Book Review: On the Banks of Plum Creek

Posted on February 25, 2013 by Barbara Harper

I wanted to read next On the Banks of Plum Creek by Laura Ingalls Wilder right on the heels of Let the Hurricane Roar (linked to my thoughts) by her daughter, Rose Wilder Lane while it was fresh in my mind, because they covered some of the same events.

Little House on the Prairie had ended with the Ingalls family having to leave their homestead in “Indian territory” when it was determined that the Indians had rights to the land. On the Banks of Plum Creek opens with the family coming into Minnesota near Walnut Grove (“only three miles away, a nice walk”, Pa says) and trading their horses for the land and crops of a family who is leaving. The family had a little dugout house, and the Ingalls live there until Pa’s wheat crops start to sprout, and he borrows against it to buy lumber and supplies for a new house.

Since they are close to town, Mary and Laura begin to attend school, where they meet the infamous Nellie Oleson, who becomes an instant enemy with her derisive assessment of them as “country girls.” The also meet Reverend Alden and are able to attend church for the first time in a long time.

This book contains some of my favorite “Little House” scenes, like the party where their classmates are invited to the house on the creek and Laura lures Nellie into the area where the crab and leeches are, the church Christmas party where Laura gets her fur cape and muff, the girls bringing in all the firewood during a storm when Ma and Pa are away after they heard about a house of children who froze. It also tells of the awful grasshopper invasion, Pa’s having to go East for work, prairie fires, and the terrible blizzards.

Some of us reading Laura’s letters in books like West From Home have remarked how unemotional her correspondence seems. I’m not sure how much of that comes from her personality and how much from her upbringing. The Ingalls weren’t stoics, but their attitude during any crisis seemed to be to buck up and do what you had to do. Emotion is shown more subtly, as when Pa stops playing his fiddle during stressful times or Ma sits late at the window with the light in it, staring at her hands, worried for her husband, who might be caught out in a blizzard. Once when a visiting child takes a liking to Laura’s rag doll and wants to keep it, Ma admonishes Laura that the child is little and company and should have the doll, and scolds Laura that a great girl like her (about age 8 at this time) should sulk over it. But then later Ma does come around and says she didn’t realize Laura cared so much for the doll and helps her restore it when Laura rescues it from a puddle, and while she doesn’t let them rant, she does understand when they’re strained and stops work to play games with them. Laura is ashamed of herself for crying during Pa’s long absence, saying it would be a shame even for younger Carrie to cry. Laura seems to paint herself as the only family member having bad emotions, like envy and pride.

Once again I marvel at the strength of the early settlers, who regard three miles as a “nice walk” and bear so much without a whimper. I don’t know if we could do today what they did, maybe because we haven’t had to. But then, each generation has its particular trials and hardships.

I liked seeing through Laura’s eyes as she described new things and how she thought when she fell into temptation. I enjoyed visiting with the Ingalls family again, with Pa’s cheerfulness, Ma’s gentleness and resourcefulness, their industriousness and endurance of the whole family as well as their enjoy of simple pleasures, and the interaction of the family as well as getting to know new neighbors from town.

(This will also be linked to Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books.)

Book Review: The Scarlet Letter

Posted on February 19, 2013 by Barbara Harper

The February selection for Carrie‘s Reading to Know Book Club is The Scarlet Letter, chosen by Shonya from Learning How Much I Don’t Know. I don’t think I have read it since high school, so I figured it would be good to revisit it, especially when I found it as an audiobook.

As most people know, The Scarlet Letter is about Hester Prynne, whose sin of adultery has produced a child in a 1640 Puritan community and whose punishment is to wear the letter A for “adulteress” on her bosom. I’ve been looking around at other reviews, study guides, and such, and many seem to see the story as a strong woman overcoming the confines of a repressive society. But I saw it described in a couple of places as a psychological romance or drama, and I think that is where the strength of the story is.

The audiobook for some reason leaves out the first chapter in which the narrator finds the scarlet letter in a custom house before telling the story behind it. We first see Hester emerging from the prison, the scarlet A already on her chest, with her child in her arms, sentenced to stand on a public scaffolding for three hours. She had been married, and her husband had sent her on ahead to this country, but her pregnancy became evident too long after arriving for the child to have been her husband’s. In all the intervening time he has not been heard from and is assumed dead. Hester steadfastly refuses to name the other guilty party in her sin.

The first time I read the book, it took me a while to realize who it was. If I were reading it for the first time as an adult, I think I would have figured it out much faster. It was interesting reading it knowing who he was from the outset, as there are clues everywhere. I’ve wrestled with whether to name him or not: I don’t want to destroy the suspense for anyone who hasn’t read it yet, but I don’t know how much I can say about the book without naming him. I’ll give it a try. 🙂

The psychological drama comes in the contrast between Hester’s publicized guilt and its consequences, ostracism from society and the resulting extreme loneliness, versus the consequences her partner in sin’s suppressed guilt: the torment of hearing praises heaped on him for his goodness when he knows he is a hypocrite. At first I thought he kept quiet because he was spineless, but later the author shows he is concerned as well about the negative repercussions his guiltiness could have if it were known, thus he feels “caught,” and his guilt begins to affect him physically.

Hester’s long-lost husband shows up at the first scaffolding scene, but signals to Hester to remain quiet. When he speaks to her later, he swears her to secrecy about his real name and their relationship. He understands, in one sense, her sin, because theirs had not been a marriage of love, and he was much older than she. But he determines to find and exact revenge upon Hester’s partner. He has become a doctor of sorts and goes by the name of Roger Chillingworth, fitting for his cold heart. There is more psychological drama when he thinks he has found the guilty party and determines to “dig” until he knows for sure, and the guilty party thinks he is a friend and doesn’t realize the danger.

The book could be easily divided into sections based on three scenes at the scaffold, where each of the major characters appear each time. The first I’ve mentioned; in the second, the other guilty party has been driven in the middle of the night to the scaffold in his guilt and pain. Self-flagellation, fasting, and vigils have not alleviated his guilt, so he goes himself to the scene of Hester’s shame — yet under cover of darkness, where he is tortured at the thought of being found out. Hester and her daughter, Pearl, happen to be walking by at that same time, and he calls to them to join him. They do, and Pearl asks if he will stand with them the next day at noon. He says no, but he will at the Judgment Day. Then the light of a meteor reveals the face of Chillingworth watching them. The final scaffolding scene takes place near the end of the book, with the same characters, yet in a public setting, where everyone’s fate is resolved.

The book is replete with symbolism: the A, of course, and the different meanings associated with it through the years, Chillingworth’s name and misshapen form representing his heart, Hester’s dressing little Pearl in scarlet, the scenes in the forest, the wild rosebush by the prison door, various manifestations of light and darkness. Pearl herself seems symbolic until the end of the book and acts something like a conscience for her parents. At one point she tells Hester, “the sunshine does not love you. It runs away and hides itself, because it is afraid of something on your bosom.

There are two things I don’t know that keep me from understanding this book more fully. One is Puritan society. I don’t know if how it is viewed here and in general (legalistic, harsh, repressive) is what it really was. This community is totally graceless, but the quotes I have read from Puritans have not been, though I admittedly have not read a great deal of Puritan literature. One source said that Puritans believed that whether you were “elect” or not would show in your life, thus Hester’s partner’s dilemma and struggle between his public persona and private sin. But all of the sources I looked at spoke of either being “elect” or earning one’s way to heaven (which did not seem possible for anyone in the book), yet neglected the real truth of grace that reaches out to the fallen sinner to provide redemption.

The other thing is Hawthorne’s transcendentalism and how it affected his views. I looked into this a bit when rereading Little Women (linked to my thoughts) but didn’t feel I really got a handle on their beliefs. Maybe someone else who read this book for this challenge will have more insight into that.

But I could definitely see the themes and contrasts between judgment and grace, penitence and repentance, and true versus perceived identity (both Hester’s partner and Chillingworth present different personas from what they really are and tend to self-destruct because of it). I don’t know if I would say I enjoyed the book, but it was an interesting study.

(This will also be linked to Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books.)

What did you read as a kid?

Posted on February 13, 2013 by Barbara Harper

Carrie had someone ask this question in her comments, and she answered yesterday. My response grew into several paragraphs, so I figured it would be better to form them into my own blog post rather than posting a full-fledged post in her comments.

Since I am in my mid-fifties, my childhood was a long time ago. I don’t remember whether my mom read to me, though I assume she did. I LOVED reading in school. The first book I remember reading from is A Child’s Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson. I must have read several Little Golden Books, because they were familiar to me when I started reading them to my kids. I remember checking out a biography of Martin Luther from the school library in maybe the second grade. My dad did not read much at that time (though he did after he retired), and he thought I was being lazy if I was sitting around reading much. I remember being admonished about that a number of times, so I must have been reading a lot, but it doesn’t seem to have dimmed my enthusiasm. Since I was the oldest of six kids, whatever children’s books we had did not survive the long run through everyone’s use.

I never heard of Anne of Green Gables until I was a young adult (when the Megan Follows films came out) or Narnia until less than 15 years ago. When someone in our church talked about acting in a local production of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, I was suspect. 🙂 I think it was probably then that I checked the series out and loved it. I think it’s been in that time frame that I discovered The Hobbit and LOTR, too.

Somehow I even missed Nancy Drew and The Babysitters Club! I do remember reading Little Women and its sequels many times, and I must have read some of the Little House books, because they were familiar to me later. Then in high school I discovered and loved Dickens with David Copperfield. Somewhere along the way I read Great Expectations and Oliver Twist and didn’t like those quite so well, and attempted A Tale of Two Cities several times over the years before finally getting through it and then instantly rereading it and deeming it my favorite novel. I remember some book from the Scholastic book paper about a girl getting pregnant (and my dad was very angry I was reading that) and one called The Endless Steppe about a girl in Russia

I remember studying a different Shakespeare play each year in high school but not getting much out of it. My sophomore English class was memorable because we made a film, but I don’t remember what we read. That was the early 70s, just coming off the hippie era, and my teacher that year “fit” into that era well.

It was in college that I first discovered missionary biographies, and that was nurtured by the church I attended for the first 14 yeas we were married which had in the monthly ladies’ meetings a librarian who talked briefly each meeting about a book and had them there to check out.

Early married years were when I first discovered Christian fiction with Janette Oke. In high school I had read Not My Will by Francena Arnold, which was kind of a precursor of modern Christian fiction, and it spoke to my heart.

I know we explored good literature in three of my college literature classics, but all I can remember is discovering and loving Anne Bradstreet and then Jane Austen’s Emma. A lady professor who attended my church taught a class on Shakespeare that I really wanted to take, but just couldn’t work it in.

Since I’ve started a blog I’ve purposed to read through some of the classics. I’ve read all of Austen’s books, Les Miserables, The Count of Monte Cristo, and many others. I’m enjoying discovering them as an adult, though I am sorry I missed being exposed to them at a younger age. I also enjoy rereading some of the ones I had read earlier, like Little Women and the Little House books and Dickens. I’ve had fun exploring children’s classics that I missed along the way, like all of the Anne books, Narnia, Caddie Woodlawn, Five Little Peppers and How They Grew (a favorite, though I need to reread it again). And I continue on with biographies, “real-life” stories, Christian fiction and non-fiction, and an occasional secular fiction or non-fiction.

Some favorites I read to my own kids when they were small were the Francis books, Curious George, Clifford, the Little Bear series by Else Holmelund Minark, the Jesse Bear series by Nancy White Carlstrom, Mike Mulligan, The Little Engine That Could, Robert McCloskey books (Make Way for Ducklings and Blueberries for Sal), Dr. Seuss, P. D. Eastman, Keep the Lights Burning, Abbie by Peter Roop one of my all-time favorites, about a girl who has to keep the lighthouse lamps burning when her father is delayed from getting back home due to a storm), The Puppy Who Wanted a Boy by Jane Thayer, the Snipp, Snapp, and Snurr books by Maj Lindman, and of course the Little Golden Books. One of their favorites was Gus the Bus, who goes frolicking off his usual route when his tires get overfilled. We kept that even though it is taped together.

So…what did you read when you were a kid?

(Graphic Courtesy of Grandma’s Graphics.)

Book Review: Let the Hurricane Roar

Posted on February 11, 2013 by Barbara Harper

Let the Hurricane Roar by Rose Wilder Lane, daughter of Laura Ingalls Wilder, is also published as Young Pioneers. In some versions the characters are named Molly and David: in others they are Charles and Caroline. The events are based on the same events covered in Laura’s book On the Banks of Plum Creek, though some details have been changed.

I had wondered about the title, since hurricanes don’t generally come to the prairie, but the title comes from a hymn.

Molly and David are very young newlyweds (16 and 18) who head west to claim a homestead. Though they live in a little sod house and don’t have many possessions, they are gloriously happy, especially when a good wheat crop grows and they have a baby son. But disaster strikes in the form of a grasshopper plague that destroys the crop. David had borrowed against the lost crop, so he must travel to look for work. Even though neighbors give up and leave in the face of similar difficulties, Molly stays on through a terrible winter so claim jumpers won’t steal their land.

A former pastor used to bestow high compliments on people when he called them “pioneer stock” — sturdy, dependable, strong, not easily swayed. David and Molly would both qualify for this compliment. I am sure I would not! At least not when it comes to living in a dirt house all alone through several blizzards. The book realistically portrays Molly struggle with being alone, wrestling with all of the “what ifs,” and David’s anger over his failure, poor choices (going into debt), and difficult circumstances, rather than portraying them as always smiling and unflappable.

Some of that “pioneer stock” is shown as well in Molly’s attitude when a neighbor complains about hardships, and Molly thinks to herself, “Well, the land isn’t going to feed you with a spoon!” Quite different from the attitude of many today.

I also liked the description at the beginning that Molly “never quite lost the wonder that she, quiet and shy and not very pretty, had won such a man as David. He was laughing and bold [and] daring.”

It’s obvious Rose loved and admired her grandparents, and I am glad she shared this part of their story with us. Part of her goal in writing it was to “inspire Depression-era readers with its themes of resilience in the face of hardship and the strength of the American character” (The Wilder Life by Wendy McClure, p. 168).

Carrie and Amy both reviewed this book last year — in fact, Carrie’s review is where I think I first heard of it. They both focus more on the relationship between Molly and David than I did, but after rereading their reviews as I came to the end of mine, I do remember that that’s part of what drew me to this book, besides its relationship to Laura. Though the book is not written as a romance per se, and as Amy said, Rose writes with restraint, the realities as true love as opposed to “romance novel fiction” shine through it.

The only blight on this novel is that Rose used this information from her mother’s material without her mother’s knowledge or permission. Laura was understandably upset, and they eventually came to terms with it and moved on.

I was originally going to read Farmer Boy next for the Laura Ingalls Wilder Reading Challenge, but since it is Almanzo’s childhood story and doesn’t need to be read in order, I think I am going to read On the Banks of Plum Creek for Laura’s version of the events in this story while this book is still fresh in my mind.

(This will also be linked to Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books.)

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Book Review: West From Home by Laura Ingalls Wilder.

Posted on February 5, 2013 by Barbara Harper

West From Home is a compilation of letters Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote home to her husband, Almanzo, while she was in San Francisco visiting her daughter and the 1915 World’s Fair, also called the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in celebration of the completion of the Panama Canal, which opened trade with other countries. Her daughter, Rose Wilder Lane, had kept the letters in a box after her mother’s death, and they were among other possessions passed along to her heir, Roger Lea McBride. When he discovered them, he decided to publish them in a book for Laura fans.

Laura spent about two months with Rose and her husband. She was 48; Rose was 29. Besides all the sights and wonder of the Exposition, Laura got a glimpse of San Francisco, Rose’s work, different ways business was done, and the ocean. I love the description of Laura and Rose taking their shoes off and running in the water.

She visited to a cannery, and “her doubts about the cleanness of canned goods from a large plant are removed” (p. 54). She was intrigued by the different nationalities of people she saw. She was enthralled by the light show in the evenings. And she took in a great deal from the city and the Exposition and tried to describe it in great detail to Almanzo.

Though there are photos included in the book of some of the sights around the time she was there, they are not hers. I don’t know if they did not have a camera, or if it was just inconvenient or expensive to shoot many photos. But Laura tried to describe with as much detail as she could what she was seeing so Almanzo can experience it as much as possible, too.

Almanzo couldn’t leave the farm, and it is clear in several of the letters that Laura feels conflicted about leaving him with all the work herself. A number of things I read last year about her showed that she was an integral part of the farm work.

Her letters are quite practical, not romantic or even affectionate much at all. That may have been due to the era, but overall she was a very practically-minded person, so that may just be how she expressed herself.

In several places it is mentioned that Rose was trying to persuade her parents to move near her, and Laura (actually called Bessie by Almanzo because he had a sister named Laura and called Mama Bess by Rose) explored the costs and details involved in moving some of their ventures to CA. But ultimately she felt, “There is no place like the country to live and I have not heard of anything so far that would lead me to give up Rocky Ridge [their home] for any other place” (p. 89).

Laura was also writing her farm-paper columns at this time, and Rose had several writing assignments, but there was talk of wanting Rose to help her block out a story. I’m assuming these were some of the first efforts towards what would eventually become the Little House stories.

One of the reasons I especially wanted to read this book was for a glimpse into Laura’s relationship with Rose. I had read mixed reports about how well they got along. There is nothing in these letters to indicate they didn’t get along, and if they didn’t, it would seem Rose wouldn’t be so keen on wanting them to move near her. There are indications that Rose was more emotional and Laura more practical and down-to-earth, so I am sure that caused some misunderstandings sometimes. Of course, these cover just a short period in their lives, so they are not the whole story.

There are some family glimpses as well, in Laura’s concern about whether they’d get back $250 they had loaned to Rose and her husband, and Rose’s note to her father with concerns that Laura was getting too fat (!!!)

All in all it was a fairly quick (171 pages, if you count some recipes at the end) and enjoyable read. It wasn’t riveting, but it was an interesting peek into Laura’s real life.

The Laura Ingalls Wilder Reading Challenge 2013

Posted on February 1, 2013 by Barbara Harper

Welcome to this year’s Laura Ingalls Wilder Reading Challenge! Since February is the month of her birth and her death, it seemed a good time to read anything related to her. Any of the Little House books are fine, but if you’d like to read something other than those, I listed a few books related to Laura Ingalls Wilder here, and of course I’m sure there are several biographies and such that I don’t know about.

Let us know in the comments below what you’re planning to read pertaining to Laura this month, and at the end of the month I’ll have another post where we can share how we’ve done and what we’ve thought about what we read. You can join in at any time during the month and you don’t have to have a blog to participate. And there just may be a prize of some kind for those participating.

If you do anything else Laura-related, we’d love to hear about that, too: last year Bekah tried some prairie-type crafts, foods, and activities, and a while back Annette hosted a Little House-themed birthday party for her daughter.

For myself, I plan to read:

West From Home, Laura’s letters back to Almanzo when she went to visit her daughter and the World’s Fair in San Francisco.

Let the Hurricane Roar by Rose Wilder Lane, Laura’s daughter, about her grandparents early years on the prairie, written before the Little House books.

Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder.

If I have time before the end of the month, I may go on in the Little House books. But it’s a short month, so we’ll see!

I got the Little House cookbook last year, so I may try some dishes from that as well.

Happy reading!

Feel free to grab the button for the challenge to use in your post:

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Book Review: Emily of New Moon

Posted on January 31, 2013 by Barbara Harper

I read Emily of New Moon by L. M. Montgomery for Carrie‘s Lucy Maud Montgomery Reading Challenge. and Reading to Know Book Club for the month of January.

Emily is similar to LMM’s Anne of Green Gables in many ways: both are orphans and come to live with stern older women. Both are highly imaginative and high-strung. But Emily’s world is harsher, darker, at least at first, whereas Anne’s is more charming and optimistic.

Emily’s mother had died years ago, and Emily lives alone with her beloved father, who is dying of consumption. They had had no contact with her mother’s people, the proud Murrays of New Moon, because her mother had run away and eloped with her father, to the severe disapproval of the Murrays. But “Murray pride” insures they will do their duty by Emily, and the various family members draw lots to see who will take her. The lot falls to Aunt Elisabeth (who is much harsher than Anne’s Marilla, who, though she was not warm, was not unkind.) The blow is softened for Emily a bit by the fact that her Aunt Laura and Cousin Jimmy (who “may not be all there, but what is there is very nice” p. 209) also live with Elisabeth, and they both love Emily, though they don’t “cross” Elisabeth.

It was astounding to me that no one understood either Emily’s grief in the loss of her father nor the jolt it would have been to leave all she had known to live with strangers. But with the resilience of childhood she soon learns the ways of the household and soon learns to love much about New Moon. Starting school is another trial by fire, but she makes dear friends with a girl named Ilse, who has been allowed to run rather wild by her inattentive father, Teddy, a quiet classmate who draws exceptionally well but whose mother is somewhat disturbed, and Perry, who has never been to school but has sailed hither and yon with his father.

Emily’s outlet is writing. She loves “the magic…made when the right words are wedded” (p. 273). She has a vivid imagination and writes fanciful stories and poems and pours out her heart about her trials and tribulations in letters to her father.

I wasn’t sure how well I really liked this book until about the last third of it, when Emily and Aunt Elisabeth have their ‘breakthrough” (and I loved that everything wasn’t all “happily ever after” that, but their different personalities and views still caused them to clash sometimes.) And then the chapter “When the Curtain Lifted” was the best in the book, I think. I also enjoyed Emily’s growth through the book, both in her personalty, as she “learns to mingle serpent’s wisdom and dove’s harmlessness in practical proportions” (p. 314), and in her writing, as she begins to realize that much of her early work is fanciful trash but is encouraged by the glimmers of talent a few others see.

This book is said to be more autobiographical than Anne, with some of the events in Emily’s life taken from LMM’s. It was interesting that a poem someone sent to encourage Emily about the Alpine path was one that also encouraged LMM: her autobiography takes its title from the same poem.

There is also a television series based on Emily, but I have not seen it.

I had hoped to read all three Emily books, but I only got through the first one, so I’ll probably save the next two for next year’s LMM challenge. The book for February’s Reading to Know Book Club. (which is all classics this year: take a peek here and see if you’d like to join in for any of them) is The Scarlet Letter, which I’ll probably listen to via audiobook.

And if anyone is looking for another challenge for February, I invite you to check out the Laura Ingalls Wilder Reading Challenge which starts tomorrow!

My past readings for the LMM Reading Challenge are (all linked to my thoughts on them):

Anne of Green Gables
Anne of Avonlea
Anne of the Island
Anne of Windy Poplars
Anne’s House of Dreams
Anne of Ingleside
Rainbow Valley
Rilla of Ingleside
Looking for Anne of Green Gables: The Story of L. M. Montgomery and Her Literary Classic by Irene Gammel

(This will also be linked to Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books.)

The Tenth Plague: Book Review and Author Interview

Posted on January 29, 2013 by Barbara Harper

In The Tenth Plague by Adam Blumer, Marc and Jillian Thayer have just adopted a new baby boy, and a friend has invited them to a Christian-themed resort for some rest and time together as a new family.

When they arrive, however, the retreat is in upheaval. A company planning a new Bible translation is having meetings at the resort, and a throng has arrived to protest. Someone rigged the water system to dispense what appears to be blood from the faucets. What seems an odd prank is soon discovered to be the first in a series of events based on the Biblical ten plagues of Egypt, some of them resulting in fatalities. Marc calls on a friend, a retired homicide detective, to help with the investigation as the plagues escalate.

Gillian, meanwhile, runs into someone who has hurt her deeply in the past. She thought she had put it all behind her, but the old anger and hurt rush back in like a flood, and she wrestles with the need to extend forgiveness.

The Tenth Plague is a sequel to Fatal Illusions, Adam’s first book (which I reviewed here), but you don’t have to have read the first book to understand and enjoy the second. Both books are tremendously suspenseful and feature realistic, everyday Christian people trying to discern and apply God’s will in their circumstances. I enjoyed them both very much!

Here is an interview with Adam:

What was your inspiration behind The Tenth Plague?

One day I was reading the book of Revelation and came across 22:18–19. “I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book, and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book” (ESV). My mind began playing the “what if” game. Would God really bring a biblical plague on someone who tampered with His Word? I chatted with a few theologian friends, and the plot emerged from there.

How does this novel compare with your first novel, Fatal Illusions?

Though the plot, of course, is different, the two novels share a number of similarities. Both are set in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, where I live. I like to write about average folks like Marc and Gillian Thayer, a pastor and his wife who face unexpected, even threatening, events. Of course, there’s another really bad killer who wants to do them harm, and their retired homicide detective friend, Chuck Riley, once again comes out of retirement to help them. I also like to weave in a historical event that somehow relates to the present day. In Fatal Illusions, it was the killer’s obsession with Houdini; in The Tenth Plague, an old mine disaster plays an important role. The past always plays an important role in the present—a running theme in my novels. Overall, I like to write about redemption: how biblical truth offers the answers to the complicated issues of life. Stories, like parables, present some of the best ways to illustrate biblical truths.

What was one of the most important lessons you learned during the writing of this novel?

The power of the collaborative process. I had a fairly strong first draft, but I was stuck. A novel editor provided a creative springboard and helped me see where my true story lay. Without her help, I doubt this story would have seen the light of day.

What part of writing this novel took the most work?

This novel required a ton of research. From an old mining tragedy to autism, from adoption law to anthrax, from pheromones to the Oklahoma City bombing, the research for this one required much more than I ever expected. I’m so thankful for technology and ease of access, thanks to the Internet. Without Google and so many resources at my fingertips, I’d probably still be researching this story.

So far, what has been your favorite work experience in life?

During one summer between years in high school, I worked at a library, a book lover’s paradise. Granted, a lot of the work involved stocking shelves, but being surrounded by so many fascinating books and interesting authors was pure heaven. I was born a die-hard book lover, and I’ll probably die one too.

Consider the qualities that make you unique. How do these qualities come out in your writing?

I love suspense fiction and history, so a blending of the two always seems to come out in my writing. In high school, I won awards in calligraphy; Gillian Thayer, my female lead, is into calligraphy in a big way (it’s her job). I’ve always been intrigued with how one’s past impacts his or her present and future. This is a recurring theme in my novels because it’s part of who I am. Now that I think about it, what I write is inseparable to some degree from who I am.

Introduce your plot summary and main characters. What is your favorite part of the story?

Water turns to blood. Flies and gnats attack the innocent. Marc and Gillian Thayer’s vacation resort becomes a grisly murder scene, with a killer using the ten plagues of Egypt as his playbook for revenge.

When their friend turns up dead, Marc and Gillian put their vacation on hold, enlist the help of a retired homicide detective, and take a closer look at the bizarre plagues as they escalate in intensity. Meanwhile, a stranger is after the Thayers’ newly adopted baby. Will they uncover the truth behind the bitter agenda before the tenth plague, the death of the firstborn son?

My favorite part is when the firstborn son is revealed and the novel culminates in the tenth plague. This is the most suspenseful and action-packed part of the story, with several key characters in jeopardy. I had a blast writing it.

One of the main themes of The Tenth Plague is confronting and dealing with your past. What can readers take away from this theme, especially in a novel that deals with religion and death?

Both the villain and my heroine, Gillian Thayer, grapple with heartbreaking real-life issues from their past. But how they respond shows two very different paths. My hope is that readers will see the stark contrast in the context of biblical truth presented in the story. The bottom line is that God is enough, and He offers the solution to every problem of life. This is another repeated theme in my stories. Thank you for the opportunity to talk about my latest project.

Some content used by permission of Kirkdale Press

The Tenth Plague is available in e-book format only from Amazon and Vyrso. You can read an excerpt here.

Thanks to Adam for sending me a copy in exchange for my honest review.

(This will also be linked to Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books.)

Book Giveaways

Posted on January 26, 2013 by Barbara Harper

Author Adam Blumer writes edge-of-your-seat suspense infused with Biblical principles. His new book, The Tenth Plague, will be released as an e-book on January 29. I’ll have more to say about it then, but meanwhile, if you’d like to have a chance to win a copy of The Tenth Plague or a physical copy of his first book, Fatal Illusions (linked to my review), go here or click on the graphic.

Adam discusses the book here, and you can read an excerpt of The Tenth Plague here.

Books related to Laura Ingalls Wilder

Posted on January 24, 2013 by Barbara Harper

I was talking with a friend about the upcoming Laura Ingalls Wilder Reading Challenge hosted here in February (more information is here), and she mentioned that she wanted to participate but would like to read something other than the Little House books. So I thought I’d share some of those titles for anyone else seeking that kind of information as well.

As far as I know, the only books that Laura wrote as books are the nine Little House ones, as well as her first book titled Pioneer Girl, (which is not the same thing as a biography of her by the same title) which she and her daughter, Rose, later reworked into the Little House series. But there are a few books of her writings compiled and published after her death. Those are:

Little House in the Ozarks: the Rediscovered Writings of Laura Ingalls Wilder, compiled and edited by Stephen Hines, a collection of newspaper columns and magazine articles she wrote before starting the Little House books, reviewed here. Saving Graces: the Inspirational Writings of Laura Ingalls Wilder, reviewed here, is a collection of inspirational or faith-based columns pulled from this book. The same editor’s three books beginning with Writings to Young Women from Laura Ingalls Wilder appears to be the same type of thing: some of the columns from the first book sorted into different categories.

On the Way Home, a diary of her move with her husband and daughter in a covered wagon from South Dakota to Missouri.

West From Home, letters Laura wrote to Almonzo while visiting their daughter in San Francisco, where she visited the World’s Fair.

A Little House Traveler contains the above two books plus the previously unpublished The Road Back, about the first trip she and Almonzo took back to De Smet, where Laura grew up and where they met.

A Little House Sampler, stories and writings of Laura as well as of Rose Wilder Lane, compiled by William T. Anderson.

There may be some other “compilation” type books, but these are the ones I know of. I have only read the one compiled by Stephen Hines so far.

Laura’s daughter, Rose Wilder Lane, wrote Let the Hurricane Roar (also known as Young Pioneers) about her grandparents’ “prairie life,” I believe before the Little House books were written or planned. Laura didn’t start writing until in her 60s, if I remember correctly. Another of Rose’s prairie-based books is Free Land: I am not sure if that one was specifically based on her family’s story or not. I have not read either of these but I have Let the Hurricane Roar on hand and hope to read it next month. These books are written for adults, while Laura’s were written for children. Rose wrote a number of other books: she was more well-known as a writer than her mother until the Little House books caught on: then Laura’s fame surpassed hers. There is disagreement in scholarly circles as to how much of the Little House books was actually written by Rose. Rose insisted they were all her mother’s work, but it seems likely that Rose would have shaped and edited them to some degree. Those who have read more of Roses’s writing seem to feel that her style is so different from that of the Little House books that they can’t believe she would have been the main writer behind them. That’s what I like to think, but I suppose we’ll never know for sure.

Some years ago Roger Lea MacBride published a series of books based on Rose’s childhood. When I first saw them, I didn’t realize they were about Rose and I was miffed that someone was seeming to horn in on the Little House fame by trying to write similar books. I didn’t realize until last year that MacBride was something of an unofficial adopted son of Rose’s and her sole heir. I didn’t realize until today that he was the co-creator and co-producer of the Little House on the Prairie TV series and that he had the rights to them. So he was much more closely related to the Little House world than I thought. I’d like to read these books some time but I don’t think I’ll get to them this year. I will forewarn you, though, that Rose is a very very different person than her mother in many ways. Of course, the times in which she grew up were quite different as well.

A more modern and kind of fun, though irreverent, book relating to Laura is The Wilder Life: My Adventures in the Lost World of Little House on the Prairie by Wendy McClure, Laura fan extraordinaire, reviewed here. Wendy set about to try to recapture something of “Laura world” by trying different Laura experiences (churning butter. etc.) and visiting the different sites where her family lived.

Then there are any number of biographies about Laura. So far I have only read I Remember Laura by Stephen W. Hines, reviewed here, a collection or articles and interviews of people who actually knew Laura.

Then there is Laura’s Album: A Remembrance Scrapbook of Laura Ingalls Wilder by William Anderson, a Little House Cookbook (which I bought but have not delved into yet), a Little House Crafts Book, The Little House Guidebook about the different sites and museums associated with Laura.

Those are the Laura-related books I am familiar with. Do you know of any others?

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