When fourteen-year-old John Smith fell through the ice on a Missouri lake one January morning, Joyce Smith was terrified that she would lose her son. When she arrived at the hospital, John had been without a heartbeat for more than an hour. Joyce wasn’t ready to accept that her son was dead and in a moment of pure, desperate faith, Joyce cried out to God to save her son.
At that precise moment, John’s heart began beating again.
Though his heart was going again, John was no where near out of the woods. Despite all of his doctor’s worries and facts, John quickly began to improve, with the mighty power of prayer behind him. Sixteen days after John fell through the ice, he walked out of the hospital, completely and miraculously healed.
I first heard of this novel when I saw the trailer for the movie. This got me interested in the novel. When there was a giveaway for the novel on Goodreads Firstreads, I figured I would enter. And then I won.
Being as this has a lot of medical scenes in it, I figured that if I didn’t win I would just see the movie. I know, I know. The book is always better than the movie, but I am not knowledgeable in medical jargon and I worried that I would have to Google search one term after the other while reading. Thankfully, though there are a lot of medical terms, Joyce Smith took the time to explain what they ment.
Joyce managed to put the reader right there in the hospital with her. The writing made the whole situation very real for a mother like me, from Joyce’s panicked dash to the hospital to the day John walked out of the hospital. I was there.
I thought this novel was a well written and worthwhile read. I gave this book five out of five stars and would recommend it to anyone looking to believe in miracles.
I won my copy of this novel from Goodreads Firstreads and the image above is my own. 

Avaline Hall is both a magical creature and in love with one, both of which are dangerous at Blythewood Academy. But with Judicus Van Drood still scheming against the Order, she may be all that stands in his way. As everyone else, it seems, fall victim to Van Drood’s evil magic, Ava and Raven search for a way to break the spell that has trapped her friends and teachers, and to find out what it is that Van Drood is really up to. The more she tries to help those she cares about, the more it seems that she will have to reveal her secret to them all, but how will they react when they discover she is half Darkling, a creature they have been taught is an enemy? Will Ava be willing to do anything, and sacrifice her secret, to save her friends?
Blythewood is a place of magic for the girls who attend, but it is also trapped in its traditions. When Ava and the other girls return to school in this second installment of the Blythewood series, the world around them is evolving, while nothing is changing inside Blythewood.
I was surprised by the vast amount of change that we see in Ava early on in the novel, however, it was to the betterment of her character. Ava’s character grew between book one and two, but it was not drastic and unrealistic. Since she is coming to terms with the fact that she is part darkling, she is forced to come to terms with the very real possibility that this could effect her body with changes unusual to young women, as well.
I was happy to finally have a better gimps into the world and community of the Darklings. In book one, Raven was the only Darkling was really get to know. In this second installment, we get to meet many more darklings and see how they live.
I was thrilled to see some new and interesting creatures enter the series as well. I particularly enjoyed meeting Ru and her “family.”
I must comment on the fact that one of the scenes in this novel reminded me greatly of a scene in the novel “Lost in a Book” by Jennifer Donnelly. Though I am also obigated to point out that the similarities are not exact replicas and the novel “Lost in a Book” was published after this novel, I ony read it first.
The writing is easy to follow and the vocabulary was acceptable for the target age group. This is a young adult/teen fantasy novel.
I really enjoyed this novel and look forward to reading the third and final installment in this series. I gave this novel four out of five stars and would recommend this novel to fans of Fallen by Lauren Kate.
I bought my copy of this novel from Bookoutlet.com and the image featured above is my own.