Wednesday, February 16, 2011

The Brotherhood

978-1-4143-0907-1The Brotherhood
Written by Jerry B. Jenkins
Published at Tyndale

About the book

Boone Drake has it made. He’s a young cop rising rapidly through the ranks of the Chicago Police Department. He has a beautiful wife and a young son, a nice starter house, a great partner, and a career plan that should land him in the Organized Crime Division within five years. Everything is going right. Until everything goes horribly, terribly wrong. His personal life destroyed and his career and future in jeopardy, Boone buries himself in guilt and bitterness as his life spirals out of control. But when he comes face-to-face with the most vicious gang leader Chicago has seen in decades, he begins to realize that God is a God of second chances and can change the hardest heart . . . and forgive the worst of crimes. A thought-provoking police thriller from New York Times best-selling author Jerry B. Jenkins.

Who is Jerry B. Jenkins?pic_lg_jenkins_jerry

Jerry B. Jenkins, former vice president for publishing at Moody Bible Institute of Chicago and currently chairman of the board of trustees, is the author of more than 175 books, including the best-selling Left Behind series. Twenty of his books have reached the New York Times Best Sellers List (seven in the number-one spot) and have also appeared on the USA Today, Publishers Weekly, and Wall Street Journal best-seller lists. Desecration, book nine in the Left Behind series, was the best-selling book in the world in 2001. His books have sold nearly 70 million copies.Also the former editor of Moody magazine, his writing has appeared in Time, Reader's Digest, Parade, Guideposts, Christianity Today and dozens of other periodicals. He was featured on the cover of Newsweek magazine in 2004.His nonfiction books include as-told-to biographies with Hank Aaron, Bill Gaither, Orel Hershiser, Luis Palau, Joe Gibbs, Walter Payton, and Nolan Ryan among many others. The Hershiser and Ryan books reached the New York Times Best Sellers List. Jenkins assisted Dr. Billy Graham with his autobiography, Just As I Am, also a New York Times best seller. Jerry spent 13 months working with Dr. Graham, which he considers the privilege of a lifetime. Jerry owns Jenkins Entertainment, a filmmaking company in Los Angeles, which produced the critically acclaimed movie Midnight Clear, based on his book of the same name. See www.Jenkins-Entertainment.com.Jerry Jenkins also owns the Christian Writers Guild, which aims to train tomorrow's professional Christian writers. Under Jerry's leadership, the guild has expanded to include college-credit courses, a critique service, literary registration services, and writing contests, as well as an annual conference. See www.ChristianWritersGuild.com.As a marriage-and-family author, Jerry has been a frequent guest on Dr. James Dobson's Focus on the Family radio program and is a sought-after speaker and humorist. See www.AmbassadorSpeakers.com.Jerry has been awarded four honorary doctorates. He and his wife, Dianna, have three grown sons and six grandchildren.Check out Jerry's blog at http://jerryjenkins.blogspot.com.

My Thoughts

This book is definitively different than what I have received lately.   And it was a breath of fresh air because of it’s theme.   

I’m the kind of person who likes variety in what I read.   I can go to Amish fiction to science fiction without problems.   This particular book from Jerry B. Jenkins would go in my suspense/police category.  And it will indeed entertain you and keep you on the edge of your seat.

A dramatic even will change the life of the main character.  Change that will be so drastic and emotional that he will fall into the pit of bitterness.    Will he be able to see the God of forgiveness and trust him completely?   This is what you will have to discover while you read this amazing story.    You will be transported in the Chicago Police Department and you will witness how the life of a cop can be hard.    He is drawn to study the organized crime in his city and is interested in being part of the unit dealing with this.   This makes me wonder if he is not borderline suicidal because the organized crime unit is a though assignment.   I sense that part of his decision is made because he wants to fill the whole in his life and maybe join his family where they are.  Amidst of his pain and his struggle with God, Boone Drake will get back on his feet and become the cop that he is intended to be and re-establish his relationship with God.  

It made me wonder what I would do if something so dramatic would happen in my life.  How would I deal with my pain?   Would I trust God with everything?  Would I blame Him?  Would I let others reach out to me?  Even with all this questions coming to me as I read through the book, I am enjoying the story.   Having a novel that has a bit more action in it is nice once in a while.  I find this movie is quite different from the Left Behind series as well as it brings out the life of a police officer in a major city.   

One of the things that I didn’t like from the book was the way that Boone decided to kill the pain at the beginning of the accident.   Using alcohol is not a solution I find and I would have preferred that it wouldn’t have been in the story.   However, in the midst of tragedy I guess someone will do anything to be able to sleep a bit.    Seeing him trusting God a little bit at a time is interesting.   Makes me wonder again how I would trust God if such a  tragedy would happen to my family.

This book could also be converted as a police/action movie.    It would be nice to have a Christian movie that has a police/investigation theme and filled with action.  

Having said that, if you are looking for a good novel where you can witness how someone can get back in his feet and trust God again, I would like to recommend The Brotherhood to you.  

GREAT NEWS!

Tyndale has given me a Free Product Award Certificate to get a copy of the book The Brotherhood!

To participate, go to and tell me …..  This entry is mandatory.   Don’t forget to include your email address in the comment.

EXTRA ENTRIES.

1) Subscribe to my feed on the left side of this blog and let me know about it.

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3) Follow Canadianladybug Reviews! on twitter and like me you twitter name.

4) Follow Canadianladybug Reviews! with Google Friends on the left side of this blog and tell me about it.

5) Tweet about this contest and give me the link about it.   (One entry per day!)

6) Blog about this contest and give me you link (3 entries) – Give me your link and enter three times in the comment section.

Don’t forget to include your email for each steps.   No email means I will have to pick someone else.    I need to be able to contact you if you win!   Random.org will be use to determine the winner.  You will have 24 hours to contact me and give me your mailing address so I can send you the Free Product Award Certificate.   Note to Canadians:  if the store to which you want to get the book from doesn’t want to honour the certificate, you will have to mail the said certificate directly to Tyndale to get your copy.    They will send it to you directly.

Open to US and Canadian residents ONLY.

Deadline:  February 28, 2011.

 

 

Disclaimer: Thanks to Tyndale for sending me the above mentioned product for review purposes . I was not monetarily compensated for this review. Please note that the review was not influenced by the Sponsor in any way.  All opinions expressed here are only my own.

5 comments:

  1. Sounds like an interesting read! I think James would like it too. :)

    Shannon

    ottawaspice at gmail.com

    ReplyDelete
  2. You said that we need to do a mandatory entry of going (somewhere) and telling you (something), but you don't identify where to go and what to tell you, so I don't know how to enter this contest. I'll just go ahead and follow the other entry suggestions, and hopefully, you can get back to me and let me know how to do the mandatory entry. Thanks!

    Julieanne
    http://www.JoyInOurJourney.com
    ejm (at) truevine (dot) net

    ReplyDelete
  3. I "like" your blog on Facebook.

    Julieanne
    http://www.JoyInOurJourney.com

    ejm (at) truevine (dot) net

    ReplyDelete
  4. I'm subscribed to your blog feed.

    Julieanne
    http://www.JoyInOurJourney.com

    ejm (at) truevine (dot) net

    ReplyDelete
  5. I'm following you on GFC.

    Julieanne
    http://www.JoyInOurJourney.com

    ejm (at) truevine (dot) net

    ReplyDelete