Tag Archives: Books

Favorite Books Read in 2025

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Favorite Books of 2025

I usually publish my bookish end-of-year posts the last week of December. But–it just didn’t happen. So here they are!

I posted the 65 books I read this year here. I’m doubling up posts today since they overlap.

I don’t have a set number of favorites I am looking for, though I try to aim between eight and twelve.

I usually try to keep it fairly even between fiction and nonfiction–but fiction won out this year. Though I read several good nonfiction books, there were more standouts in the fiction category.

Rembrandt Is In the Wind

Rembrandt Is in the Wind: Learning to Love Art Through the Eyes of Faith by Russ Ramsey. I don’t know much about art. But I found Ramsey’s book drawing observations from the lives of artists and their art fascinating.

Honorable mention nonfiction:

The Return of the King

The Return of the King is the third in J. R. R. Tolkien’s trilogy, The Lord of the Rings. There is so much to love about this book: the writing, the characters, the epic quest, the satisfying ending, the courage.

Between the Sound and Sea

Between the Sound and the Sea by Amanda Cox. An event planner helps a man and his grandfather restore an old lighthouse and cabin, uncovering a mystery concerning the lighthouse keeper’s daughter–who happened to have been an old love of the grandfather.

Christmas Book Flood

The Christmas Book Flood by Roseanna M. White tells how an Icelandic tradition, Jolabokaflod, got started. It involves people taking time Christmas evening to read the books they received that day. I knew very little about Iceland and it’s lore and loved that this book was so different.

Every Hour Until Then

Every Hour Until Then is the fifth in Gabrielle Meyer’s Time Crosser novels about a handful of people who lead double lives in different eras. Here, twenty-three-year-old Kathryn Kelly lives a privileged life in 1888 London with her parents and sister, and in 1938, she’s an assistant exhibit curator at the Smithsonian Arts and Industries Building. When the Smithsonian does a exhibit on Jack the Ripper, she discovers her sister in 1888 is one of his victims. She tries to discover information in 1938 that will help save her sister in 1888, even though deliberately changing history could cause her to forfeit her life in one timeline. This was one of the most riveting plots I have ever read, with a major plot twist I did not see coming.

Set the Stars Alight

Set the Stars Alight by Amanda Dykes Lucy Claremont is the daughter of an English watchmaker who loved to make puzzles and riddles for his daughter and a boy they befriended, Dash. Lucy loves the ocean and is especially fascinated with a ship rumored to have sunk nearby. Dash loved the stars. They are separated for a while but come back together to find more information about the ship. The timeline goes back and forth between current day and the 1800s, when the ship sank, telling what really happened to it. Amanda’s books have a way of touching the heart, and this one did in both timelines.

Unlikely Yarn

The Unlikely Yarn of the Dragon Lady by Sharon J. Mondragon was the biggest surprise of the year for me. I had never heard of the title or author, but I saw the title was free in Audible’s Plus Catalog at the time. It looked like an interesting novel about a group of knitters, which seemed like a relatively safe topic. I decided I’d give it a try. I am so glad I did. The four women meet weekly to knit prayer shawls for those going through a hard time and to pray for them. When the place they meet is being remodeled, their pastor encourages them to go to some public place, like the mall. They do, with their leader complaining all the way. But they have some interesting results in the people they come across, as well as each of them individually. I wouldn’t agree with every little theological aspect of the book, but the story, writing, and characters were great.

Waiting for Christmas

Waiting for Christmas by Lynn Austin. The main characters in this book appeared originally her earlier novel, All My Secrets. Addy and Howard are newlyweds when they discover a dirty boy, Jack, hiding in their bushes. He insists he is not an orphan: his father is working on a ship and coming back at Christmas. And his sister, who has some kind of problem (she only speaks to him) was hiding when authorities came to their home after their mother died, and he can’t find her. They take the Jack in and visit orphanages trying to find his sister. They are overwhelmed with the needs they see. Along with the search for Jack’s family and Addy and Howard’s adjustments to marriage and each other, it explores the truth that help doesn’t necessarily come from grand efforts at saving the day, but in small acts of kindness to those God places in our path.

What were your favorite books this year?

Books Read in 2025

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Books read in 2025

I enjoyed an eclectic reading year, with some classics, some contemporary; some hot off the press, some that had been on my shelf for decades; some fiction, some nonfiction. I ended up with 65 books finished this year.

Titles link to my reviews. “MTBR” behind a title indicates this is a book I owned before this year and am counting it for the Mount TBR (To Be Read) Reading Challenge,.

Nonfiction

Classics

Christian Fiction

Other Fiction

Next up: my top picks from this year’s reading.

How was your reading year?

Two More Christmas Books

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Wish Book Christmas

The Wish Book Christmas by Lynn Austin takes place in post-WWII America. Audrey Barrett and Eve Dawson are best friends who came to America after being ambulance drivers in England during the war. That story is told in If I Were You, which I have, but have not read yet.

Each of the women has a young son in kindergarten in 1951. Bobby, Audrey’s son, is quiet and reticent. Eve’s son, Harry, is outgoing and a natural leader.

When the Sears Christmas Wish Book catalogue arrives, the boys are obsessed with all the toys (as well as a dog and a daddy) that they hope Santa will bring them.

At first, Audrey and Eve are at a loss as to how to turn their sons’ attention away from their own desires and towards to the true meaning of Christmas and serving others. But gradually, ideas start coming to them.

Reading this novella without reading the book that came before it means I probably encountered a lot of spoilers. But I don’t think it will ruin my interest in the first book when I get to it.

I thought the story went in the same circles at first, but then picked up as the moms began implementing measures to help their sons.

The moms are dealing with issues of their own: Eve feeling she needs to atone for a past sin, and Audrey feeling she needs to make her own way without relying on others for help.

I’ve had the Kindle version of this for a while, but just got the audiobook via a special coupon from Audible. Once again, it was nice to go back and forth between them since they automatically synced with each other.

Blizzard at Blue Ridge Inn wasn’t described as a Christmas book, though it is set in the weeks before Christmas.

In this story, three women end up at the Blue Ridge Inn at the same time. Amanda Sullivan has been married to her second husband for nine years. She knows she doesn’t love him as much as her first husband, her soul mate, who was killed in a car crash. She’s hoping this romantic get-away will revitalize their relationship.

Erica Parker fears her husband is hiding something, possibly an affair. She’s on a mission to find the truth.

Wendy Peterson is in her twenties and loves having a rich husband and the ability to buy whatever she wants. She’s pregnant with her first child and is a little immature and naive. She can’t wait for her husband to join her at the inn.

However, all three husbands are delayed by work. And then an unusual blizzard traps all three women at the inn for a couple of days. They have nothing else to do but get to know one another better.

When the snow begins to clear, they’re informed that a stranger wants to meet with them together. They learn that they are not at the inn by accident. And it’s no coincidence that none of their husbands have arrived.

What the stranger shares will turn their worlds upside down. Each woman has to decide how she will navigate the changes to her life.

I didn’t know when I started this book that it was the first in a series of six about the women. I was frustrated to find that Wendy doesn’t have her baby until the third book, and apparently the antagonist still hasn’t been dealt with by the sixth. I don’t feel inclined to read the rest of the series–at least, not any time soon. The story was compelling, but the writing didn’t really grab me. It wasn’t terrible, but it just didn’t resonate with me. I have too many other books stacked up that I really want to read to spend time with some that I am not into.

I also wasn’t sure if this was meant to be Christian fiction or not. About 80% of the way through the book, one of the women meets with her pastor, who gives her some good advice.

According to the reviews, though, lots of people love the series. So you might get more out of it than I did.

Three Christmas Stories

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I finished one Christmas novel and two novellas recently and thought I’d share them all at once.

Tidings of Comfort and Joy

In Tidings of Comfort and Joy by Davis Bunn, Marissa is a teen-aged girl whose family is about to go on a longed-for trip to Hawaii for Christmas. But then Marissa gets sick with an unknown illness, so sick she can hardly stand. When she stabilizes, the family decides to go on the trip and leave Marissa with her grandmother, Emily. Emily feels the family needs the respite. And I don’t think this was ever spelled out, but since the trip was only affordable through a special sale, the family would probably not be able to get refunds on the airfare.

Marissa, as you can imagine is heart-broken and blindingly angry. She says a lot of hateful things to everyone–when she can stay awake.

Emily helps care for Marissa and then begins to tell a unknown story from her own past. During WWII, Emily had met and fell in love with a pilot. After the war, she flew to England against her parents’ wishes to marry him. But after a harrowing trip, she arrives only to find that he has gone and left her a note, breaking their engagement. He has made arrangements for her to stay in his flat under the care of his landlady until she can get back home.

The only problem is, she can’t get home. All the means of transportation are taken up by the military trying to get soldiers home.

After grieving for a few days, Emily reluctantly gets involved with the community, specifically the orphanage full of children from different countries. The government wants to send the children to a camp for displaced persons, but Emily and the local vicar fight to keep that from happening. And then an outbreak of hepatitis sweeps the orphanage.

This is a sweet story of finding meaning and purpose in the midst of heartbreak.

Finding Christmas

Finding Christmas by Karen Schaler is not Christian fiction, but the reviews assured me it was clean, and it was.

Emmie is an over-the-top fan of Christmas. Her family always loved the holiday. But since her parents died, everything about Christmas helps Emmie feel close to them.

Her boyfriend, Grant, is a busy lawyer trying to make partner. Emmie runs the community center her parents started. Their schedules are so crazy, Emmie decides to take a special vacation to Christmas Point, a Christmas-themed town three hours from Seattle. She prepares a scavenger hunt that will lead Grant to the inn where they are staying. The clues start with a present Emmie left with the doorman at Grant’s condo.

But then the present gets delivered to the wrong guy, Sam. He’s a best-selling writer who has been stuck ever since his sister passed away. He thinks the present is from his agent, Candace, to help revive his Christmas spirit. Delighted, he follows the clues only to find, not Candace, but Emmie.

Emmie is devastated that her perfect plans went so awry. She loses all interest in the special dinner she had planned. But, since Grant can’t get away, the inn’s owner encourages Emmie and Sam not to let the dinner go to waste.

As Grant remains glued to his job, Sam is so delighted with the town, he decides to stay for a few days. At first he and Emmie keep running into each other as she participates in some of the activities she had planned to do with Grant. Emmie finds Sam loves Christmas as much as she does. And maybe he’s right about a more laid-back and less scheduled approach to life. And maybe he’s not the wrong guy after all . . .

This book took a thoroughly secular approach to Christmas. But it was a nice story with a Hallmark feel. In fact, the author has written a couple of successful Netflix and Hallmark films (which I have not seen).

Waiting for Christmas

Waiting for Christmas: A Story of Hope and the Best Gift of All by Lynn Austin involves characters from her earlier novel, All My Secrets. In that book, Addy was from a wealthy Gilded Age family, but when her grandfather died, the bulk of the estate went to a male heir. Addy had a trust fund left to her. Over the course of the novel, her grandmother convinces her that the excess the family had lived with for years was wasteful. It was better to live a useful live than an empty one of balls and society gossip. Addy married a young lawyer she fell in love with at the end of that book.

In this novella, Addy and Howard have been married about a month. Addy wants to be economical and learn to cook and keep house. Howard assures her that her gifts are better used in the suffrage movement she is active in as well as her charitable pursuits. He’s secretly afraid she will miss the high society life she came from.

Addy comes home one day to find a small, dirty boy, Jack, hiding in the bushes in front of her house. She coaxes him in. He had been looking for her mother, who had visited his orphanage earlier. He insists he is not an orphan. His father is on a ship which is due back at Christmas. When his mother died, their landlord called the authorities, who took him to an orphanage. But his three-year-old sister was hiding and never brought to the same orphanage.

Addy and Howard take the child in and try to help him find his sister as well as learn something about his father. Was his father on a ship, or had he abandoned the family? Did he truly have a sister, or was she imaginary?

Addy’s family’s foundation already supported a few orphanages. But as Addy visits others while looking for Jack’s sister, she’s appalled at their conditions. She’s equally upset to learn that many of the children are not true orphans, but have been left by mothers too poor to care for them. She insists that the suffrage movement was more than a fight for women’s right to vote, but a means of advocating for better conditions for women, better wages, and respectable opportunities to earn a living. But the need is so great.

This was another sweet story with several layers for a novella. Along with the search for Jack’s family and Addy and Howard’s adjustments to marriage and each other, it explores the truth that help doesn’t necessarily come from grand efforts at saving the day, but in small acts of kindness to those God places in our path.

All three of these were audiobooks, but I either had the Kindle version already, or found it for a couple of dollars. It’s nice when that happens. I love being able to go from reading to listening and back, depending on circumstances. The narrator for the first book was a little annoying, but not enough to set the audio aside. The other two were great.

These books all were a nice way to enhance my Christmas spirit and celebrations.

Review: My Beloved

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My Beloved by Jan Karon

Jan Karon’s last book in her beloved Mitford series was published in 2017 and was supposed to be the end of the series. But she began to play around with an old short story idea, and eventually came up with My Beloved.

The premise of the story is that Father Tim, an Episcopal priest and the main character, has been told by his wife that all she wants for Christmas is a love letter. In a moment of inspiration, he bares his heart on paper. He also buys her a book of poetry, tucks the letter inside, and wraps them.

But then the letter and book go missing. After tracing his steps and racking his brain, he still can’t find them or come up with any ideas about where they could be. He tries a few times to write another, but just can’t get it to sound like the first one did.

Meanwhile, the letter and book get accidentally passed to various Mitford characters. Sometimes the result is comic, sometimes touching.

There are a few subplots running through the book. One involves Hope, owner of the Happy Endings book store, and the financial difficulties threatening the store. Former Mayor Esther Cunningham and her husband are aging and fussing with their “bossy” daughters over what they can and can’t do.

Dooley made an appearance in the first Mitford book as a “throwaway” boy who comes under Father Tim’s influence and, over the course of the series, eventually becomes his adopted son. Though the Mitford books are generally “cozy” reads, they don’t shy away from serious issues. Dooley’s mother had been an alcoholic who gave away some of her children for drink. Though she has become sober and even become a Christian, and all her children have been found, there are still underlying issues and pains blocking healing and relationships.

This book was structured a little differently, rotating the point of view with each chapter. I loved how the dialect instantly let us know which “voice” was speaking, even though the subject’s name was the name of the chapter.

Some of my favorite quotes:

Father Tim: “God’s love for his children wasn’t just for them to have and to hold, it was to freely, spontaneously give away—and to gratefully receive from others.”

Esther: “She was already surprised, thank you. Surprised by bein’ old as dirt; surprised by losin’ her scatter rugs; an’ surprised by goin’ from a mayor everybody voted for to an old woman whose car battery died months ago from sittin’ in th’ garage with a mouse nest under th’ hood.”

Cynthia: “Every saint has a past. Every sinner has a future.”

Esther: “A recliner was a drug, an’ she was overdosin’.”

Ray: “He would consider it a freebie for old people. I’m not goin’ there.” Esther: “Freebies for old people is exactly where I’m goin’.”

Esther: “At their age, surprises were not a good idea in th’ first place. You could keel over from a surprise.”

Helene: “With war raging around the world and suffering everywhere, how extraordinary, how beautiful this life could be. There were no words, really. No words.”

Father Tim: “There was only one person in the world who would really get what just happened. Thank God he was married to her.”

Father Tim: “Even now, that tribe is splitting apart, that one small wounded fragment is scattering in all directions, nursing their wounds, reluctant to give up anything so darkly familiar as their wounds, and headed to places from which they may not find their way back.”

Father Tim: “Why invite more pain into a family raised on pain? Because pain can serve as a passageway to joy. It’s that dark tunnel that goes through a mountain and dumps us out on the other side where the light is.”

I’ve seen reviews of Christian fiction that complain over the least mention of any religious content. So I have always marveled that these books so full of gospel truth have been so popular with the general public. Oh, I wouldn’t agree with every little point. But the great majority of these books are spot on.

Reading a Mitford book is like a visit back to one’s hometown. It was good to catch up with various characters and their situations.

Updated to add: Jan was interviewed on CBS This Morning recently:

Review: The Christmas Book Flood

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Christmas Book Flood

Jolabokaflod is an Icelandic tradition that translates to “Christmas Book Flood.” It began in 1944 near the end of WWII. Iceland was occupied by the Americans, and their willingness to spend money in town and help arrange for exports of the country’s fish helped Iceland become a little more prosperous than many European nations occupied by Germany.

But many items were still in short supply due to rationing. Icelanders were already great readers and storytellers, but this particular year, books were the main gifts. A tradition began Christmas night of people reading the books they had gotten for Christmas, often while enjoying hot chocolate. Sounds like a great idea to me!

Roseanna M. White has set her novella, The Christmas Book Flood, in this time and place.

Tatiana Eliasdottir is her uncle’s assistant at his publishing house. Tatiana’s sister calls to ask if she can send her seven-year-old daughter for the holidays. Her sister is having difficulties in her pregnancy, and has lost several unborn babies. Her sister’s husband has injured his leg and is out of work. They felt their daughter, Elea, needed a brighter, happier setting for Christmas. Tatiana agrees to host Elea. At first the girl is disconsolate over not being home for Christmas. But getting into some of the traditions and learning she’ll be able to go to work with Tatiana, where her favorite author, Anders Johannsson, also works, begins to lift her spirits.

Author, illustrator, and editor Anders and his secretary agree to help Tatiana watch Elea when Tatiana can’t be at her desk. Tatiana has liked Anders for a while, but he is so shy and quiet and easily flustered that it’s hard to talk much with him.

Anders’ personality tends toward quietness, but he is also that way because he feels like a misfit. His brothers are all hardy, big, strapping fishermen who make fun of him for his shyness and bookish ways.

A true part of the story deals with the publishing companies teaming to form a “Book Bulletin” sent to every home.. The results were so successful–a flood of orders–that they weren’t sure they would be able to fill the orders before Christmas.

Another part deals with Tatiana and Anders getting to know one another and overcoming their misconceptions.

Woven in with the plot was some Icelandic folklore. They don’t have Saint Nicholas, but they do have the “Yule lads“–Troll brothers who take turns visiting in December and leaving gifts in shoes if they find everything to their liking.

This was a delightful novella. I knew very little about Iceland and its traditions and folklore. Then the plot was so different from many Christmas novellas. And, though there’s a slow romance, the book is not at all cheesy. The characters have things to learn and ways to grow along the way.

There were a couple of anachronisms–I don’t know if they talked about “patriarchal” expectations of women then, or “fighting the patriarchy”–at least not in those terms.

Happily, this audiobook did include the author’s notes about the inspiration and research for this book.

I listened to the audiobook, nicely read by Talon David. The only negative to listening was I had no idea what some of the Icelandic terms and names looked like. But there was usually enough explanation that I understood what was going on.

Review: Exodus for You

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Exodus for You

The book of Exodus has some of the most exciting and touching passages in the Bible, but also some chapters of details that aren’t quite so inspiring to read. Our ladies’ Bible study at church used Exodus for You: Thrilling You with the Liberating Love of God, where Tim Chester shares insights to better help us get the most from Exodus.

The narrative in Exodus begins some 400 years after Genesis ends. Jacob’s whole family had come to Egypt to escape famine, under the favor of son Joseph. But now a king had arisen who did not Joseph and didn’t regard his leadership and help during the famine crisis so many years ago. All this king knew was that there were enough Israelites to potentially rise up against Egypt. So he had them enslaved and commanded that male Israelite babies be killed.

During this time, Moses was born. You’re probably familiar with the story of his mother making a waterproof basket to put her baby in and setting it upon the Nile, where it was found by Pharaoh’s daughter, who took Moses to raise as her own.

The next several chapters detail Moses’ life, call of God to deliver Israel, and development as a leader.

Then we have the ten plagues in Egypt, the Israelites’ exodus, God’s deliverance through the Red Sea, the giving of the law, and the golden calf incident and its consequences. Some of the tenderest passages occur as Moses intercedes for God’s forgiveness for His people and then asks to see God’s glory. There are several chapters of details about the law and instructions for the tabernacle, it’s furnishings, and the priest’s garments. The book ends with the people obeying God by constructing the tabernacle and the glory of the Lord filling it.

God had promised to dwell with His people, and the tabernacle was a vivid picture of His fulfillment of that promise, which ultimately pointed to a fuller fulfillment to come in Christ.

Some of my favorite chapters in Chester’s book dealt with the symbolism of everything about the tabernacle. One of our Sunday School teachers from another church taught symbolism that the Bible doesn’t corroborate, like the four corners of the altar representing the four gospels, and the two cherubim over the mercy seat representing the Old and New Testaments. I don’t know if he got such ideas from a source or from his own musings. Chester does a much better job of showing from the rest of Scripture what each item symbolizes and points to.

Chester draws several parallels between the tabernacle and the garden of Eden, which was new thought for me. The cherubim guarding the entrance to Eden after Adam and Eve sinned and the cherubim oven into the curtain between the Holy and Most Holy place were pretty obvious parallels. I am still pondering some of the others (some are listed here).

I had never before heard of Chester’s description of God’s judgment and restoration through the Red Sea incident and others.as “uncreating” and “recreating.” I’m not quite sure I agree with that depiction–I have to think about it some more.

Some of my favorite quotes from Exodus for You:

God “remembered his covenant with Abraham”. What is going to drive this story is the promise to Abraham. “Remembering” is a covenantal term. It means deciding to act in order to fulfil a covenant. It’s not that the promise to Abraham had somehow slipped God’s mind. It’s not that he got distracted by other things. “Remembering” means 20
God is about to take the next step in the fulfilment of his promises (pp. 19-20).

One of the many ways in which God works good from suffering is that he uses it to make us cling to him in faith, to clarify our identity as his children and to increase our longing for the new creation (p. 21).

Moses will discover who God is through God’s saving acts. God is self-defining, and he is about to provide a definition of his name–and that definition is the exodus. In the exodus we will see the holiness of God in his judgment on Egypt. We will see the power of God in his triumph over Pharaoh and the gods of Egypt. We will see the grace of God in the redemption of Isarel. And we will see the rule of God in his words on Mt. Sinai (p. 41). 

God intends not only to make himself known to Israel but also through Israel. The law is given to shape Israel’s life so that they display the character of God. It is missional in intent (p. 141).

“You shall not make for yourself an image” (v. 4). This is to reduce God to something of our own making–not to replace him, but to make him manageable, to understand him according to our notions rather than according to his revelation in his word. Have you ever judged God or reduced him? (p. 176).

For the most part, I greatly benefited from what Chester shared in this book. 

If you’d like an overview of Exodus, the Bible Project shares it in two videos–Part 1 is here, part 2 is here. 

Review: Amy Snow

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Amy Snow

I found Amy Snow by Tracy Rees on my long list of reading recommendations with a link back to where I saw it. But the blogger who recommended it stopped blogging and took all her content down. So I don’t remember what inclined me to add it to my list. But I decided to give it a try.

The book is set in Victorian England. Eight-year-old Aurelia Vennaway is bored with an aristocratic ladies’ gathering in her home and escapes to play out in the snow. She finds an abandoned baby, alive but naked and blue. She wraps the baby up in her coat and brings it in, to her mother’s horror. Only two things save the baby from being sent to an orphanage or poor house: the other ladies and the visiting rector all comment on how fortunate the baby was to be found on Vennaway property, where it could be so well cared for. To uphold their reputation, the Vennaways agree the child can stay. But they consign it to the servants’ quarters to be cared for there.

Aurelia, however, becomes quite attached to the little one, names her Amy, after her favorite doll, and Snow, to commemorate where she was found. She comes down to take Amy out to play, despite her mother’s wishes.

Bright, vivacious Aurelia doesn’t like the strictures her parents try to place on her and almost always gets her way. When she becomes of marriageable age, however, her father puts his foot down that he will choose the husband he deems best for her, and Aurelia has no choice in the matter.

Then Aurelia becomes ill. The doctor finds that she has a weak heart and is not expected to live long. A pregnancy could kill her. Yet her parents still plan to marry her off.

She insists on one last trip with a friend and ends up being gone much longer than expected, almost a year. When she comes home, the man her parents wanted her to marry has found someone else, and no one else wants to marry someone so ill. Aurelia wants Amy moved up to her rooms to be her companion and nurse.

When Aurelia dies a few years later, she leaves Amy a sentimental piece of jewelry and ten pounds. Everyone is relieved: if she had left Amy a great deal of money, the Vennaways would likely have contested the will.

But the next day, a friend brings Amy a box from Aurelia with some money and a letter. Aurelia has a secret she wants to share with Amy, but she can’t tell her outright–she especially can’t write it down lest her parents discover it. So she developed a treasure hunt with clues, like she used to do when Amy was a child. This first letter contains Amy’s next step, which hopefully she can decipher but no one else who sees the letter could.

So Amy sets off alone for parts unknown, finding another letter from Aurelia, more clues, and more revelations.

The external plot is the treasure hunt and Aurelia’s secret (which I figured out just before Amy did). But part of the story, maybe the main part, is Amy’s coming into her own–her transformation from an unwanted orphan and servant to a young woman making her way into society.

I found all of that very intriguing, but I thought the story moved very slowly. The Vennaways seemed a touch too villainous to be believable.

The story is not from a Christian viewpoint, so the people were not going to act like Christians. But I found that the views of many of them about immorality and femininity were anachronistic for the era. It made sense for one old, powerful, rich, and scandalous woman, but not for so many. There was one brief paragraph bordering on vulgarity when some “gentlemen” were not acting gentlemanly. But I feel sure we could figure out their character without the scene going so far.

There were a couple of quotes I liked near the end:

After falling in love, actually being in love—marriage—those things require thought and sensitivity and patience. [He] was impatient, and that impatience was one burden too many for you at a difficult time, so you fled. You may be forgiven! Only his impatience came from loving you and caring about you, I think. Perhaps, then, he may also be forgiven?

I realize how sweet solitude is when it is not enforced, how contented it is possible to be in one’s own company when it is not the only possibility one has.

Though there was much about the book that I liked, the problem areas would keep me from reading this author again.

Review: The Man Behind the Patch: Ron Hamilton

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Ron Hamilton and his alter ego, Patch the Pirate, are household names in some places but unknown in others. I wrote something of a tribute to him a couple of years ago after he passed away. His wife wife, Shelly, wrote a biography of him, published last year, titled The Man Behind the Patch: Ron Hamilton.

I first knew of Ron in college. He and Shelly were newly married and GAs (graduate assistants) during my freshman year. They were always active in music both on campus and at the church they attended, which I visited occasionally.

I remember when Rob debuted some new songs he had written at college. “It Is Finished” was inspired by a teacher pointing out that when Christ said “It is finished” from the cross, it was a victory cry. The other two were “Come to the Cross” and “The Blood of Jesus.” I had not known that these songs were part of his requirements to graduate in his major. It’s interesting that these songs continued to be well-known and well-loved all through his career.

I remember when Ron was diagnosed with cancer in his eye. When they did surgery, he wouldn’t know until he woke up whether they had to remove the eye or not. They did. Sometime after his recovery, he gathered together all the notes and verses people had sent him and wrote what became his signature song, “Rejoice in the Lord.”

As Ron wore his eye patch, kids in his church began calling him “Patch the Pirate.” He had written music for adults but then decided to write some for kids as well. He put together a story line with interesting character voices for a children’s recording. Kids loved it, and parents soon begged for more because they were tired of listening to the same album over and over. Thus a children’s ministry was born. A Patch the Pirate adventure has been released every year since then, over forty all together.

He continued to write music for adults and choirs, cantatas, books of music arrangements for his songs. He wrote the words, various people wrote the music, and Shelly arranged them.

One of the trials of their life was when their oldest son developed a mental illness over several years, ending with the taking of his own life. Shelly told his story in Always, Only Good: A Journey of Faith Trough Mental Illness.

Another severe trial came when Ron was diagnosed with early onset dementia. He passed away at his home in 2023.

Shelly tells Ron’s story in three sections, Becoming Patch the Pirate, Life with Patch the Pirate, and Patch’s Long Journey Home. She begins with his early childhood in Indiana, to attending college, meeting and dating Shelly, their marriage and children. Then Ron’s eye surgery and budding career. They took over and managed the music company her dad began, Majesty Music.

Many of the middle chapters are something of a travelogue, along with which recordings came out when, sprinkled with anecdotes. The whole family traveled to churches doing “Patch” concerts until the family grew too big. Ron traveled alone for a while, eventually cutting back to traveling just a bit while becoming the music pastor of a local church.

Shelly was warned that biographies of men by their wives often become hagiography, idealizing the husband. Shelly attempts to show all sides of Ron. He wasn’t perfect–no one is. He was a prankster, and some of his pranks backfired badly.

A couple of other interesting facts I had not known: Ron had a deviated septum, which gave his voice a slight nasal quality. He didn’t know if surgery would change his voice for better or worse, so he decided to leave well enough alone.

Also, he considered doing doctoral work in music at another school and was accepted, but he was told his music would need to be more academic. He considered the offer, but decided to decline. He wanted to “put the cookies on the lowest shelf”–make them accessible to everyone. Shelly wrote later that Ron “chose to compose biblical texts that united with simple, memorable melodies for everyday life and everyday struggles (p. 368).

Ron wrote about 700 songs. Some for children were fun, like “I Love Broccoli” and “The Poochie Lip Disease.” Others focused on character. All of his songs for children and adults were biblically based. I shared some of my favorites in my earlier post about him.

By all accounts, Ron was a humble man. When Shelly once mentioned how many lives he had touched, he said, “I’d like to think God did it.”

This book was nostalgic for me in many ways. I didn’t know Ron and Shelly personally, though I had met them each a couple of times. But since I was in school a few years behind them and lived in the same town for over fourteen years, I was acquainted with their ministry. Then my kids grew up on “Patch the Pirate” tapes, especially in the car and at bedtime. We listened to many of Ron’s albums for adults over the years and sang some of his music in choir. Finally, I followed Shelly’s public Facebook page the last years of Ron’s illness.

I think this book would be especially interesting to anyone familiar with Ron or Patch. But even for those who don’t know him, this is an inspiring account of a humble servant of God using his talents for His glory.

Review: A Thousand Voices

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A Thousand Voices

A Thousand Voices is the fifth and final novel in Lisa Wingate’s Tending Roses series.

Dell Jordan was a side character in the first couple of books but is the main character in this one. She was Grandma Rose’s neighbor as a child, living with an ailing grandmother. Her father had not been around since her birth. Her mother had been in and out with drug addictions but died a few years before. After she and Grandma Rose became friends, she became an unofficial part of the family until Rose’s granddaughter and her husband, Karen and James, officially adopted Dell.

When Dell was discovered to be something of a musical prodigy, Karen enrolled her in a performing arts magnet school. Dell had trouble adjusting, but eventually found her way.

As this story begins, Dell graduated two years earlier, spent one year touring Europe with an orchestra, and a second year working in a Ukrainian mission orphanage. Her parents and teachers want her to apply to Julliard. But the appeal of music has faded with the pressures of performance and expectations.

She loves her new family, but she still feels “different,” with her brown eyes and hair and “cinnamon” skin amidst everyone else’s fair skin, blue eyes, and blond hair. She grieves over her birth father’s desertion, her birth mother’s neglect, and the derogatory comments from her uncle.

All she knows about her father is his name on her birth certificate and the fact that he was part Choctaw. When she learns about agencies in Oklahoma that help find Choctaw ancestors, she drives there from Kansas City to see if she can find any information about her father. She doesn’t tell her adoptive parents, feeling they wouldn’t understand and might be hurt.

After a series of mishaps in her travels, including losing most of her money, she arrives at a campground and sleeps in her car. A large group of tents and motor homes in the next campsite hold an extended Choctaw family, there for the annual Choctaw festival. They invite Dell into their gathering, where she becomes friends with several of them and feels a sense of belonging that she has never experienced before. A couple of them help her in her search.

A few quotes that stood out to me:

It’s a powerful thing to realize you were put in this world on purpose. It changes the way you feel about everything afterward (p. 2, Kindle version).

The past, even if you don’t talk about it, still exists, and no matter how hard you try to turn your back, no matter how dangerous it is to look at, part of you cries out to understand it.

Part of growing up is learning that people can’t give what they don’t have. The rest you have to find in yourself (p. 310).

The plot moves rather slowly until the last couple of chapters. There are some scenes that don’t seem to advance the plot at all, like a lengthy encounter with a skunk at the campground.

I was frustrated with Dell’s lying to her parents concerning her whereabouts, especially since she also lied to them in the previous book about her problems at school.

I wondered if Lisa intended for the series to lead to Dell’s journey from the beginning, or if Dell’s story emerged along the way. Apparently, the latter scenario was the case. Lisa said in the discussion questions at the end that the first book in the series was written with no thought of a sequel. But readers’ questions as well as her own musings about the characters grew into subsequent books. She also says there, “Dell was, in many ways, the catalyst for change in Grandma Rose’s family, and in turn she was changed by Grandma Rose’s family.”

I also wondered if Dell was originally thought of as Native American. She has always been described as having cinnamon-colored skin, but in a previous book, her uncle uses a different racial epithet about her. I wasn’t sure if that was just to show his ignorance, or if Lisa switched gears about what race Dell was part of.

I was dismayed by minced oaths (like “Geez”), language that was not profanity but also was not polite, and especially a bawdy description of an old woman whose robe had come undone. On the one hand, the people involved didn’t profess to be Christians. On the other hand, that was conveyed well enough without those elements. Because of this, the sheen of Wingate’s appeal has been a little tarnished for me.

It was interesting to read of Choctaw history. If this is an accurate representation, it seems that, among modern Choctaw, some are really into their heritage while others are not.

I thought the last couple of chapters were the best in the book. My heart went out to Dell in her struggles.

I know some don’t like neatly-wrapped-up-in-a-bow endings. But this book had more loose threads than I like. I would have enjoyed an epilogue, if not one more chapter.