Review: Blueprint for a Nonfiction Book

Posted on June 2, 2026 by Barbara Harper

Jennie Nash started out as an author, but then switched to become a book coach, helping authors shape their ideas into readable and saleable books. She shares some of her coaching tips in Blueprint for a Nonfiction Book: Plan and Pitch Your Big Idea.

She doesn’t talk so much about how to write here. She says “Writing a book is a complex intellectual, creative, and entrepreneurial undertaking and to write a good one, you have to put in the work—and I don’t just mean cranking out words. The work that is going to have the most impact is the work you do before you write a single word of the book itself” (p. 9, Kindle version).

The book is divided into five parts: Book Fundamentals (reasons for writing, why you’re qualified, title, genre, main point), Get to Know Your Ideal Reader (who is your ideal reader, what are you promising him or her), Design a Structure, Developing a Book Proposal, and How to Pitch Your Proposal.

The days are gone when a writer pounded out her manuscript and sent it off to a publisher. These days, one first sends a query to a literary agent (though there are a few exceptions, especially with smaller publishing houses, you can’t get to a traditional publisher except through an agent). If the agent wants to know more, he’ll ask for your book proposal, which contains specific information, like an overview, sample chapters, comparable titles, marketing plan, and more.

Even if an author wants to self-publish, it’s helpful to think through these issues.

Jennie includes examples of each of her points that come from her own clients and clients of those she has trained through her Author Accelerator, where she trains other book coaches. These examples were valuable in seeing her tips fleshed out.

I read this book mainly because I know what elements I want my book to contain, but struggled with the best way to arrange them. The section about design structure helped a great deal. But I benefited from reading the other material as well.

Review: Angel Sister

Posted on May 26, 2026 by Barbara Harper

Angel Sister by Ann H. Gabhart takes place in the fictional town of Rosey Corner, Kentucky, in 1936.

Kate Merritt is the middle of three sisters. Evie, the oldest, is flighty and self-centered. Victoria is too young to be of much help. Kate is her mother’s main help around the house as well as with her father.

Flashbacks show us how Kate’s parents, Victor and Nadine, met and fell in love. They married right before Victor shipped out for WW1. Victor had never had a good relationship with his own father, who has never seen Victor as good enough. Plus his father blames Victor for the death of the cherished older son, Preston. With that baggage plus the horrors he experienced in the war, Victor becomes addicted to alcohol.

Nadine’s father, Preacher Reese, managed his home and church with an authoritarian hand. He never approved of her marrying Victor and continues to remind of of her poor choices.

Nadine still loves Victor but can’t understand why he won’t give up drinking for her and the girls. “Something wasn’t quite right between a man and his wife when that man had to get comfort from a bottle.”

One day when Kate went to the church to deliver something to Grandfather Reese, she finds a little girl on the steps outside. The girl, Lorena, said her parents left her at the church and told her an angel would take care of her. Her brother was sick and her parents didn’t have much money, so they left to find work and help. Lorena has a note with her name and birth date written on it. She thinks Kate is her angel, despite Kate’s assurance that she’s not an angel.

Kate brings Lorena home, where she fits right in with the family. But Grandfather Reese calls a meeting at the church to say that Lorena will be given to an older childless family in the church. (Apparently there was nothing along the lines of Family Services in that day). Despite the Merritt family’s protests that Lorena has bonded with them and is doing well, Preacher Reese doesn’t feel they can adequately care for her.

Kate had prayed with everything in her that Lorena would be able to stay with their family. When that doesn’t happen, her faith is shaken.

The story continues with how these various threads interact as well as those of other characters.

I felt the narrative moved a little slowly in parts. I wasn’t sure if it was meant to be that way since it was set in KY and would have a different pace than a story set in NYC, or if it was just the author’s style.

And the author kept repeating the phrase that someone “mashed” their mouth or lips together. I don’t know if that’s a Kentucky colloquialism or a pet phrase of the author’s. I had never heard it before, and it was jarring and distracting.

But I liked how the story arc ended up, with themes of love and forgiveness. I thought the way Nadine and Victor were initially attracted to each other was especially sweet.

The author shares in her end notes that the story grew out of her mother and aunts’ discussions of their family stories and the small town they grew up in with some of its quirky characters.

I didn’t know until I finished the book that it is the first in a trilogy about the Merritt sisters and Rosey Corner. I’ll probably read the next two at some point, but not right away.

Review: God Moments in My Publishing Life

Posted on May 21, 2026 by Barbara Harper

At the couple of writer’s conferences I attended, Les Stobbe was considered the wise elder statesman of the faculty. I only met him briefly, with a group, and I didn’t have any workshops with him. So when I saw he had written a book titled God Moments in My Publishing Life: The Making of a Writer and Publisher, I decided to check it out.

Mr. Stobbe was born in the Depression era and helped work on his family’s farm from the age of three. He developed a love for reading at an early age. Then he came upon a course for writers while recovering from an accident. He’s spent 65 years in the publishing industry in a wide variety of places and capacities: selling books, writing articles, curriculum, and books, ghost writing, book acquisition, publishing, mentoring, coaching, and being a literary agent. He’s seen trends come and go and watched as technology changed the industry.

One of the aspects I enjoyed in this part of the book was learning how some of my favorite books came to be. For instance, years ago I enjoyed reading First We Have Coffee by Margaret Jensen, about her experiences growing up as the daughter of a Scandinavian pastor in Canada. Unfortunately, I read it before having a blog, so I don’t have any notes or reviews from my reading. Mr. Stobbe heard her speak at a conference, recognized her as a born storyteller, and asked her afterward if she had any more stories. She said she had a manuscript full of them, and he helped her get them published.

He also shares a few instances of the Christian publishers who “blew it.” One example: Moody Press was encouraged by Warren Wiersbe to pursue a preacher named Chuck Swindoll. Mr. Stobbe got permission to approach Swindoll, who agreed to writing a book for Moody to publish if Moody Radio Network would agree to air his radio program. Moody turned down the offer. Swindoll published his first books with Multnomah Press. He became a prolific writer with many bestsellers.

Some of the middle chapters seem to have been formed by separate essays which were put together here. But they repeat information among themselves and from other parts of the book. He tells how he met his wife and how he began with a writing course after an accident several times. I would have liked to see a developmental editor help shape these into a more coherent whole, or else have these essays clearly labeled as such and perhaps set apart from the other content.

The last several chapters of the book contain advice to writers, and these chapters are gold. I especially appreciated “Communicating Heavenly Ideas in Earthly Terms,” “Integrating Scripture and Life Experience in Writing,” and “Organizing Your Book for Life-Changing Impact.” The last chapter was particularly helpful to me, as I am reading another book on writing specifically for help in that area, and not finding much there. So to stumble across just what I needed in this book was another “God moment” in Stobbe’s work.

I may not agree with every little point of theology in this book, but I was blessed by a long lifetime of evidence of God’s leading. The specifics of each person’s path may differ, but we can trust God will lead us all in the way He would have us go as we trust and follow Him.

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.