Review: David Copperfield

Posted on May 19, 2026 by Barbara Harper

Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield is a comfort read for me. I’ve read it at least twice, if not more. I’ve had a hankering to listen to the audiobook, but I waited to finish my project of reading the other Dickens’ novels that I had not yet encountered.

David Copperfield is a coming-of-age novel, based in part on Dickens’ life. The novel begins with his birth to a young widowed mother. She and Pegotty, who acts as maid and companion to David’s mother and nurse to David, bring him up in a loving home.

When David is seven, his mother marries the stern Mr. Murdstone, whose sister, Jane, also comes to live with them. The Murdstones tyrannize the household. When he tries to whip David for failing in his lessons (because David is so intimated he can’t think straight), David bites him. Murdstone sends him away to a harsh schoolmaster, where he is picked on by the boys until their leader, James Steerforth, stands up for him.

When David’s mother and baby brother die, Murdstone pulls David out of school and sends him to work at a wine factory.. In that day, such labor was considered lower class. David lamented not being able to continue in school. But his landlord, Mr. Micawber, is kind, if loquacious and constantly in financial difficulties.

David eventually runs away to find his only known living relative, Miss Betsey Trotwood. Though she comes across as formidable at first, she has a sensible and kind heart.

She finds David a better school, and he boards with her financial adviser, Mr. Wickfield and his daughter, Agnes. Wickfield has a clerk, Uriah Heep, who constantly proclaims his “humbleness,” yet hides an avaricious heart.

Through the rest of the novel, these lives and others intersect back and forth, some with grace and some tragically.

I mentioned in my Bookish Questions post that Mr. Peggoty, brother to David’s nurse, is one of my favorite secondary characters. An old sea captain, he has no family of his own, but took in a niece, nephew, and the widow of his business partner. When one of them gets into trouble and runs away, he spends years looking for her. I mentioned this inexpensive print I got years ago reminded me of him

Another is Tommy Traddles, one of David’s schoolmates, who is in love with “the dearest girl in the world,” as he often says. Dickens always has a couple or more characters like this, good, salt-of-the-earth people.

The book ends, not with David becoming an adult, but with his coming to maturity and a settled life.

I wondered if I might be a little bored with the story, since I knew the basic plot. But there were scenes and characters I had forgotten. And I looked forward to the parts I did remember.

I also caught a lot of foreshadowing that I may have missed in earlier readings.

One thing that stood out to me in this reading was David marriage to Dora Spenlow, his boss’s daughter, who is pretty and sweet, but not much else. When David tries to help her learn to keep accounts or cook, she gets upset and David gets frustrated. David wites,

I did feel, sometimes, for a little while, that I could have wished my wife had been my counsellor; had had more character and purpose, to sustain me and improve me by; had been endowed with power to fill up the void which somewhere seemed to be about me; but I felt as if this were an unearthly consummation of my happiness, that never had been meant to be, and never could have been.

And later,

‘There can be no disparity in marriage like unsuitability of mind and purpose.’ Those words I remembered too. I had endeavoured to adapt Dora to myself, and found it impracticable. It remained for me to adapt myself to Dora; to share with her what I could, and be happy; to bear on my own shoulders what I must, and be happy still. This was the discipline to which I tried to bring my heart, when I began to think. It made my second year much happier than my first; and, what was better still, made Dora’s life all sunshine.

A couple of favorite quotes:

The days sported by us, as if Time had not grown up himself yet, but were a child too, and always at play.

“I never thought, when I used to read books, what work it was to write them.” “It’s work enough to read them, sometimes,” I returned.

This audiobook was narrated by Richard Armitage, who played John Thornton in North and South and Thorin Oakenshield in The Hobbit trilogy a few years ago. He did a superb job. Dickens always has a lot of characters, and I can’t imagine a narrator trying to keep all the voices different. But Armitage did them well.

I thoroughly enjoyed visiting with David Copperfield again.

Review: Jose’s Zulo

Posted on May 14, 2026 by Barbara Harper

Roy and Lou Ann Keiser were missionaries in the Basque region of Spain for several decades. The church we attended in SC supported them, and I got to know Lou Ann through correspondence in connection with a couple of ministries I was involved in. Then we read and commented on each other’s blogs. Somehow, we never met in person. Once when they visited our church, I was home sick.

Recently retired from the field, Lou Ann has written her debut novel set in the Basque region that she loves: Jose’s Zulo.

Jose works as a machinist by day. At night, he provides a zulo, or hiding place, for boxes from a group known only as the Organization, which fights for independence of the Basque region from Spain. Jose doesn’t know what’s in the boxes–it’s better not to.

Meanwhile, he lives for fun–time with his friends, pursuing Mirren, who becomes his girlfriend.

After months of receiving boxes, Jose gets a call that it’s time to deliver them to a clandestine location. Weeks later, a bomb goes off in telephone company, and one woman is killed. Jose is racked with guilt, knowing that the bomb came from materials he delivered.

Then his father dies. Jose’s guilt and sorrow lead him to search for truth.

When his contact with the organization calls again with another assignment, Jose knows he can’t participate. But he also knows the Organization won’t let him simply quit. Even though his part has been small, he still knows too much. In his desperation, he becomes a fugitive.

Jose’s story is the main one, but intersecting with his life are a few others. Lupe had fled from a stalker in Honduras and ended up in Spain. She works as a housekeeper for an older man, Cipriano, who is not entirely disabled but needs assistance. Lupe is a Christian and wants to share her faith with Cipriano, but knows he can only take a little at time. Yet he’s not getting any younger or healthier.

Olatz is Jose’s sister was studying at a university in Germany when their father died. She comes home to help. Jose’s situation affects her when the Organization pressures her to tell them where Jose is, which she doesn’t know.

I love the double meaning of zulo that Lou Ann works into the story, but I’ll leave it to you to discover what that is.

I think the book cover is gorgeous, wrapping around from front to back with the Basque countryside. Lou Ann says the artist who created the cover did a great job depicting a young Basque man, even down to the hoop earrings they wear.

Lou Ann assures us in her notes that she has never actually met a sleeper terrorist. She shares what is true and what is fictional from the story as well as some background information of the region and definition of Basque and Spanish terms.

Though there were a few places that I wish had been a little more developed, overall, I enjoyed the story. I’m looking forward to the sequel.

12 Fun Bookish Questions

Posted on May 12, 2026 by Barbara Harper

Reading is my favorite hobby, but it is more than just a hobby. It feeds my mind and my soul. Paula at Between the Bookends had a fun questionnaire about reading habits recently. I enjoyed it, so I thought I’d borrow her idea with some of the same questions and some different ones. I’d love to see your answers in the comments.

1. Bookmarks or dog-ears?

I hate to see dog-eared pages. I have bookmarks all over the house, but I can rarely find one when needed. I often use whatever scrap of paper is at hand: a receipt, a Post-It note (folded so the sticky part is inside), a piece of (ahem) toilet paper. Do you have a favorite bookmark? What’s the most unusual thing you’ve ever used as a bookmark?

2. Book accessories?

I have a book light that’s supposed to clip on the top of the book, but I’ve never used it–I think because if I am reading someplace dark, like in the car, I have the Kindle app on my iPad mini, which has a built-in light. Probably my favorite book accessory is a book weight (called a weighted bookmark in some places), which holds a book open for you. It’s great when I am reviewing a book for the blog.

3. Are you a fast or slow reader?

I think I must be slow. I always had trouble getting my required reading done in college. Unfortunately, many quizzes and tests included the question, “Did you complete the required reading,” resulting in my losing a few points. I don’t like the idea of speed reading, unless it’s something purely informational, like an instruction manual. I feel that speed-reading through a novel or some nonfiction books is going to miss some nuances. But I might skim over boring parts of a book.

4. Have you ever written to an author?

I don’t remember doing so, but I may have. I once wrote to Elisabeth Elliot’s husband, Lars Gren, to ask in which book she used a particular poem in reference to widowhood (“To a Waterfowl” by William Cullen Bryant). He misunderstood my question and sent me a copy of the poem. 🙂 Later, I found the excerpt from the poem in her book, The Savage My Kinsman.

5. Have you ever met an author in person?

Yes! I heard Elisabeth Elliot speak in person a couple of times. I didn’t have the nerve to stand in line to speak to her the first time. The second time, my pastor asked me to take his copy of one of her books and ask her to sign it. I spent much of the time in line wondering what to say. When I finally got to her, all I could come up with was, “How do you find time to write all these books?’ She said, in her no-nonsense way, “You don’t find time; you make time.”

I also met Beverly Lewis at a bookstore near where we lived in Spartanburg, SC. She was very gracious. Hers were the only Amish novels I read, before that genre became so big, because her early stories stemmed from her family.

That bookstore used to host a lot of great author events. One time they had a panel including Ted Dekker, Karen Kingsbury, Terri Blackstock, and a few others. The bookstore owner fielded questions from the audience. Then each author went to a different table in the bookstore to sign books. I still wasn’t bold enough to meet any of them then, though I would have no trouble doing so now.

6. Do you have a favorite character who is not the main character?

One of my favorites is kindly Mr. Peggoty, an old sea captain in David Copperfield by Charles Dickens. Peggoty is the name David’s nurse goes by. When his mother remarries, Peggoty takes David to her brother’s house, made from a grounded boat, in Yarmouth. Mr. Peggoty had no wife or children of his own, but took in his niece and nephew when their parents died as well as his business partner’s wife when she was widowed. When his niece runs away and gets into trouble, he searches for her for years. I got this print, which I think was $5 at K-Mart years ago, because it made me think of Mr. Peggoty.

7. Do you have any bookish merchandise?

Lots! This tote bag:

This mug:

This planter, which I just got for Mother’s Day:

This pen-holder, based on Austen’s Sense and Sensibility, also a Mother’s Day gift. I haven’t decided whether to put pens or flowers in it::

And I have mentioned previously a couple of bookish Lego sets, gifts from my husband.

And this little book nook, a gift from my son:

8. Favorite book from childhood?

We had Dr. Seuss and Little Golden Books around as long as I can remember, but I don’t remember reading those until I had children. The first book I remember loving was A Child’s Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson. I especially remember the poem “Bed in Summer,” where he laments having to go to bed when it is still daylight.

The first novel I remember reading was Little Women by Louisa May Alcott. I’ve reread it many times since then.

9. Do you read one book at a time, or several?

I am usually in three or four at a time, but they all have to be different, or else I’d get them mixed up. I often read a commentary or companion book to whatever book of the Bible I am in. I’ll have one audiobook going, usually a classic, biography, or novel. I keep a book at a time in the bathroom. And I’ll have one in my Kindle app.

10. Favorite genre?

I like classics, biographies, and Christian fiction. A lot of my Christian fiction is historical fiction–not because I necessarily like that better than other genres, but some of my favorite authors write in that genre.

11. Genres you don’t care for?

Horror, erotica, and westerns. I’m also not especially fond of romances, though I’ll read one occasionally.

12. Best movie based on a book? Worst?

One of the best book-based movie series ever were Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings series several years ago. Kevin Sullivan’s first Anne of Green Gables starring Megan Follows movie was wonderful and got me started reading the book series. The second was okay, and the third, Anne of Green Gables: The Continuing Story was awful, going almost completely away from Lucy Maude Montgomery’s story.

I also liked the 1995 series of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice with Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle and Sense and Sensibility, also made in 1995, with Emma Thompson, Kate Winslet, and Hugh Grant.

The recent Masterpiece Theatre series of The Count of Monte Cristo was great, too.

I had some other questions, but this is probably more than enough. I’d love to read as many of your answers as you have time and interest for!

(I often link up with some of these bloggers.)

Review: The Gospel Comes with a House Key

Posted on April 28, 2026 by Barbara Harper

In Rosaria Butterfield’s book, The Gospel Comes with a House Key, she advocates for “radically ordinary hospitality.”

For a bit of background, her first book, The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert, tells how she, as an atheist, leftist, feminist, lesbian professor who hated Christians, ended up becoming one. A major tool in her conversion was a pastor who contacted her and invited her to dinner with him and his wife. They didn’t attack her or argue with her–they just discussed their mutual views. She spent two years meeting with them and studying Scripture before setting foot in a church. God slowly transformed her thinking and then her life.

Also, hospitality was a big part of the LGBTQ+ community she had been a part of. Many lost family and friends when they “came out” as gay, and they became family for each other. She saw how hospitality can build bridges and bind people together in the Christian community as well.

She defines “radically ordinary hospitality” as “using your Christian home in a daily way that seeks to make strangers neighbors, and neighbors family of God. It brings glory to God, serves others, and lives out the gospel in word and deed” (p. 30).

“Ordinary hospitality is the hands and feet of Jesus, and it holds people together with letters to prison or hugs. Hospitality reaches across worldview to be the bridge of gospel grace” (p. 208).

The author combines memoir with instruction. She makes several good points, among them:

“Those who live out radically ordinary hospitality see their homes not as theirs at all but as God’s gift to use for the furtherance of his kingdom” (p. 11).
“The truly hospitable aren’t embarrassed to keep friendships with people who are different. They don’t buy the world’s bunk about this. They know that there is a difference between acceptance and approval, and they courageously accept and respect people who think differently from them. They don’t worry that others will misinterpret their friendship. Jesus dined with sinners, but he didn’t sin with sinners. Jesus lived in the world, but he didn’t live like the world” (p. 13).
“Where else but a Christian home should neighbors go in times of unprecedented crisis? Where else is it safe to be vulnerable, scared, lost, hopeless?” (p. 19).
“Radically ordinary hospitality is this: using your Christian home in a daily way that seeks to make strangers neighbors, and neighbors family of God. It brings glory to God, serves others, and lives out the gospel in word and deed” (p. 30).
“The Christian home is the place where we bring the church to the people as we seek to lock arms together” (p. 32).
“Christian hospitality cares for the things that our neighbors care about. Esteeming others more highly than ourselves means nothing less. It means starting where you are and looking around for who needs you. It means communicating Christian love in word and deed. It means making yourself trustworthy enough to bear burdens of real life and real problems” (p. 166).
“Hospitality shares what there is; that’s all. It’s not entertainment. It’s not supposed to be” (p. 216).

Rosaria shares many examples mainly from her own family, but also from others. One story woven throughout the book is that of a reclusive neighbor named Hank. It took months of friendly overtures, short encounters, and befriending his dog before he opened up to their family to any degree. And then he was arrested for operating a meth lab in the basement of his house. The Butterfields continued to pray for him, write to him, send books as allowed by the prison, and send pictures colored by the children.

One area of hospitality I hadn’t considered was how befriending such people might tarnish one’s own reputation. When Hank was arrested, some of the neighbors assumed the Butterfields had to have known what he was up to (they didn’t). As mentioned above, Jesus was known as the “friend of sinners” and scandalized the Pharisees by eating with them.

Another topic I had never connected with hospitality was the area of church discipline. She tells of a season in their church when two men were outed for committing grievous sexual sin. One repented, the other did not. When someone persists in unrepented sin, fellowship with them has to be broken–but the point is not to ostracize them, but to bring them to repentance and reconciliation.

We’ve known of situations in other churches where a man has preyed on a woman he was not married to or on a teen. When the situation came to light, it was hushed up lest there be a scandal, and the victim was urged to forgive. But no counsel or comfort was given to the victim. Plus there was no thought of future victims if men like this were not dealt with. It’s much more scandalous to avoid dealing with sin like this rather than to handle it in a biblical way.

Back to Rosaria’s book: there was much to convict me. This is an area where I have failed many times over.

However, there were also aspects of the book I disagreed with. The Butterfields have neighbors and others in their home most nights of the week–in fact, she said it’s unusual to have dinner with just their family. That’s fine if that is how the Lord has led them, but there’s nothing in the Bible that says every dinner needs to include guests. There are times you need to be with just your family to minister to them.

Plus, all her examples seem to be really big. In sharing examples of other people’s hospitality, she mentioned one woman who liked crafts, so she invited some neighbors over to work on projects while they memorized Scripture. She ended up with fifteen ladies coming regularly. Again, that’s fine–in fact, that’s wonderful. But hospitality doesn’t always have to be a big group. It can involve one other person. In fact, some people are less likely to open up in a group setting.

She says her home looks on the outside like a “Christian commune. And we do not believe that this is excessive. We believe this is what the Bible calls normal” (p. 34). I disagree. There was a time in the early church when “all who believed were together and had all things in common” (Acts 2:44), but this is descriptive, not prescriptive. It’s the only place something like this is mentioned. The Bible tells us to welcome the stranger and exercise hospitality, and to be open-hearted and open-handed with each other, but it doesn’t tell us to run communes.

She says things like being a barista and having an Air B&B are “counterfeit hospitality,” but she doesn’t explain why she thinks that.–maybe because people are being paid for those services? I don’t know baristas–I’m happy with my instant Taster’s Choice decaf at home–but a waiter or waitress can either be hospitable or detached as they serve. I think being kind and welcoming in one’s job counts as being hospitable even if one is getting paid.

Some of her statements border on arrogance, like this one: “If Mary Magdalene had written a book about hospitality for this post-Christian world, it would read like this one” (p. 14).

And, her tone comes across so strong sometimes that it’s off-putting.

However I think she does have some important things to say about exercising hospitality. As I said, I was convicted many times over. I loved some of her summations:

Imagine a world where neighbors said that Christians throw the best parties in town and are the go-to people for big problems and issues, without being invited.

Imagine if the children in the neighborhood knew that the Christians were safe people to ask for help . . .

Imagine a world where every Christian knew his neighbors sufficiently to be of earthly and spiritual good (pp. 218-219).

(I often link up with some of these bloggers.)

Review: All the Beauty in the World

Posted on April 21, 2026 by Barbara Harper

I don’t remember where I saw All the Beauty in the World: The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Me by Patrick Bringley recommended. I had somehow gotten the impression that the book was written from a Christian viewpoint. It was not.

I don’t restrict my reading completely to Christian sources. But I read and evaluate everything through Christian eyes. Wanting to avoid bad language and sexual elements doesn’t leave me a lot of secular choices. I understand that unbelievers are not going to act like believers. But I don’t want certain words and images floating around in my head.

There’s a smattering of bad language (3 uses of the f-word, taking God’s name in vain, and others) in this book. I almost set it aside a few times. But, for whatever reason, I kept reading.

The book is a memoir of the time Patrick Bingley worked as a guard at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He had begun work at the New Yorker. But when his older brother, Tom, died of cancer, Patrick felt the need for a change. His mother had taken him to art museums when he was a child, and he had visited the Met then and in college.

When in June of 2008, Tom died, I applied for the most straightforward job I could think of in the most beautiful place I knew. This time, I arrive at the Met with no thought of moving forward. My heart is full, my heart is breaking, and I badly want to stand still awhile (p. 12, Kindle version).

Bringley worked as a guard at the Met for ten years. Part of the book tells details about what’s involved in being a guard, how the Museum is laid out, what’s on display in the different sections, what it’s like to work amidst the art, and the various people who come to see it. The backstory of his relationship with his family and Tom’s illness and decline are woven into the narrative.

But to me, the best parts of the book are the ones where he discusses some of the art that touched him. He describes some of it in great detail, often giving some background of the artist or the painting. But sometimes he just shares the feeling that overcame him when connecting with a great work of art:

I responded to that great painting in a way that I now believe is fundamental to the peculiar power of art. Namely, I experienced the great beauty of the picture even as I had no idea what to do with that beauty. I couldn’t discharge the feeling by talking about it—there was nothing much to say. What was beautiful in the painting was not like words, it was like paint—silent, direct, and concrete, resisting translation even into thought. As such, my response to the picture was trapped inside me, a bird fluttering in my chest. And I didn’t know what to make of that (p. 10).

I startle at the picture because I can’t believe he’s captured it—that feeling we sometimes have that an intimate setting possesses a grandeur and holiness of its own. It was my constant feeling in Tom’s hospital room, and it’s one that I can recover on these church-mouse quiet mornings at the Met (p. 17).

When we adore, we apprehend beauty. When we lament, we see the wisdom of the ancient adage “Life is suffering.” A great painting can look like a slab of sheer bedrock, a piece of reality too stark and direct and poignant for words (p. 33).

I was struck by how often Bringley used words like “sacred” and “holy” in connection with art. He speaks of some visitors who regard the Met as a “secular church” (p. 70). I don’t think he was talking about idolizing or worshiping the images, but rather the experience of looking at something which takes us out of ourselves. Bringley speaks of a photograph of Georgia O’Keefe:

There’s a frame around her, putting space between her sacred beauty (an older meaning of the word sacred is “set apart”) and the profane, mundane world. I think that sometimes we need permission to stop and adore, and a work of art grants us that (p. 80).

I think God has put in the human heart a longing for something transcendent. That’s Russ Ramsey’s theme in Rembrandt Is in the Wind–that truth, goodness, and beauty are attributes of God. He points out that as Christians, we look for and emphasize truth and goodness, but often neglect beauty. “This is the gift of beauty from an artist to their community—to awaken our senses to the world as God made it and to awaken our senses to God himself (p. 14).

A couple of other quotes from Bringley’s book that stood out to me:

Art often derives from those moments when we would wish the world to stand still. We perceive something so beautiful, or true, or majestic, or sad, that we can’t simply take it in stride. Artists create records of transitory moments, appearing to stop their clocks. They help us believe that some things aren’t transitory at all but rather remain beautiful, true, majestic, sad, or joyful over many lifetimes—and here is the proof, painted in oils, carved in marble, stitched into quilts (p. 177).

I am sometimes not sure which is the more remarkable: that life lives up to great paintings, or that great paintings live up to life (p. 88).

In the Kindle version of this book, there is an appendix titled “Artwork Referenced in the Text.” Chapter by chapter, works of art referred to are listed with a link to them at the Met’s website. I wish the publishers had included these links in the text, like a footnote. It would have much more enjoyable and seamless to click on the link to the art right there while reading about it rather than having to go back and forth from the text to the appendix.

I enjoyed reading about Bringley’s experiences and observations.

Review: A Gilded Lady

Posted on April 2, 2026 by Barbara Harper

A Gilded Lady by Elizabeth Camden is the second in the Hope and Glory series, a sequel to The Spice King.

Caroline Delacroix is the younger sister of Gray Delacroix, owner of the Delacroix Spice Company in the early 1900s. Caroline and her twin brother, Luke, had been frivolous and undisciplined growing up. Gray, twelve years older, was more like a father figure, especially after their father died.

But now Caroline is the secretary to the First Lady, Ida McKinley. Ida has epilepsy and other ailments and has been grieving the loss of her two children. She is excessively dependent on her husband. Plus she is notoriously difficult (the author says in her notes that the medication Ida was given to calm her nerves and help her epilepsy may have actually caused irritation).

Caroline has been blessed with common sense, political savvy, and a charming manner. She can usually talk Ida down, smooth over her moods, or intervene to avoid political embarrassment, such as when Ida wants to wear a hat with egret feathers to a function, when the papers had just carried news of a shortage of the egret population due to their feathers being used in women’s fashion.

Nathaniel Trask has been hired as the new head of the Secret Service, tasked with beefing up security at the White House. Nathaniel is by the book, no-nonsense–just the opposite of Caroline’s free spirit. So they clash repeatedly.

Furthermore, Caroline must keep her family secret under even tighter reigns. Her brother, Luke, has been arrested in Cuba, charged with helping insurgents there. Luke says he is guilty and has fired every lawyer Gray has hired. But Caroline knows her twin: she knows Luke is not guilty. She hopes that President McKinley will eventually grant Luke a pardon. But if Nathanial Trask ever finds out about Luke, Caroline will likely lose her job as well as Luke’s chance for a pardon.

I had known next to nothing about the McKinleys, so their history as well as behind-the-scenes looks at living in the White House in that era were interesting. The second half of the plot went in a little different direction, which I can’t reveal without spoiling the story. It was good to finally learn what was going on with Luke.

I didn’t like that this story overlapped with the previous book by about four months instead of picking up where the last one had left off. And I didn’t like that Caroline was given a vice in this book–smoking–that was not mentioned at all in the previous book. I think that took away from rather than added to the story.

But, overall, I liked the story and the characters. I listened to the audiobook, which had a much better narrator than the first book.

Review: The Spice King

Posted on March 24, 2026 by Barbara Harper

The Spice King by Elizabeth Camden takes place during the Gilded Age in Washington, DC.

Annabelle Larkin had come to DC from Kansas when her blind sister, Elaine, received an opportunity to volunteer at the Library of Congress. Elaine had been depressed for a long time after her blindness, but now she was venturing out of her familiar safety. But she was still fearful and dependent on Annabelle.

Annabelle was given a temporary position as a junior botanist at the Smithsonian. Her boss promised her a permanent position if she could persuade Gray Delacroix, owner of Delacroix Global Spice Company, to donate his plant collection to the Smithsonian. Mr. Delacroix had traveled the world for his business, bringing back and cultivating plants he found along the way.

But the famously reclusive Mr. Delacroix has no interest in donating anything to the Smithsonian. He flatly refuses all of Annabelle’s requests.

Undaunted and determined, Annabelle shows up at his home with a gift. At first he refuses to see her. But his interest is piqued, so he allows his assistant to show her in. Their mutual love of plants draws them into conversation, but he still won’t give her any.

When Gray was young, the Union Army seized his father’s ships and burned their home to the ground. Gray and his father lived in a shed while they rebuilt their business. His father later remarried and had two more children: twins, Caroline and Luke. The twins had not known privation and hard work, so they tended to spend and act frivolously. But when Luke’s antics go too far, his life as well as the family’s reputation is in danger. And, unfortunately, Annabelle may have had a hand in his troubles.

Meanwhile, Gray’s business’s fiercest rivals are filling their food products with additives and fillers, making them cheaper than his wares and dangerous to people with sensitivities to them. But can he prove it? His distrust of the government makes him reluctant to appeal to them for regulation. He prefers the food industry to police itself, but what if it won’t?

I’ve read a few of Elizabeth’s books, but this one is my favorite by far. First, I enjoyed that the subject matter was different from other historical fiction books I’ve read. Most are situated in WW2, which is fine–I enjoy those stories. But I do get a little tired of them and wonder why authors don’t venture into the multitude of other eras available.

Then, the spice and food industry proved to be really interesting. Elizabeth shares enough detail to be informative but not academic. Good Housekeeping magazine even makes an appearance in the story long before its “seal of approval” days.

None of that would be helpful if the story and characters weren’t good–but they were!

Though this was Christian fiction, there were a couple of little oddities mentioned, like the luck of a horseshoe and the “stars coming into alignment.” Overall, however, faith in God and living by His Word were the main emphases.

I listened to the audiobook which was well done except that the narrator over-enunciated words, ran sentences together as if they didn’t have periods between them, and emphasized odd words in her inflections, like prepositions (“She disembarked FROM the streetcar,” “his empire IN Virginia,” “He stared at her hand BEFORE offering his own,” and so on). It took a concerted effort to concentrate on the story and not get distracted by the narration.

I thought one character’s fate was left hanging, but then I realized this book was the first in a series called Hope and Glory. I’m looking forward to reading the rest.

Review: Light Upon Light

Posted on March 12, 2026 by Barbara Harper

In Sarah Arthur’s introduction to Light Upon Light: A Literary Guide to Prayer for Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany, she writes:

Many of us, when charting the timeline of our lives, can point to a moment when a story or poem happened. It happened the way an accident or a record-breaking snowfall happened: it was perhaps expected, perhaps not. One moment we were performing the usual routine–pouring cereal, say, or opening the mail–and the next moment we sat motionless with a book in our hands, eyes unfocused, a wave of words washing over us as relentlessly as a newsreel.

I’ve had that experience of being stopped in my tracks by a poem or piece of literature, staring out the window or up at the ceiling while the words reverberated in my mind. So I looked forward to such experiences in the pieces Sarah compiled.

There are eighteen sections, beginning the first week in Advent and continuing on until the ninth week of Epiphany. I don’t come from a church background that observes Epiphany, but I knew some churches celebrated it as the time the wise men found the Christ child. I didn’t realize it was observed for several weeks.

Each section has a theme, from Annunciations, to Sojourners, to Love’s Offices, etc. The section begins with an opening prayer, usually taken from a poem. A few Scripture passages are suggested, then several readings from different works are included. There are no assigned readings for specified days: the reader is allowed to meander at his or her own pace.

I loved the idea of this book. Unfortunately, I didn’t enjoy many of the selections. Some I didn’t “get” (my fault). Some were a little off theologically.

I tended to like the classical selections better than the contemporary ones. I don’t have anything against modern literature. I read modern writers all the time. But in this case, the modern pieces were most often the ones I questioned, or the ones that seemed more mystical than biblically accurate.

I did find a few nuggets that spoke to me. There were a couple of old familiar favorites, like an excerpt from Dickens’ The Christmas Carol and G. H. Chesterton’s “The House of Christmas.”

There were some new-to-me treasures, like “Hymn on the Nativity of My Savior” by Ben Johnson, “Moonless Darkness” by Gerald Manley Hopkins, “Ring Out the Wild Bells” by Tennyson, and a handful of others.

The introduction says, “Some of the works in this collection are obviously seasonal, some obviously Christian. Some are neither.” I know even secular work can express spiritual truth, so I don’t have a problem with it being included–as long as it’s not misleading. I have more trouble with spiritual works that are inaccurate.

I suppose if I had looked at the book as a collection of literary pieces on certain themes revolving around the holidays, my expectations would have been different. Looking at the introduction again after finishing the book, I see that’s how it was presented. My disappointment came from thinking the book was from a distinctly Christian viewpoint and finding it wasn’t. It seemed more in the “spiritual” rather than Christian vein.

Review: All We Thought We Knew

Posted on March 11, 2026 by Barbara Harper

In All We Thought We Knew, a novel by Michelle Shocklee, Mattie Taylor was adamantly against the Viet Nam war. So she was stunned when her twin brother, Mark, and his best friend joined the military. She blamed her father for not discouraging Mark from going. Then Mark died in the war. The day after his funeral, Mattie left for the hippie movement in California.

Now, a year later, Mattie receives news that her mother is dying and wants to see her. Though Mattie still bristles with anger over the war, she rushes home to see her mother.

Mattie’s mom, Ava, wants Mattie to read some old letters hidden away in a shoebox. Mattie isn’t very motivated–she doesn’t know the people addressed in the letters nor the senders. But she reads a letter or two at a time to placate her mother.

Ava had become a young widow during WW2 when her new husband was killed at Pearl Harbor. Ava lived with her unkind mother-in-law on the horse farm her husband, Mark, had intended to sell. When the military opens a base nearby and sends out a notice that they are hiring civilians, Ava applies for a job to help support herself and her mother-in-law.

Part of Ava’s job is to update the ever-changing personnel files. One day this takes her to a German detainee, Gunther. She learns that Gunther had come from Germany to America before the war to study medicine and become a doctor. Yet when America joined the war, officials rounded up German citizens and detained them at military bases as enemy aliens. Some were allowed to work on the base. Gunther’s medical experience opens a door for him to work as an orderly while under guard.

The point of view switches back and forth from Mattie in 1969 and Ava and Gunther in 1942, slowly unraveling the mystery of what ties the three together.

Though I have read several novels set in WW2, this is the first one that has touched on German detainees in America. It’s heartbreaking that they were gathered up and treated as Nazis, even though some fled their country because of Nazism.

It was also interesting to see the inner workings of a couple of temporary military bases in the WW2 section of the story and the horse farm in the 1960s section.

Mattie got on my nerves a bit. She’s totally self-centered–her opinion is the only right one in her eyes. But there was hope that she would mature and grow through the novel, and she did. I liked the way the others in her life patiently dealt with her anger, doubts, and questions.

I felt the “reveal” of the mystery was pretty obvious by the time it came out (to everyone but Mattie). But overall I enjoyed the book.

Review: Rebel With a Cause

Posted on March 5, 2026 by Barbara Harper

Franklin Graham’s autobiography, Rebel With a Cause, was not on my radar. However, someone gave it to me. I don’t always pray about what book to read next, but when I did a few weeks ago, I couldn’t get this book off my mind.

Franklin Graham is the son of well-known evangelist Billy Graham. In his earliest days, Franklin didn’t have a clear picture of what his father did. He just knew he was gone much of the time. He was quite a handful as a child. I enjoyed some of his mother’s creative and unconventional ways of dealing with him.

Franklin loved where his family lived in NC, motorcycles or almost anything with an engine, guns, and fun, even if it got him into trouble. And it frequently did.

In his first or second year of college, he went on a trip to help two single female missionaries–not for any spiritual reasons, but for a chance to go to a foreign country. He saw their work and simple trust in God and wanted to help more. He began to organize supplies for them, little realizing that this would eventually lead to his life’s work.

Franklin writes of the different male figures in his life who influenced him, mostly for good, in his father’s absence. One day, everything came together to convince him and help him be willing to surrender his life to God.

By his own admission, he was never much of a student. But he finally got serious about his studies and finished college whole married to his wife, Jane Austin.

I had thought that he began Samaritan’s Purse, but, actually, a man named Bill Pierce did. Franklin went on many mission trips with Bill. When Bill knew he was dying of cancer, he talked to Franklin about taking over SP when he was gone. After thinking and praying much, and waiting for the SP board to come to the same conclusion, Franklin agreed.

The SP website states, “Samaritan’s Purse is a nondenominational evangelical Christian organization providing spiritual and physical aid to hurting people around the world. Since 1970, Samaritan’s Purse has helped meet needs of people who are victims of war, poverty, natural disasters, disease, and famine with the purpose of sharing God’s love through His Son, Jesus Christ. The organization serves the Church worldwide to promote the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.”

I appreciated that, whenever they heard of a need, Franklin, or, later, one of his team would go investigate the situation first. They’d try to discern exactly what the need was, whether and how they could help, and who could facilitate the efforts there. They made it clear that they would share Christ while there, and most of the time that was not a problem.

Franklin shares story after story of horrific needs and miraculous supply of both provisions and people to help. My heart was touched by those here and in various countries who stepped in to meet needs.

In later years, Franklin felt he might be called to be an evangelist. But he knew he was where God wanted him at SP. He didn’t want to be compared to his father or look like he was following in his footsteps. Then others began to tell him they thought he was called to be an evangelist as well. Finally one evangelist convinced Franklin to come along with him and help with his meetings. Franklin did, and then began to preach at meetings himself. He concluded that Jesus preached as well as helped people with their physical needs, so Franklin did not have to choose one or the other.

This book was published in 1997 when both his parents were still alive. They contributed a few words at the end.

He doesn’t say anything about Operation Christmas Child in this book. I assume that was started after this book was written. I just saw there is a separate book about that ministry.

While I wouldn’t endorse everything written or all the people and organizations Franklin and his ministry associated with, I was blessed by how God worked in and through him.