Rating: 
Summary: ZZZZZZZZZZZZ
Review: This is such a dissappointing novel. The author/title character is just plain boring! Her interactions with Mary are boring. This material could have been made so much more interesting. There are just too many fabulous books out there...don't waste your time on this one.
Rating: 
Summary: Best book I've read in a loooong while!
Review: Unique blend of novel/reality, mysticism/history, this beautiful book is a smooth and very rewarding read. It is touching, humourous and suddenly (when least expected)sharply etched with pathos, truth and honesty. I am buying multiple copies for my family and friends to cherish. If you are of a seeking mind with any bend twords the miraculous, you will be glad you read this novel-new novel.
Rating: 
Summary: A book for history buffs
Review: Unless you are an avid reader of ancient and/or religious history you will probably find this book rambling and boring. If you were expecting an insight into Mary's life, whether fact or fiction, this is not the book for you. The author's previous stories were excellent, but this was a real disappointment.
Rating:
Summary: Such a Disappointment!
Review: What a disappointment! I was so looking forward to reading this book and recommended it to my book club. It started off great - a 40ish single woman who encounters Mary, Mother of Jesus in her living room, wearing a trench coat and running shoes. Doesn't this sound good? But then it proceeds to a run-on account of various shrines/sightings. There is no interaction to speak of between the two. There are so many better books out there!!!
Rating:
Summary: Such a Disappointment!
Review: What a disappointment! I was so looking forward to reading this book and recommended it to my book club. It started off great - a 40ish single woman who encounters Mary, Mother of Jesus in her living room, wearing a trench coat and running shoes. Doesn't this sound good? But then it proceeds to a run-on account of various shrines/sightings. There is no interaction to speak of between the two. There are so many better books out there!!!
Rating:
Summary: Serendipity
Review: What a great book -- I just skimmed through it and will now have to go back and digest it, but I loved it!! Mary has played a blessed bonus role in my life since I converted two years ago (my husband and four children are Catholic). She turns up everywhere and with such a great presence. Diane Schoemperlen writes with such intelligence, kindness, insight and thoughfulfulness about Mary that I feel I know her so much better now! Two Marion books that inspired me immediately before this one are The Secret Life of Bees and Venerable Anne Catherine Emmerich's Visions of Mary.
Rating:
Summary: A work of fiction?
Review: What a strange and fascinating book! It is called a novel, and yet it doesn't read like a novel at all. There is an odd turning in on itself, in which the person writing the book describes the person writing the book. It is either so realistic that it actually makes me think it is real, or else it is actually real and only pretending to be a novel. Something odd happens to the idea of "willing suspension of disbelief." I seem to be struggling to disbelieve, instead. I can't escape from the sneaking suspicion that Margaret Atwood actually wrote this book under a pseudonym. But I see so much of myself in this narrator who drinks her coffee and reads her email and wonders what the hell her life is about. The comfort of having a companion who just wants to clean the house, take a walk, go shopping, cook, eat, talk, listen--who can't imagine the appeal of that? If you are very devout, you might consider this story an affront. And if you are stridently skeptical, you might also consider it an affront. But if you are in-between, somewhat attracted to faith but also somewhat skeptical, this book will suit you. One idea that will linger with me is the question of why Mary hasn't been taken into account by history. I think of a book I own called The 100 Most Influential Persons in History. Jesus and Mohammed are in the top 10, but Mary isn't on the list. I found the book puzzling, deceptively simple, and intriguing.
| 
