination behind the book along with a great deal of research. all of which I believe comes from the vast writing experience of the author.

Rating

I give it a 4 out of 5.

Why not 5?

There are some slow moments that take away and you might get lost along the way with some changes in direction, but you will still enjoy it. This is a book translated to English but that doesn’t take away all that much, and then perhaps not at all once you are engrossed in the story itself.

I would read more by this author.

About the Author: (Click image for author site.)

Koos Verkaik started to write at the age of 7, published his firt work (comics, 3 pages each week in a magazine) at the age of 16, his first novel was published at the age of 18.
Over 50 different titles are published now, both in The Netherlands, Canada and the USA.
Koos is a master of magic, adventure and mystery, writes many urban fantasy books en children’s books.
His new series for children, ALEX AND THE WOLPERTINGER, is published internationally and there will be at least 30 different titles.