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Words for a Wounded World: Scriptural Poems of Truth and Hope to Awaken, Convict, and Heal
Mark Richard’s Words for a Wounded World is a striking collection of scriptural poetry that bridges devotion and art. Structured in four parts, it journeys from the foundations of faith to the trials of endurance, calling readers toward reflection, repentance, and renewal. Each poem is rooted deeply in Scripture and followed by supporting verses, reflection questions, and prayer prompts, turning what might have been a simple poetry book into a comprehensive devotional experience.
The opening poem, “From Fig Leaves to White Robes,” immediately reveals Richard’s strength as both a poet and teacher. His retelling of humanity’s fall and redemption through Christ captures the tension between sin and grace with vivid simplicity. The combination of biblical narrative and lyrical rhythm sets the tone for the rest of the collection, earnest, reverent, and unashamedly focused on God’s mercy.
Throughout the book, Richard writes with pastoral sincerity. Many of the poems were originally written for individuals he ministered to, and that intimacy infuses each line with authenticity. His words are direct and urgent, reflecting his desire to reach those caught in spiritual struggle. At times, the tone feels intense, more prophetic than poetic, but it remains grounded in compassion rather than condemnation.
Several poems stand out for their emotional resonance. “Think Again, Let Christ Define” is particularly compelling in its treatment of identity and mental renewal, reminding readers that transformation begins in the mind: “Your thoughts, dear soul, are not benign—They shape your heart, your path, your mind.” Similarly, “Believe in Prayer” offers a tender reflection on faith’s persistence, inviting readers to approach God with both confidence and humility.
By the end, it becomes clear that Words for a Wounded World is not meant for hurried reading. Its structure, poem, Scripture, reflection, and journaling space encourage contemplation and engagement. It is ideal for those seeking a devotional guide that combines poetic beauty with spiritual depth.
This book will particularly resonate with readers who appreciate Scripture-centered writing and desire to deepen their personal walk with God. Thoughtful, sincere, and rooted in faith, Richard’s work reminds us that even in a wounded world, the Word still heals.
Pages: 135 | ISBN : 13: 978-1-63746-564-6
From the Back of a Donkey, Journey of a Lifetime – Second Edition
Nancy Elaine Hartman Minor’s From the Back of a Donkey: Journey of a Lifetime reimagines one of the most familiar stories in the Christian tradition, the birth of Jesus, through the eyes of Mary. The book blends biblical retelling, creative storytelling, and devotional reflection into a narrative that feels both ancient and deeply personal. Each chapter combines Mary’s imagined thoughts and prayers with scriptural passages and reflection questions for the reader, making it part story, part meditation, and part journal. The style is warm, vivid, and grounded in faith, giving life to moments that the Gospel of Luke only hints at.
Reading this book, I found myself unexpectedly moved. Minor doesn’t just recount events; she breathes humanity into them. Her Mary isn’t distant or saintly in the untouchable sense; she’s tender, curious, even a little scared, and wholly devoted to God. The writing feels like sitting down with someone who loves to tell stories by firelight, earnest and filled with wonder. There’s something beautiful in the author’s refusal to make Mary flawless. Instead, she lets her faith shimmer through her doubts and daily tasks, through her conversations with Joseph and her cousin Elizabeth. I loved that. It made the sacred story feel reachable, even intimate.
Stylistically, the book reads with a kind of musical rhythm, almost like a prayer. At times, I caught myself pausing just to let a sentence sink in. The writing is rich with sensory detail like the smell of baked bread, the roughness of wood, the brightness of stars, and yet it never drifts into heavy language. The author’s tone feels humble and heartfelt. Occasionally, the abundance of biblical references slows the pace, but it never feels forced; rather, it roots the story in the faith that inspires it. I could tell this book was written not only with literary care but also with devotion.
From the Back of a Donkey draws the reader into reflection, not just about Mary’s journey, but about their own. I would recommend this book to anyone looking to experience the Christmas story in a fresh, contemplative way. It’s perfect for believers who enjoy devotional reading, book clubs that center on faith, or anyone who wants to feel a deeper connection to the humanity behind the divine story.
Pages: 99 | ASIN : B0CP8WMQS4
Between Worlds: Between Worlds, A Life of Abduction, Addiction, and Awakening
Brian Martin’s Between Worlds is an unflinching memoir wrapped in the surreal. It’s part trauma confession, part spiritual reckoning, and part cosmic fever dream. Martin tells of a life marked by abuse, addiction, strange visitations, and an aching search for meaning. The book opens in darkness, both literal and emotional, moving through scenes of childhood pain, hallucination, and haunting encounters that blend the psychological and the supernatural. As the story unfolds, it shifts from terror to transcendence, revealing a man grappling with his own mind and his memories, questioning what’s real and what’s revelation.
Reading this felt like wading through someone’s nightmares while clutching a flickering flashlight. Martin’s writing hits hard, raw and poetic in turns, and sometimes so vivid that it left me uneasy. His prose can feel chaotic, but that chaos feels intentional, like the inside of a fractured mind trying to make sense of itself. I found myself fascinated. The honesty is brutal. There are no neat answers, no tidy lessons, just waves of memory and madness that force you to sit with discomfort. I respected that. It made the book feel alive, even when it hurt to read.
At the same time, there’s a strange beauty threaded through all that pain. Martin writes about horror with the eye of a poet, and about faith with the heart of a skeptic. I could feel the ache of someone who wants to believe in something, God, magic, UFOs, salvation, but can’t ever quite grasp it. That struggle hit close. The spiritual parts don’t feel preachy. They feel desperate and human. There were moments when I had to pause just to take in how he could write about trauma with such raw tenderness.
Between Worlds is for readers who can handle truth that’s ugly and luminous at once, who don’t mind getting lost in someone else’s storm if it means finding a little light of their own. If you like memoirs that bleed honesty, or stories that blur the line between real and unreal, you’ll remember this one.
Pages: 307 | ASIN : B0FWN2PGHM
Love’s Cauldron: Reclaim Your Wild Feminine
Love’s Cauldron is part memoir, part spiritual guide, and part poetic incantation. Author Jennifer J. Lehr traces her path from childhood wounds and self-doubt toward awakening her “witch self,” a reclamation of intuition, creativity, and the divine feminine. The book moves between personal stories, reflections, and poetry, exploring themes of trauma, healing, and empowerment. It invites readers to honor the unseen, the magical, and the deeply emotional parts of themselves. Lehr’s voice blends vulnerability with wisdom, and she treats her life as a sacred collage, each experience a fragment of becoming whole.
Reading it felt intimate and raw. Lehr’s honesty pulled me in, especially when she described her fear of revealing her spiritual identity and her journey through pain toward acceptance. The mix of memoir and mysticism gave the writing a pulse, alive with both sorrow and hope. Some sections read like prayers, others like confessions. Her reflections on trauma, how it hides in the body, how healing demands courage, resonated with me. At times, the writing stretched into abstraction, and I found myself pausing to catch up emotionally. Still, the beauty of her language and her conviction kept me turning the pages. It’s not a light read, but it’s one that lingers.
What I admired most was Lehr’s blend of psychological insight and spiritual wonder. As a therapist and a self-proclaimed witch, she stands between science and spirit and refuses to choose one over the other. That mix gave the book a grounded magic. Some might resist her talk of guides, past lives, and energy healing, but her sincerity makes it hard to dismiss. The poetry scattered throughout is rich and sensory. It slows the reader down, asking you to feel rather than analyze. I caught myself reading lines twice, just to savor them.
I’d recommend Love’s Cauldron to readers drawn to self-discovery, spirituality, and feminine wisdom. It’s for anyone who has ever felt “too sensitive” or out of step with the world and who wants to see that sensitivity as strength. It’s also a gentle call to those who’ve buried parts of themselves, to dig them up, dust them off, and let them breathe.
Pages: 346 | ASIN : B0FH5MC4ZV
Education and Evangelism
From Hill Town to Strieby explores the life of Reverend Islay Walden, a man born into slavery who overcame blindness and hardship to return home as a minister and educator, and the legacy the Hill and Lassiter families left on the community. Why was this an important book for you to write?
As descendants of the original families that helped found the church and who continue as trustees today, we worried as we watched the last of the generation before us pass away that our history would be lost if we did not make a concerted effort to preserve, share, and uplift it. As the writer in the group, they looked to me to help that happen. In addition, just as other African American community descendants are concerned about erasure, not just benign neglect, we wanted to do all we could to be certain that the history of the church, school, community and its founder, Rev. Islay Walden, would always be an acknowledged and celebrated part of Randolph County, North Carolina history, and be part of the broader American History of African Americans and the rural South. I didn’t want anyone in Randolph County to ever say again as someone once had, “Strieby? Never Heard of It.”
With regards to Islay Walden himself, I had come to realize, as I researched his life, that in his lifetime, he was not an obscure poet, as some had portrayed him. In addition, I realized that none of the biographical essays about him had really understood that his passion was not poetry, regardless of his success. His passion was education and evangelism. No one had reflected on that in writing about him, so I wanted to pay homage to him as a 19th century African American poet, but even more important for me to elucidate was his legacy in education and ministry.
How much research did you undertake for this book, and how much time did it take to put it all together?
At the time that I made the decision to finally write the book, I had been researching the community for over twenty years and had already written a book about the history of one family, the Miles Lassiter family. At the same time as discussions about writing the book, family members were also asking about historical preservation. As part of that, I prepared an extensive, documented history of the church, historic school, and cemetery in application for the county’s Cultural Heritage Site designation, which we received. That application became the first draft. It took two more years of research and writing before the book was completed in 2016.
What were some ideas that were important for you to share in this book?
The level of educational excellence that the school stood for had been praised and celebrated at every turn by the entire community. This was a community with nearly 100% literacy in the early 1900s, when that achievement was rare for any community in the rural South. This community had placed a high premium on education, and members had gone to great lengths to seek additional opportunities, even leaving the community to do so, yet always returning to share love and encouragement with the next generation. In fact, this community had produced at least one young teacher by 1900, and several more soon followed.
What is one thing that you hope readers take away from From Hill Town to Strieby?
I hope readers see that rural communities of color have been seeking the same things that their urban siblings have been seeking — opportunity. They seek educational opportunities, which they hope, like everyone else, will provide them with other opportunities, including economic security, whether they leave the countryside or not.
Author Links: Goodreads | Facebook | LinkedIn | Website | Amazon
Inner Peace
Healing by His Spirit is a raw, deeply personal journey through pain, endurance, and redemption, as well as an emotional story of faith, trust, and the miracles God performed in your life. Why was this an important book for you to write?
Healing by His Spirit was important to write because it not only released the burden of shame and guilt I carried, but it also allowed me to inspire others to try and overcome their hardships through spiritual healing.
What were some ideas that were important for you to share in this book?
My travels across the globe helped me to find the inner peace I so desperately sought. It helped me to focus on who I truly am.
I appreciated the candid nature with which you told your story. What was the hardest thing for you to write about?
The hardest part for me to write about was the rape scene. Because a child was conceived from it, I had to try and make the best decision about her future, and I decided it had to be me. It took two weeks to write one paragraph, because of the flashbacks I experienced.
What do you hope is one thing readers take away from your story?
The one thing I hope readers will take away is God’s healing power. It saved my life.
Author Links: GoodReads | Amazon
Israel – God’s Divine Decoy for Your Salvation
Israel – God’s Divine Decoy for Your Salvation, by Harlan Perry, takes a bold swing at a familiar story and tells it in a way that feels fresh. Perry argues that Israel’s long history of law, temple, and ritual was not the main stage but a setup. A divine headfake, as he calls it, meant to trick Satan into focusing on the wrong thing while God’s real plan, grace through Christ, stayed hidden until the right moment. The story unfolds in two acts, one calm and one stormy, covering everything from Lucifer’s fall to the cross, from Paul’s gospel to modern church struggles. The central idea is that grace was never an afterthought. It was always the plan, and everything else was a decoy.
The writing has a preacher’s fire, full of metaphors and jolts of energy that make the pages feel alive. I liked that it didn’t hide behind polite theology. It said things out loud that many only whisper. The sentences pile up like waves, crashing one after another. That rhythm kept me hooked, but at points I wanted a little space to process. The ideas shine through, even if the intensity of the delivery occasionally takes the spotlight.
What really stuck with me was the way Perry unmasks religion as a trap. He paints it as Satan’s favorite trick, the perfect counterfeit, and he insists that true freedom is only in grace. That hit me hard. It’s unsettling and liberating all at once. I felt my own habits and assumptions being poked at. I can’t say I agreed with every leap he made, but I couldn’t ignore the pull of his message. There’s something raw in his insistence that God never scrambles, never reacts, that everything is already written and finished.
I think Israel is best for people who feel worn out by church rules and hollow traditions, the ones who suspect there’s more to the gospel than guilt and performance. It’s a wake-up call. If you’re ready to be challenged, maybe even rattled, and if you don’t mind a bit of fire in the tone, then this book will hit you right where you need it.
Pages: 194 | ASIN : B0FNS1796Q
Conflict & Peace: At Home with Jesus
When I first opened Conflict & Peace: At Home with Jesus, I expected a familiar retelling of biblical stories, but instead I found something far richer and more layered. The book walks through twelve figures ranging from Matthew and Mark to Constantine and Luther and explores how each shaped, struggled with, or even fractured the Christian story. Eric D. Hovee doesn’t shy away from pointing out contradictions, tensions, and the uneasy balance between faith and evidence. What emerges is less a polished theology and more a raw chronicle of pioneers wrestling with belief, doubt, politics, and power. The book argues that Christianity has always lived at the crossroads of conflict and peace, heresy and orthodoxy, struggle and hope.
The writing style surprised me. It’s not slick or overly academic, and that’s what makes it work. Hovee mixes scholarship with a kind of candid storytelling that feels personal and searching. He admits where his own faith has faltered, where scholarship has raised more questions than answers, and where interpretations may lean too heavily in one direction. I appreciated this honesty. The detail can be overwhelming at times, with deep dives into language debates or church history that slow down the flow, but even then, I never felt the effort was wasted. It gave weight to his central claim that truth isn’t always clean or easy.
What I liked most, though, was the emotional undercurrent. This isn’t just about doctrine, it’s about Hovee’s father, about legacy, about the ache of wanting faith to feel real in a world of contradictions. I felt that ache with him. When he points out Matthew’s overreach on prophecy, or the way Constantine’s empire-building warped Christianity, I didn’t just learn facts, I felt the tension of a man trying to reconcile devotion with doubt. The book left me inspired. It made me look at my own beliefs with sharper eyes and a softer heart.
I think Hovee’s work is best for readers who want faith that is not easy, neat, or dogmatic. It’s for Christians wrestling with the weight of history, skeptics curious about the roots of belief, and anyone who values honesty over certainty. If you want a book that stirs you, challenges you, and leaves you thinking long after you close it, then Conflict & Peace: At Home with Jesus is well worth the read.
Pages: 401 | ASIN : B0F5641XR1
LITERARY TITAN 