Meows from the Manse

Meows from the Manse
Author: Barry Blackstone
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
Total Pages: 267
Release: 2022-08-30
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1666743585

If you are a cat lover and a Christian, then this book is for you. Seventeen years in the making, Meows from the Manse is a collection of remembrances and reflections from a Maine pastor about his “cat of a lifetime” and the years they lived together at the parsonage (manse) of the Emmanuel Baptist Church in Ellsworth, Maine. Eddie was a stray tomcat that eventually worked his way into the heart of this reluctant minister, despite the fact that this man of the cloth never liked cats. Surrounded by cats in his younger years on a family farm, and always living with a cat or two because of his wife’s love affair with cats (Coleen’s last cat would live twenty-two years—sixteen of them with Eddie), and his kid’s love of cats, the exploits and experience with Eddie would change this pastor’s mind about cats, teaching him the biblical challenge of Job 12:7: “But ask now the beasts and they shall teach thee!” Relive the years with Eddie and the Pearl (Coleen’s cat) and the enriching spiritual lessons this preacher learned from his constant companion and friend through the challenging years as a pastor of a small coastal church, the death of a thirty-nine-year-old son, and the passing of his dear wife of forty-eight years. The cat tales begin with Eddie’s arrival across from the pastor’s church and end with the passing of Eddie from throat cancer. In between are insights you might not believe from the Bible, but for the author were some of the best sermons he heard during that period of his life. Without a doubt for this widower, the messages (meows) from Eddie were some of the best he ever heard, but he will let you be the judge!

At a Moment's Notice

At a Moment's Notice
Author: Barry Blackstone
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
Total Pages: 211
Release: 2023-02-10
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 166676034X

At a Moment’s Notice is the very first writing project the author ever attempted in 1988. After thirty-five years, the author took a second look at the series of devotionals and decided they needed to be made into a book. At a Moment’s Notice contains fifty chapters based upon the truth of the title. Gleaning from the word of God, the Bible, the preacher in the author recognized that more often than not the main characters underlined in the Scriptures reacted immediately to certain situations and circumstances they were confronted with. Take a trip through Holy Writ as we encounter the judge Shamgar as he comes face-to-face with a marauding band of Philistines in his field; as Lydia the purple saleswoman meets Paul by a river in Philippi; as Hur helps Moses at a moment’s notice with the Rod of God that eventually wins an important battle; as Simeon comes into Herod’s Temple just at the right moment to meet the Christ-child; and as Naboth has to make the most difficult decision of his life that will also cost him his life. Though the actions and reactions of each famous or infamous hero or heroine highlighted in the book have the same quality, the lessons being taught are as varied as the stories being told. Take a few moments to read the account and ponder what is being taught, and then hopefully an application can be made in the reader’s heart—at a moment’s notice!

Rover

Rover
Author: Barry Blackstone
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
Total Pages: 99
Release: 2017-10-06
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 153263434X

Walk again in your childhood with a favorite animal friend as Pastor Blackstone remembers his boyhood and best friend: a dog named Rover and their adventures together. This series of remembrances and reminisces of a canine companion after over a half a century of time was invoked by an adulthood best friend, a cat named Eddie (highlighted in his own book--Meows from the Manse). Rover: A Boy's Best Friend is a mental stroll through memory lane when the author was much younger and the world of his family's homestead was open for exploration and expedition with a mostly black German Shepherd and Collie mix at his side. Travel with these best friends through the four seasons of nature covered in white and green and brown; through the forest paths of north Perham, a tiny agriculture community in Aroostook County, Maine; through the fields and the pastures of a 720-acre dairy and potato farm as they encounter woodland creatures of every sort and barnyard animals of every kind; through meadows and mornings and moonsets that years later form wonderful illustrations and spiritual lessons for the young man who would grow up to become a pastor for nearly a half century. You will hear from Rover himself as he barks out sermons that will stand the test of time, and homestead homilies that will rebuke and reprove as the author makes a modern application to a boyhood experience with his dog. Sit back and read and recall your own "dog tales," or "cat tales" if that is your favorite animal, as you travel again with "a lad and his Lassie," with a "shaver" and his Rin Tin Tin, through the early years of life when your best friend was a dog named Rover!

Satan's Super Soldiers

Satan's Super Soldiers
Author: Barry Blackstone
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
Total Pages: 217
Release: 2024-04-30
Genre: Religion
ISBN:

Barry Blackstone has been fascinated with the biblical reference to “giants” since childhood but only began looking deeper into the subject when he was challenged by a member of his congregation twenty-five years ago. Over those years, Blackstone compiled information on all the named “giants” and those that slew them (men well-known like David, Joshua, and Caleb and those not so well-known like Othniel, Elhanan, and Abishai). Coming to the conclusion that this race of super-humans was a product of Satan’s plan to corrupt man, stop the coming of the Messiah, and resist the Hebrews from possessing their promised land, Blackstone began to see the principles and precepts needed to combat the “giants” of our day in our spiritual warfare “against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places” (Eph 6:12). Travel with this pastor through the Bible as he reveals the origin of the “giants,” how they survived the Flood, and when they were finally wiped out in the days of David. With strange names like Rephaim, OG, Arba, Anak, Sheshai, and of course Goliath, learn about their fabled size, their formable weapons, and why they all were so easily defeated! This exploration will cover some of the greatest battles described in Scripture and will uncover how to win against gigantic foes personally. Each chapter is written in a devotional style that will bring a spiritual encouragement to the reader and will help them see that no matter how invincible the adversary, “What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us?” (Rom 8:31).

A Story Lately Told

A Story Lately Told
Author: Anjelica Huston
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 288
Release: 2013-11-19
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1451656319

Anjelica Huston’s “gorgeously written” (O, The Oprah Magazine) memoir is “an elegant, funny, and frequently haunting reminiscence of the first two decades of her life…A classic” (Vanity Fair). In her first, dazzling memoir, Anjelica Huston shares the story of her deeply unconventional early life—her enchanted childhood in Ireland, living with her glamorous and artistic mother, educated by tutors and nuns, intrepid on a horse. Huston was raised on an Irish estate to which—between movies—her father, director John Huston, brought his array of extraordinary friends, from Carson McCullers and John Steinbeck to Peter O’Toole and Marlon Brando. In London, where she lived with her mother and brother in the early sixties when her parents separated, Huston encountered the Rolling Stones and Fleetwood Mac. She understudied Marianne Faithfull in Hamlet. Seventeen, striking, precocious, but still young and vulnerable, she was devastated when her mother died in a car crash. Months later she moved to New York, fell in love with the much older, brilliant but disturbed photographer, Bob Richardson, and became a model. Living in the Chelsea Hotel, working with Richard Avedon and other photographers, she navigated a volatile relationship and the dynamic cultural epicenter of New York in the seventies. A Story Lately Told is an “evocative” (The New York Times), “magically beautiful” (The Boston Globe) memoir. Huston’s second memoir, Watch Me, will be published in November 2014.

Blood Memory

Blood Memory
Author: Greg Iles
Publisher: Scribner
Total Pages: 656
Release: 2019-04-09
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1982120673

From the author of the New York Times bestselling Natchez Burning trilogy and the Penn Cage series, and hailed by Dan Brown (The Da Vinci Code) for his “utterly consuming” suspense fiction, Greg Iles melds forensic detail with penetrating insight in this novel that delves in the heart of a killer in a Mississippi town. Some memories live deep in the soul, indelible and dangerous, waiting to be resurrected… Forensic dentist “Cat” Ferry is suspended from an FBI task force when the world-class expert is inexplicably stricken with panic attacks and blackouts while investigating a chain of brutal murders. Returning to her Mississippi hometown, Cat finds herself battling with alcohol, plagued by nightmares, and entangled with a married detective. Then, in her childhood bedroom, some spilled chemicals reveal two bloody footprints…and the trauma of her father’s murder years earlier comes flooding back. Facing the secrets of her past, Cat races to connect them to a killer’s present-day violence. But what emerges is the frightening possibility that Cat herself might have blood on her hands… “As Southern Gothic as it gets” (Kirkus Reviews), Greg Iles’s Blood Memory “will have readers turning pages at a breakneck pace” (New Orleans Times-Picayune).

Candy-colored Clown

Candy-colored Clown
Author: K. Spirito
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Total Pages: 281
Release: 2004-10
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1418423572

Life is perfect for Julie Waters -- great husband, gorgeous hundred-year-old brick manse perched upon a broad precipice overlooking the open Atlantic off Cohasset, Massachusetts, friends, family ... and then she gets pregnant. Great husband Ken descends into a constant state of fretfulness, slugging down single malt Scotch and pacing about the manse that he and his first wife Regina restored just before the plane crash that took her and their only child Katrina. He sees Julie as Regina and all the sorrow that she wreaked upon him lives again. Beloved Katrina calls to him and he steps off the broad precipice to build sandcastles with her on the beach below, but Julie snags his shirt. Bouncing off the rocky outcrop, he clutches a candy-colored clown that glows worse than the great flames masticating the manse. That's only the beginning. One person knows Katrina is still alive while family secrets and a candy-colored clown endanger mankind. Emotions run high as love and determination lead Ken and Julie to a terrorist training camp for children and Katrina.

Forbidden to Love the Duke

Forbidden to Love the Duke
Author: Jillian Hunter
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 225
Release: 2015-02-03
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0698158059

Hailed for her “wicked wit and exquisite sensuality” (Booklist), Jillian Hunter, the New York Times bestselling author of the Boscastle Affairs novels and the Bridal Pleasures novels returns with the Fenwick Sisters Affairs, her ravishing new series of four sisters bound by fortune, romance, and scandal.... Lady Ivy Fenwick is desperate. Since her father’s fatal duel, she and her sisters have sold off every valuable possession to make ends meet. With the manor stripped bare, Ivy has one last resort: Apply as governess to the Duke of Ellsworth’s wards. James should have known better than to hire the desirable lady who had fallen on hard times—and who tempts him at every turn. As her employer, he tries valiantly to remain noble and not let a kiss they shared as strangers years ago entice him. Yet the more he learns of Ivy’s secrets, the more he wants her. And when another suitor proves aggressive, James is confronted with a challenge: Surrender Ivy or fight for the woman he’s come to love against all odds, knowing that it takes a scoundrel to trump a scoundrel.