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No doubt about it, one of the best books on Christian marriage that I have ever read. Dave Harvey takes the concept of marriage and literally marries it to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He reminds us that the Bible makes marriage an image of the relationship between Christ and the church, then challenges us to live out the Gospel in our marriages.

Far from being a self-help book, he challenges us to rely on God for our salvation and encourages us to confess our sins to one another in order t... (show more)

No doubt about it, one of the best books on Christian marriage that I have ever read. Dave Harvey takes the concept of marriage and literally marries it to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He reminds us that the Bible makes marriage an image of the relationship between Christ and the church, then challenges us to live out the Gospel in our marriages.

Far from being a self-help book, he challenges us to rely on God for our salvation and encourages us to confess our sins to one another in order to open the opportunity to bestow even more grace and mercy on our spouse.

The beauty of the book is the image that it presents of a marriage grounded in the truth of the Gospel. I feel both inspired and challenged by the weight of that message. What more can we ask of ourselves and our spouses but to preach the Gospel to one another through the trials of our lives. Excellent book! (show less)

Things get tons better in this second book of the series. The pacing seems to move along reasonably, and base characterization and settings are already trod through like thick mud from the first book, so he gets down to the nitty gritty of the storytelling in this book. Like any sequel, I started afraid that there would either be not enough about the older former main characters, or too much and therefore no feeling of progression of time in the second series. Dave Duncan avoids those two pit... (show more)

Things get tons better in this second book of the series. The pacing seems to move along reasonably, and base characterization and settings are already trod through like thick mud from the first book, so he gets down to the nitty gritty of the storytelling in this book. Like any sequel, I started afraid that there would either be not enough about the older former main characters, or too much and therefore no feeling of progression of time in the second series. Dave Duncan avoids those two pitfalls neatly. He's introduced enough new characters and a new plot storyline to make me feel like I'm not re-reading the same story, and still maintained enough active participation from Inos and Rap so that we feel we're being transitioned well past them with gentleness and sensitivity. Now I can begin to find more passion and interest in the children, Kadie and most especially Gathmore, and also in Shandie himself through his stupidity and emotional isolation -- VERY understandable considering his childhood abuse and upbringing--- as he gradually grows into emotional maturity. The only thing that keeps this book from being a 5 star to me is that I feel the switching between each storyline has become awry, perhaps simply in that there are too many of them in progress for us to follow in the depth that we wish. So I feel as if too many details are being left out of each separate story, as if I'm getting a condensed version and there should be more bits for each person or group of people which are being cut short for interests of squeezing too much in. (show less)