Author Archives: jessmcombs

When God Made You – a review

Posted in book reviews by

Now that my girls are older, I rarely get the opportunity to read children’s books.

Okay, that’s a lie…

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Image found on Flickr, Linda Jordon

On occasion (aka not so occasionally), you can find me sitting in my library/sewing/writing/soon-to-be-bed room reading Dr. Seuss — out loud.  (Not sure what it says about me that there’s a room in my house with an identity crisis) (Also, in case you weren’t aware…  out loud is the ONLY acceptable way to read a Dr. Seuss book!)

Since my girls are now 17 and 12, there aren’t many children’s books that I’m even willing to read, let alone take the time to re-read over and over again.  (Other than Seuss, obviously.)

For a book to achieve such an honor in my currently WAY overloaded schedule, it has got to be phenomenal.  To be honest, I would have told you such a book did not exist.

Turns out, I was wrong (again). Continue reading →

Meet and Greet: 4/29/17

Posted in Uncategorized by

Dream Big, Dream Often

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It’s the Meet and Greet weekend everyone!! Strap on your party shoes and join the fun!

Ok so here are the rules:

  1. Leave a link to your page or post in the comments of this post.
  2. Reblog this post. It helps you, it helps me, it helps everyone!
  3. Edit your reblog post and add tags.

  4. Feel free to leave your link multiple times! It is okay to update your link for more exposure every day if you want. It is up to you!

  5. Share this post on social media. Many of my non-blogger friends love that I put the Meet n Greet on Facebook and Twitter because they find new blogs to follow.

See ya on Monday!!

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Father Found, Identity Now Missing.

Posted in about me, family, identity crisis by

A few years ago, my mom found out that her father wasn’t her father.   She and my uncle had taken a DNA test and it turned out he was her half-brother.

The relationship between my mom and grandma was already strained, so this bomb basically destroyed what little bit of communication still existed between them.  On the few occasions they did speak, it always resulted in my mom insisting on knowing who her real father is and my grandmother insisting that either the DNA results are wrong or the hospital gave her the wrong baby.

While this revelation tore my mom up inside, it didn’t affect me at all.   (Cue the stages of grief…)

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I had never known her father… my grandmother had remarried by the time I was born and I had always thought of my mother’s stepfather as my grandfather.  Even when my grandma divorced and remarried again, I considered her new husband my new grandfather.  (I’m pretty adaptable that way I guess.)

I barely let any of it bother me and continued on with my life.  After all, what did any of this have to do with me?

Whenever I visited either of them, I listened as my mom and grandma berated each other and recounted their side of the story over and over again.  Each defended themselves as if I was the judge & jury and they were trying to avoid the electric chair.  Still, it barely registered as a slight annoyance on my “things I’m going to stress about today” meter. meter down

Then the day came when I got this text:

Call me.  I have a dad.

Continue reading →

I lost that loving feeling…

Posted in about me, Uncategorized, writing by

I’ve loved to write since… well, I can’t remember a time I didn’t like to write.  Even during periods of time when I didn’t have the time, or was just so down on myself that I figured “why bother,” the stories would run through my head as if I was typing them at a typewriter (without all the messy corrections).

Characters and places haunted me and I found myself lost in conversations as I tried to listen to what they wanted to tell me.  As a teenager, it was typical for me to sit in class or at a party or even watching TV, but be visiting my fictional world in my mind.  (Go figure I wasn’t valedictorian.)

But one day, it just stopped.  I quit trying to remember my characters and their worlds, quit telling myself that one day I’d write out their adventures and read them when I’m old.  I’d lost my first love.  It just went away.

And I didn’t care.

I didn’t ask myself why.

I’m not even sure I noticed…

Until I took a week long road trip with my daughter.

Now I can’t get the silly little goblins in my head to be quiet! And my poor husband has had more one-sided conversations with me than he’s probably had the whole time we’ve been together.  (I’m incredibly lucky he understands and just laughs.)

I’m pretty sure it was stress and just general busyness that stole my stories away, but it doesn’t really matter.

They’re back now.  And the typewriter in my mind is steadily typing away.

We ARE our own worst enemies.

Posted in book reviews by

dark matter

Are you your own worst enemy?

In the book Dark Matter by Blake Crouch, being your own worst enemy isn’t just figurative.

This was the first book of Blake Crouch’s I’ve read, and it was amazing!  Jason Dessen is abducted and wakes up in a world very similar to our own, but with major differences.

In the new world, he’s a brilliant scientist with no limits on his potential (or money).  In his “real” world, he’s an ordinary guy who teaches physics at the local college.

He basically has the life and everything he ever dreamed of except for two very important things…  his wife and son.  To get back to his own world, he has to answer some very hard questions and somehow manage to keep his sanity as he goes from world to world where he’s himself, but there’s a “him” already there.  And his wife is his wife in some worlds, but doesn’t even know him in others.  And what about their son?

This book was almost impossible to put down once I got started reading.  It made me ask questions about how well I really know myself and what I would do if put in the same situation.  I felt like I was right there with Jason…  I laughed with him, cried with him, and even had to stop to catch my breath as I ran with him!

Need a new book?  I definitely recommend this one!

Thanks so much to the  Blogging for Books program for providing me a copy of this book in exchange for this review.

Upcoming reviews:

The Little Paragons by Madi Uram

Dorothy Must Die by Danielle Paige

The Ebb Tide by Beverly Lewis.