Anna Jones Buttimore

This is the first instalment of what promises to be at the very least a trilogy aimed at young adults. Part 1 is very short indeed–I read it while waiting for the bride to arrive at a wedding–and does a good job of building the intrigue and setting the scene. I knew a bit about lucid dreaming already, and this book neatly takes the concept a step further. I found no errors, typos or editing issues at all, and the writing style is competent and appropriate to the intended readership. At times it was confusing, and it took me a while to figure out the medieval town setting, but that was probably my fault for not concentrating; I’m sure the clues were there. I also suspect it’s going to be a predictable ending. The real-world news events bore so close a resemblance to the issues going on in the dream city that I wonder why the main characters haven’t joined the dots yet. With an original idea and compelling and memorable characters, this is a series I will be buying in future.

My eighth/first (long story) book was published last month. It's called Haven , and it's a gentle tale set in the mountains of North Wales, about how one woman's faith has a profound effect on those around her. I'm currently in full book-selling mode, and that means I need to encourage lots of reviews on Haven on Amazon, Goodreads, blogs, etc. A few lucky reviewers have received advance reading copies, and their reviews are starting to spring up. I told my reviewers to be completely honest in their review, and I meant it. Even if they hated it, I told them, please still review it, because there is no such thing as a bad review. Well, the first review popped up, and gave it only three stars. The main complaint was that one of the characters was very irritating and closed-minded, and that the book was too Mormon. I wasn't disheartened by the review for several reasons. 1. That irritating character was supposed  to be irritating. I was making a point w...

I've had a bit of a break from blogging for the last month. Having written two blog posts a week all year, I figured I deserved it. This one is a bit self-indulgent too. I've got nothing profound to say about writing (you'll have to wait until January for that), I just wanted, on Christmas Eve eve, to list just a few of the reasons why I love Christmas (in no particular order): A week (at least) off work Morrison's cranberry and white chocolate boule Seeing family Having such a bad memory that even the presents I bought for myself are a nice surprise People smiling Chocolate with no excuses or guilt Fairytale of New York by Kirsty McColl and the Pogues The Christmas bumper edition Radio Times Children getting excited Two weeks off Seminary A beautiful Christmas tree in my living room Roast parsnips (the ones they do at the Two Brewers in Chelmsford are the best ever) The Downton Abbey Christmas special (apparently no one dies this year) Choosing perfe...

Several authors are currently petitioning Amazon to severely reduce the time limit on refunds of Kindle books. At present if you buy a book from Amazon you have up to a week to ask for a refund. It's a very easy process. You simply click on "manage my Kindle" which gives you a list of books you have bought. Against the one you want refunded you click "Actions" and "Return for refund".  Next time you switch on your Kindle (or other device) the book will be gone, and the money will be back in your account. The authors of the petition want the time limit for refunds reduced to 1 hour. They state - quite rightly - that it is possible to read the entire book in a week, and then return it for a refund. Unscrupulous readers (gosh, it feels odd typing those words together) could read as many books as they liked and never pay for them. (Almost like, oh, I don't know, a library. ) I thought long and hard about whether to put my name to the petition. I...

The Book of Mormon. I grew up with the Bible alone as scripture and assumed, as do many Christians, that the canon of scripture is closed. After Revelation was written God wrote "The End", put down his pen and closed the book. And that's it. We have a Bible and there cannot be any more Bible. (See 2 Nephi 29:3) However, Biblical Studies at A level showed me that actually the canon of Scripture has only recently stopped changing and evolving, and there was much debate over which books to include and exclude. In fact, the Roman Catholic Church and Eastern Orthodox churches use different books in their Bibles. Even then I found myself wondering who drew the line under the Bible. Who said "God has finished speaking to man" and decreed that no-one else was permitted to write down what God had said to them and call it scripture? Why is something God said to an apostle in 75AD called scripture, but something He said fifty years later not  called scripture? ...

The Trinity A while ago I received an invitation to buy an extremely expensive “Book of Little-Known Facts” published by Reader’s Digest. The leaflet listed several of these facts to whet my appetite, one of which stated, “The doctrine of the Trinity is not mentioned in the Bible, but was invented in 325 AD”. I had known this for some time – but many in mainstream Christian churches are not aware of it. The problem facing the early Christian church was that it believed that there was only one God, but Jesus also appeared to have claimed to be God and was believed to be divine. To further complicate matters, the Holy Spirit was given to the believers, which again appeared to be a god. How could there be three gods when Judaism’s primary tenet is that there is only one God? Under the Roman Emperor Constantine the matter was addressed in the Councils of Nicea and Chalcedon, attended by around 300 Bishops – a fraction of the total. Various solutions were put forward, and eventually...

See the links on the left for previous posts in this series of personal apologetics. 3: Attitude of Evangelicals towards Mormons One major reason why I could never be an Evangelical is what I see as the very unchristian behaviour of some (but by no means the majority of) Evangelicals towards Latter-day Saints. I have already mentioned in a previous post that I was forbidden from attending a Bible Study group . In addition, Christian bookshops stock books which misrepresent, mock and insult my beliefs; Christian ministers warn their congregations against the “cult”, and Christian groups will even protest at Church buildings and try to disrupt Church meetings. This does not endear them to me any. It happened this past weekend, in fact. It was General Conference weekend, which means no church since the Conference Broadcast doesn't begin until 5 p.m. our time. I usually take the opportunity to visit other churches on these occasions. This Sunday I went to an Evangelical c...