Book Review: The Golden Braid

Posted on January 11, 2017 by Barbara Harper

Melanie Dickerson’s Hagenheim/ Fairy Tale Romance Series retells familiar old stories and sets them in medieval Germany and England with no magic or fairy godmothers coming to the rescue. The sixth book in the series is The Golden Braid, based on Rapunzel.

Rapunzel’s mother has her locked up, not in a stone tower (at least at first), but in a prison of fear. She’s told Rapunzel all her life that other people are not to be trusted, men especially, and to keep to herself. They move frequently, which, combined with her mother’s warnings, makes it hard for Rapunzel to ever make any connections or feel like she belongs anywhere. At 17 she’s beginning to wonder if her life is normal.

Her mother is a midwife who found Rapunzel when she was 3 and has raised her ever since. Rapunzel has no memory of her life before and feels abandoned by her family.

As the two are traveling to a new location one day, they’re attacked by robbers. One of Duke Wilheim’s knights, Sir Gerek, happens to be nearby and comes to their rescue. But instead of being grateful, Rapunzel’s mother, Gothel, wants to be rid of him as soon as possible and Rapunzel is distant. He insists on accompanying them to Hagenheim, however, for their protection.

Meanwhile the robber turns the tables and comes after Gerek, and Rapunzel comes to his aid. Years ago she had some boys teach her how to throw knives, and she disables the attacker. But Gerek’s horse has thrown and and landed on top of him, breaking his arm and leg. Rapunzel feels compelled to help him, so they care for him until they come to a monastery where they leave Gerek to recover while they travel on to Hagenheim.

Rapunzel has always wanted to learn how to read, and sneaks away back to the monastery to ask if they will teach her in exchange for her working there cleaning. They agree and assign Gerek the task – since he’s not doing anything but recovering anyway. Neither of them is pleased with the arrangement, but they carry on anyway. Rapunzel finds Gerek haughty and grouchy. He thinks she’s pretty, but would never marry a peasant: he wants to marry a wealthy widow with land since he has none of his own.

Eventually life with Gothel becomes so precarious that Rapunzel wonders about her mother’s sanity, and she runs away to the castle in Hagenheim. With Gerek’s references, she is able to work as a maid. As she gets to know him in a different setting, she finds much to admire, but knows he would never consider her. But she when uncovers the mystery to her own identity, she struggles with the best way to handle it. And with the castle coming under attack by an enemy, that will have to wait anyway.

The action in the book, especially after Rapunzel comes to the castle, overlaps with that in the previous book, The Princess Spy, but I don’t think you’d have to have read that book to enjoy this one. I like how each book in the series can be read alone yet connects with the others and how characters we’ve met before show up again. I was delighted by who Rapunzel’s parents turned out to be.

I love a Christian fiction book that’s not ashamed to be Christian. Melanie weaves the faith element in quite naturally.

This series is listed a Young Adult, but to me they don’t read that way (except perhaps for The Princess Spy). It got a little too romance-y for me in places (shivers running up their spines when they accidentally brushed against each other’s fingers while handing something to the other and that kind of thing). But otherwise I enjoyed it very much, not just for the story, but also for the spiritual steps each character needed to take.

Others in the series, linked to my reviews:

Book 1: The Healer’s Apprentice based on Sleeping Beauty
Book 2: The Merchant’s Daughter, based on Beauty and the Beast
Book 3: The Fairest Beauty, based on Snow White
Book 4: The Captive Maiden, based on Cinderella
Book 5: The Princess Spy, based on The Frog Prince

This book and The Merchant’s Daughter have been my favorites. I’m reading the seventh, The Silent Songbird based on The Little Mermaid, now.

If you like fairy tale retellings, medieval stories, or clean romances, you will probably like The Golden Braid.

Genre: Christian fiction fairy tale
Objectionable elements: None
My rating: 9 out of 10

(Sharing with Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books and Carole’s Books You Loved)

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Book Review: Finding Father Christmas and Engaging Father Christmas

Posted on December 20, 2016 by Barbara Harper

After reading Pam’s engaging post on the difference between the Hallmark and written versions of Robin Jones Gunn’s Finding Father Christmas, the novella sounded so charming I had to look it up. I found it bound with its sequel, Engaging Father Christmas. I’ve enjoyed some of Robin’s Sisterchicks novels and I think maybe one or two others, so I was glad to read her again.

In Finding Father Christmas, Miranda Carson is a single working woman who grew up as the only child of a single actress. She knew nothing of her father: in fact, in her youngest years her mother told her fairy tales of how she came to her, so she didn’t think she even had a father. Miranda had an unconventional childhood hanging out around theaters while her mom practiced and performed, and they lived in cheap hotels. One day Miranda discovered an old blue velvet purse of her mother’s and opened it to find her birth certificate, a photo of a boy sitting on the lap of Santa Claus, and a playbill for The Tempest. From that time on, realizing that she had been deceived by her mother, she lost any love for fairy tales and vowed never to go to the theater again.

Miranda’s mother died when Miranda was 11, and she was taken in by a friend. When that friend died, Miranda falsified her age and struck out on her own, choosing an accounting career because numbers were more reliable than words.

But the longing to know her father caused her to take vacation time in England, where the photo in her mother’s purse had been taken. She only had the name of the photo studio and a street to go on, but arriving in the village of Carlton Heath, she entered a shop called the Tea Cosy and met its proprietors, Andrew and Katherine MacGregor, and started from there. Once she found the information she was looking for, she then had to decide the best way to deal with it.

I can’t say much more without revealing too much of the plot, but I enjoyed it quite a lot. The setting, the characters, Miranda’s journey all were every bit as charming as Pam made them sound. I very much appreciated that Robin was not afraid to deal specifically with Miranda’s spiritual journey as well: Miranda had little to no spiritual context and didn’t even realize her need of or longing for God as her Father until she encountered Him. In a day when so many Christian authors handle spiritual matters lightly (if at all) lest they come across as “preachy,” Robin proves that you can deal with them realistically and naturally within the context of the story. I loved the many literary references as well.

In Engaging Father Christmas, Miranda comes back in England for a visit about a year later. A romance blossomed with a man she met right at the end of the first story, and she’s hoping this visit will result in an engagement ring and the making of Carlton Heath her longed-for home. But her idyllic Christmas plans are threatened by serious obstacles.

One of my favorite passages occurs between crises as she views a beautiful nighttime scene:

Was everything around us more or less a fixed snapshot that alluded to a greater beauty? A deeper mystery? A hint of what was to come? How many unknown layers were there to life–to the eternal life that was hidden in Christ? What glorious surprises awaited us in the real land of which this earth was only a snapshot? Let heaven and nature sing…

These novellas were the perfect Christmas reads: clean, warm, lovely, and heart-stirring. There is a third in the series just out recently, Kissing Father Christmas. I’ll have to look out for that one next year.

Genre: Christian Christmas fiction
Objectionable elements: None.
My rating: 10 out of 10

(Sharing with Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books and Carole’s Books You Loved)

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Book Review: The Princess Spy

Posted on November 26, 2016 by Barbara Harper

In most versions of The Frog Prince, the princess is proud, spoiled, and condescending. The frog recovers a lost ball for her, and in return asks to be taken to her house, eat from her plate, and sleep on her bed. In the version I listened to last year, she got disgusted and threw him against a wall, after which he transformed into a prince. In other versions she tolerates him until he transforms, and then, of course, they fall in love and live happily ever after.

In this retelling, The Princess Spy by Melanie Dickerson, set in 15th century Germany, 18-year-old Margaretha is the oldest daughter of a duke. She isn’t spoiled, but she tends to talk a lot, especially when she’s nervous. A number of suitors have come and left her home, but none seemed right to her. Currently Lord Claybrook has been visiting, and she thinks he wears weird hats and talks about things she’s not interested in, but she’s trying to get to know him better and give him the benefit of the doubt.

Meanwhile a severely injured young man has been found and taken to the healer. He only speaks English, and Margaret can understand and converse in it well enough, so she serves as translator for him. When he carries on about needing to speak to the duke, but can’t say why or reveal who he is, she thinks his ravings are coming from his injury. When he finally convinces her to do a bit of eavesdropping for him, she finds that he’s right about the danger her family and town are in. But her father and brother are away, and together she and the stranger escape to find and warn them.

Since these are realistic stories, I wondered how the author was going to portray the frog prince himself without any magic changing of form. That ended up being humorous, but I won’t spill the secret here.

In many ways, this is a fairly typical fairly tale romance, except that Margaretha is pluckier than many heroines in this genre, even to the point of bashing guards in the head with a candlestick in her escape, and the addition of an orphan boy rescued along the way. I’ve enjoyed many of Melanie’s books in the past, and this was a nice, clean read, but it just seemed – almost a little cliche for me. I saw on Amazon that it was listed as a teen/young adult novel, which I hadn’t realized before, and that may be one reason the writing just seemed a little “younger” to me than usual. I didn’t get that vibe from the others, though.

I hadn’t realized at first that some of the characters had appeared in previous stories. It had been a while since I had read them, but as I looked at descriptions of them at the end of the book, they came back to me.

One aspect I especially liked was Margaretha’s learning the difference between panic praying and actively trusting while praying.

All in all, not an unpleasant read, but not one that blew me away, either.

Genre: Christian fiction
Potential objectionable elements: None
My rating: 7 out of 10

(Sharing with Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books and Carol‘s Books You Loved )

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Book Review: Long Way Gone

Posted on November 9, 2016 by Barbara Harper

I put Long Way Gone by Charles Martin on my TBR list after reading Susanne’s review of it, and when I needed a new audiobook, checked to see if Audible had it. They did! I usually put new books back behind some of the others already waiting, but I wanted to get to this one right away.

Cooper O’Connor’s father was a traveling preacher who mainly spoke at tent revivals in Colorado and surrounding areas. Cooper’s mother had died when he was very young. A large black man named Big Ivory (or Big Big when Cooper as a boy could not pronounce Ivory), recruited by Cooper’s father when Big Big got out of prison, rounded out their ensemble and played the piano.

Cooper proved to be quite gifted at playing the guitar and singing at a very young age. When he got into his teens, talent agents began to seek him out. His dad wasn’t opposed to his making a career out of music, but he wanted him to be able to be himself and not be taken advantage of by unscrupulous producers. But eventually Cooper began to feel his father was holding him back, so he took his father’s truck, guitar, and some money and drove to Nashville. There he fell on the hardest of times, until about five years later when he met a singer named Daley Cross and gave her one of his songs. Things were riding high for a while until a betrayal and an accident took nearly everything from him.

As you might have guessed, this is a modern-day retelling of the prodigal son story in the Bible. The scene where Cooper left his father was devastating, and it was heartbreaking to see all that he had to go through. But his father, always watching for him, always ready to forgive and receive him back, was such a tender picture of the heavenly Father.

Charles Martin definitely knows how to spin a story and pull on heartstrings. I enjoyed the story, his writing, musings here and there about life, faith, and music, and even a bit of hymn history.

We would differ on angelology – but I am not sure whether his use of angels in the story is from his belief system or just a part of the story to illustrate how people might “entertain angels unaware.”

This is a book I wish both of my parents were still alive to read. Of course, I wish they were still alive for a myriad other reasons, but what I mean is that they would have understood Cooper and his world quite well.

Narrator Adam Verner did a superb job narrating the audiobook version.

Overall, a beautiful, heart-touching story. If you read the book, be sure to read the author’s afterword as well.

Genre: Christian fiction
Potential objectionable elements: Bar scenes, drinking, 2 or 3 instances of a character almost saying a bad word, with enough of it that the word is obvious.
My rating: 9 out of 10

(Sharing with Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books and Literary Musing Monday, Carol‘s Books You Loved )

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“Edgy” Christian Fiction

Posted on November 2, 2016 by Barbara Harper

“Edgy” Christian fiction is becoming an increasingly hot topic among authors and readers. Those for it contend that stories need to be realistic for people living in the real world with bigger problems than the color of the church carpet. Opponents say that Christian fiction, of all places, should be a safe haven from objectionable elements in literature.

I think, as do many I know, that we should take our cues from this as well as every facet of life from the Bible. Yes, the Bible is different from a novel, but even in our novels we can operate within its parameters.

There are certainly edgy people in the Bible: harlots, polygamists, thieves, liars, evil kings, adulterers, murderers, zealots, and so on. And edgy situations abound: a man rapes his half-sister and in return is murdered by his brother; a man cuts up his murdered and abused concubine in pieces and sends her out to the various tribes of Israel to drum up support for revenge; a woman seduces a young, naive man; a king sees a woman bathing and takes her to himself though they are both married, then arranges to have her husband killed in battle; a woman has been married five times and is living with a sixth man.

But nowhere in the Bible are any of these situations written in a way to entice people to sinful thoughts in the reading of them. Profane men are shown to be such without spewing profanity. Sexual sin is portrayed in ways to show how it came about and how the people were tempted, but not in enough detail to cause arousal in the reader. Violent scenes are not written with gratuitous detail.

I’ve mentioned before that I grew up in an unsaved family with a father who used bad words (in three different languages! It was humiliating and embarrassing as a child when I said something at a Hispanic neighbor’s house only to find out it was an offensive word. Thankfully I don’t remember what it was.) So it doesn’t necessarily shock me when I hear people say those words. But when I read them, they float around in my head, and I don’t want them there.

Novels will by their nature share more descriptive detail than a Biblical narrative. Good authors know how to draw a reader into a scene and make them feel and experience what the characters do. But that is the very reason Christian authors need to be so careful with sexual or violent scenes. We need to take responsibility for the fact that we’re putting thoughts, images, and ideas in people’s minds and make sure they’re not the kind that lead the reader into a lustful or lurid state.

I don’t object to edgy people or situations in books, depending on how they are handled. I can understand a person is foul-mouthed without hearing the words. I can understand a person succumbing to sexual temptation without details of bodily form and feeling. I can appreciate a violent scene, such as a murder in a crime drama or a battle scene, without descriptors like eyes bugging out, blood spattering, etc.

In addition to how such scenes and people are described and what images those descriptions put in our heads, another factor is how the situation is treated in the novel. For instance, in searching for something in my blog recently I came across a forgotten book review for a story that included a suicide. That happens, so it’s not in itself an objectionable situation in a Christian book. But in this particular novel, it was treated as the only thing the character could do, and more than that, right and sacrificial and even heroic, when Biblically it is never regarded that way. “Thou shalt not kill” certainly applies to one’s own life as well as others. There is a difference between taking a bullet for someone and aiming that bullet at yourself. Suicide is the ultimate taking of your own life into your own hands and the ultimate lack of faith in God to handle one’s life circumstances as He sees fit. There were Bible people who wanted to die, but they left the actual process to the Lord. Suicide is a tragedy, and I can understand its happening in a story, but I think it’s wrong for a Christian book to condone it or present it as a good thing. Similarly, the tone, consequences, and character responses to profanity, sexual sin, and violence can convey that those things are not right without devolving into preachiness and judgmentalism.

I think it actually takes a great deal more talent to portray certain scenes without going into unnecessary specifics. One of the most violent scenes I ever witnessed on film just showed the victim’s feet, kicking at first and then lying still. No blood, no gore, but the effect was chilling. “Less is more” applies in a number of these areas.

I do want to encourage Christian authors that readers don’t want insipid, plain vanilla plots and we do want authentic, full-bodied, real characters and believable circumstances. I know it’s hard sometimes to know where the line is, but it’s possible to write great and realistic Christian fiction without crossing it. I know; I’ve read it. And I’d love to read more.

(Linking with Thought-provoking Thursday) and Literary Musing Monday)

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Book Review: Secrets of a Charmed Life

Posted on October 31, 2016 by Barbara Harper

Secrets of a Charmed Life by Susan Meissner begins with history student Kendra Van Zant arriving for an interview with famed watercolor artist Isabel MacFarland for a paper she is writing. Isabel almost never gives interviews, but agreed to this one because one of Kendra’s professors is her friend and arranged it. Kendra’s paper is on the effects of the blitz on London during WWII, and Isobel’s home was bombed during the war. As they start their interview, however, Isabel begins to tell the story of two sisters, teen-age Emmy and seven year old Julia.

They lived in London in the 1940s. Emmy liked to draw sketches of wedding dresses and hoped to be a designer one day. When she happened across a job opportunity in a bridal shop, she seized it. When the owner said she had a cousin who designed costumes and might be willing to take her on as an apprentice, Emmy was overjoyed.

But her plans were cut short when the city called on parents to evacuate their children into the countryside for safety. Emmy protested that she didn’t need to be evacuated, but her mother insisted. The girls were taken to a village in the Cotswolds and taken in by an older single lady and her sister. The setting was peaceful and idyllic, but when Emmy learned that her employer’s cousin was coming to London, she felt this was her only chance to make something of herself. She made arrangements to leave secretly for the rendezvous, but Julia found out in the meantime and insisted on going. Emmy decided to take her along, trusting that her mother could make arrangements to send her back. As the girls quietly sneaked out of the house to make their way back to London, what neither of them could have known was that the Luftwaffe blitz on London was going to start that very day.

I can’t go more into the plot without spoiling it, but slowly, as the story unfolds, the connections between Isabel and the two girls becomes increasingly clear.

I listened to the audiobook of this and was so drawn in, I kept looking for times other than my usual listening times to hear more. I’ve read many WWII novels, some even involving the evacuation of London’s children, but never quite from this angle. I thought the story unfolded wonderfully. I read some readers’ criticism of a section of the book near the end made up of journal entries, but I thought that was as well done as the rest of the novel. The fact that it contained a good bit of information that readers have been wondering about all through the book made it as suspenseful to me as the rest.

The faith element was perhaps a little too subtle for me. It is a vital part of the book, underpinning the plot, but mostly in the background, and only occasionally and somewhat vaguely referred to.

I thought I had not read Meissner before, but a search through my blog showed me I have, and I enjoyed those books as well, so I need to keep a lookout for more of her books.

Genre: Inspirational fiction
Potential objectionable elements: Emmy’s mother is what we would call a kept woman, and unmarried sexual encounters are mentioned, but details are not explicit. A few bad words (I can’t remember if they were “damn” or “hell” – perhaps one or two of both).
My rating: 9 out of 10

(Sharing with Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books, Carol‘s Books You Loved and Literary Musing Monday)

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Laudable Linkage

Posted on October 22, 2016 by Barbara Harper

Here is some good reading for this fine October day:

We Die a Thousand Ways in Love. “If God himself was willing, in love, to wash even feet, why would we refuse to lower ourselves, in love, for one another? Christian love sets aside social status, cultural norms, and the comfort of convenience to joyfully meet the inconvenient needs of others.”

Is It Love If I Don’t Feel It?

An Illustration of Repentance. I found this very helpful.

6 Ways to Transform Your Reading of the Gospels.

5 Ways Persecution in Iran Has Backfired. No one welcomes persecution, but when it comes it’s so great to see how God’s work goes on and even flourishes.

Meet the Perfect Parent and Perfect Child.

Real Life Is Edgy discusses the ongoing arguments about whether Christian fiction should include certain objectionable words, scenes, etc. in order to accurately promote “real” life.

And these graphics from Pinterest describe me well and made me smile:

Happy Saturday!

Book Review: A Sparrow in Terezin

Posted on September 26, 2016 by Barbara Harper

Kristy Cambron’s The Butterfly and the Violin was one of my favorite books read last year, so I was delighted when its sequel, A Sparrow in Terezin, came through on a Kindle sale.

As with her first book, this one follows two timelines. The contemporary one picks up where it left off in the last one, with William and Sera getting married, only to have him get arrested shortly afterward. In trying to sell off some of his family’s assets, he unwittingly sold some things that he didn’t realize were no longer his, and now he is being investigated for fraud. To try to clear his name, Sera delves into a past that he’s unwilling to reveal.

The other timeline begins with a young woman, Kaja, heading to a Prague train station with her family in 1939. Her father is Jewish and her mother a Christian, but being even half Jewish is enough to get one in trouble at that time in Eastern Europe. Kaja had thought her whole family was going and is stunned to learn at the train depot that only she and her sister and brother-in-law are leaving: her parents are staying behind. Kaja protests, but it has already been decided. After spending a year with her sister in Palestine, she travels to London to work at a newspaper. There she meets Liam, a reporter who is kind and helpful to her. She suspects he is involved in something covert. Just as their relationship grows to the point of commitment, Kaja learns that her parents are in danger and travels undercover to Prague to help. But she’s caught and sent with her family to the Terezin prison camp.

The two timelines intersect with a little girl named Sophie, whom Adele helped in the last book and whom Sera met at the end. Kaja’s path also crosses Sophie’s and eventually impacts William’s family.

I mentioned in my review of Butterfly that there were a few awkward places in the writing, but I felt the story superseded them. I wished I had made note of them now, because there were some here as well. There were a few things that didn’t make sense to me at first, though they were a little more clear when I looked at them again just now.

One of my pet peeves in movies in when there is some kind of calamity, and the couple involved decide that’s a good time to kiss. That happened in this book. I seriously doubt that if I’m outside with bombs falling in London, I’m going to choose that moment to kiss. No, I’m going to be running for cover, and fast.

I didn’t end up loving this one as much as I did the first one, but it’s still a good story, Kaja’s especially. I always wonder how people could not only survive, but extend grace and love in a situation as awful as a prison camp. I thought the faith element was woven in naturally.

Genre: Christian fiction
My rating: 8 out of 10
Potential objectionable elements: None that I can recall unless one is very sensitive to descriptions of war.
Recommendation: Yes.

(Sharing at Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books and Literary Musing Monday and Carol‘s Books You Loved)

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Book Review: The Promise of Jesse Woods

Posted on September 8, 2016 by Barbara Harper

The Promise of Jesse Woods by Chris Fabry opens with Matt Plumley in Chicago receiving a phone call from a voice from his past in West Virginia, sending him straight back there.

Matt had arrived in Dogwood, West Virginia from Pittsburgh when he was near 14 in the 1970s. His dad had grown up in Dogwood and was coming back to pastor the church there. Matt was not only the new kid, the new preacher’s kid at that, but he was also overweight, all of which worked against his making friends. But he did become friends with a couple of fellow outcasts, a boy of mixed race, Dickie Darrel Lee Hancock, and a girl named Jesse Woods from the wrong side of the tracks who took care of her sister because her father had left and her mother was ill.

As the three traipse around the countryside on their bikes, they get into various adventures and misadventures, revealing and keeping each other’s secrets. Matt’s eyes are opened to prejudice and mistreatment, to disappointment in his father, who goes along with Basil Blackwood, who runs everything in town, including the church, and to his first crush in Jesse.

The narration goes back and forth between the events of Matt’s childhood in 1972 and the events of 1984, when he returned. There is indication of something major that happened that caused a fallout between himself and Jesse, and though tidbits are uncovered along the way, the whole truth doesn’t come out until a big climax near the end. Even then it takes Matt a while longer to piece together the ramifications of that event to the present and to learn what he needs to learn, not only about the one promise Jesse didn’t keep, but also about himself.

Chris is a natural storyteller and weaves everything together nicely, though there was a bit too much detail about baseball for my tastes. There were also several mentions about what someone’s breath smelled like, which I thought odd in all but one instance. I would have been just a year or so older than Matt, so the parts about growing up in a small Southern town brought back many memories. There are moments of aching for children in Jesse’s situation. In one sense it’s a coming of age story – at least the 1972 scenes are. But in a larger sense it’s about Matt finally coming to terms with issues in his own life. A few times it’s pointed out to him that he’s concerned about rescuing others when maybe he’s the one who needs rescuing.

I thought the book was a smidgen too long and dragged in a couple of places, but overall it was an enjoyable read.

Genre: Christian fiction
My rating: 8 out of 10
Potential objectionable elements: There are a few “adolescent boy noticing a girl’s body” moments, though not explicit, and an attempted assault.
Recommendation: Yes.

(Sharing at Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books, Literary Musing Mondays, and Carol‘s Books You Loved)

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Book Review: Rescuing Finley

Posted on August 29, 2016 by Barbara Harper

I don’t read many dog stories, but I have enjoyed past books by Dan Walsh, so when Rescuing Finley came up for sale for the Kindle app, I got it.

Many dog stories are designed to be heartwarming, and Walsh is known for his heartwarming stories. My heart needs warming as much or more than everyone else’s, but when I know a story is aiming for that, I can find myself kind of resistant. But, they got me. I was touched and even in tears for part of the story.

The book tells the story of a few different people. One is Amy Wallace, a young woman who has been in trouble with drug addiction and stealing. Her family has cut ties with her, and when she’s caught shoplifting, the value of the item she stole lands her in prison.

Chris Segar is a minesweeper while in the Marines in Afghanistan, who steps on a silent mine, losing a leg and coming home with PTSD.

Then there’s Alicia Perez, whose son is killed in Afghanistan. She had been taking care of his dog, Finley, but she can’t handle him any more and takes him to the pound.

Kim Harper is an “Animal Behavior Manger and dog trainer” for the place where Finley is taken.

And then there is Finley himself, depressed by the loss of his owner and confused by his circumstances.

Walsh weaves their stories all together into a very satisfying book. You may even be able to guess where the story goes, but it’s worth the journey.

The sections from Finley’s point of view could have come across as cheesy, but I thought Walsh did a good job suggesting what Finley might be thinking without going that far.

I enjoyed the Author’s Note at the end, where he explains that, after his wife finished homeschooling all of their children, he encouraged her to do something she enjoyed. She wanted to train and be certified as a dog trainer. He explains that the book isn’t directly based on her or the organization she works with, but they greatly informed his story, along with the other research he did.

There are a few odd mistakes in the book (accept for except, bare for bear, our for are, etc.) that I was really surprised at. I don’t remember seeing anything like this in any of the author’s previous books: I’m wondering if something weird happened when formatting it for the Kindle. But I know it’s possible for little things to be missed in the process between writing and publishing.

This was a really nice read. It would make a great Hallmark movie.

Genre: Christian fiction
My rating: 10 out of 10
Objectionable elements: None.
Recommendation: Yes, I gladly recommend it.

(Sharing at Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books)

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