Review: Mrs. Tim Carries On

Posted on November 7, 2024 by Barbara Harper

Mrs. Tim Carries On is a sequel to Mrs. Tim of the Regiment. Like the first book, this is written in a diary format and based on author D. E. Stevenson’s own experiences.

Major Tim left for France during early 1940, leaving Mrs. Tim—Hester—home in a small English village with their daughter, Betty. Their son, Bryan, is away at preparatory school but comes home on holidays.

Hester writes that she decided to use her diary as an escape from war news and not mention it unless it affects her directly. So, at first she writes of old friends mentioned in the first book, amusing anecdotes of Betty, squabbles among servants, and such. She heads up the “Comfort Depot,” which involves collecting things for the soldiers and setting them out for the men to choose from.

The only mention of the war in the first part of the book has to do with shortages and an increasing number of Polish soldiers who have escaped from Hitler’s advances there. The community seems to receive them generously. Some of them can speak English or French, so they can usually find someone to communicate with.

The daughter of a friend, Pinkie, comes to stay with Hester indefinitely. Pinkie was a little girl the last time she was seen, but now is a beautiful seventeen-year-old, and several of the men fall in love with her. But she sees them only as friends.

Things turn a little somber in Part 3 when several more countries have fallen to Hitler and Hester has not heard from Tim for several months. Then in Part 4, she visits her brother in London and experiences bombs dropping in the streets and constant airplanes buzzing overhead.

There’s one odd new character, a Miss Brown Winters, who thinks she has lived several other lifetimes, mainly in ancient Egypt. Hester doesn’t believe her but finds her “interesting.”

Once again, there’s not much of an overall plot arc–the story is more just reflecting everyday life during that time.

Some of my favorite quotes:

[I] repair to the kitchen in a cheerful frame of mind. Cheerful feelings are soon dissipated. The kitchen is extremely warm, but the moral atmosphere is at zero. Mrs. Fraser, my large and terrifying cook, is waiting for me with a grim smile. I enquire in trembling tones whether anything has gone wrong. Mrs. Fraser replies that that depends. Having long and bitter experience of domestic catastrophes I am prepared for the worst (p. 5, Kindle version).

Her eyes are full of tears and I realise that she must be comforted, so I proceed to explain my own particular method of “carrying on”. None of us could bear the war if we allowed ourselves to brood upon the wickedness of it and the misery it has entailed, so the only thing to do is not to allow oneself to think about it seriously, but just to skitter about on the surface of life like a water beetle. In this way one can carry on and do one’s bit and remain moderately cheerful (p. 12).

“All war is awful,” says Guthrie. “It’s a wrong and horrible thing, war is, but we don’t need to worry about the rights and wrongs of war. We tried our best for peace. We tried for peace to the absolute limit of honour . . . but you can’t have peace when a pack of ravening wolves gets loose” (p. 37).

A day like this is a gift from God—or so it seems to me—and it seems all the more precious when it comes at the end of a long dark dreary winter (p. 52).

The daffodils have come in and are blowing like the bugles of Spring in the flower-shop window (p. 58).

I have the feeling that everyone in the world is asleep—but I know that it is not so. All over Europe there are people—men and women—keeping watch. There are aeroplanes, laden with death, speeding across the sky; there are sailors on the lookout; there are thousands of women like me who cannot sleep because their hearts are torn with anxiety . . . all over Europe the shadow of suffering lies. I sit and think about it, and in some strange way it is a relief to give way to misery. It does nobody any harm, for there is nobody to see. Just for a few moments I can take off the mask of cheerfulness. Just for a few moments I can allow myself to think (pp. 113-114).

I sit down on the window seat and prepare to listen, for if there is one thing I enjoy more than another it is a heart-to-heart talk with my son (p. 140).

[On visiting her childhood home] The dressing-table mirror is spotted with damp, and I am not sorry to see its degeneration, for it was never a kindly friend. It was like the friend who is in the habit of saying, “I feel it is my duty to tell you . . .” and it did its duty well. It was always candid about spots or blemishes or untidy hair. I glance into it as I pass to the window and find that its nature is not ameliorated by the passing years (pp. 215-216).

There’s a lovely poem called “Dunkirk 1940” which Stevenson shows as coming from one of the men. It’s too long to include (but I found a copy here). It tells of the Israelites’ miracle of the Red Sea parting, and the men at Dunkirk wishing for a similar miracle, to escape on dry land. But God provided a different miracle for them: “A double miracle to set us free –
Lion-hearted men, calm sea,” and hundreds of boats of all sizes.

I enjoyed this book much more than the first one. I can’t put my finger on why. Maybe because the characters were familiar to me, or maybe because the story had more touching moments mixed in with the lighter fare..

Review: Written on the Wind

Posted on October 3, 2024 by Barbara Harper

In Written on the Wind by Elizabeth Camden, Natalia Blackstone has an unusual position for a woman in 1900. Her father owns a major bank in New York. Natalia rose through the ranks until she became one of his main analysts. Because her mother was Russian and Natalia speaks Russian fluently, she heads the analysis and funding for the Trans-Siberian Railway project.

She has communicated so often with the man in charge of the project, Count Dimitri Sokolov, that the two have become friends. Their correspondence veers into music, literature, and a number of other interests.

Lately, however, Natalia hasn’t heard from Dimitri. When she inquires about him, she is only told that he is no longer on the project.

Unknown to Natalia, Dimitri had been ordered to take part in an appalling crime. When he refused, he was arrested, stripped of his title and lands, and exiled to a Siberian penal colony. His only hope is to escape and tell the truth about what happened. But the incident will reflect poorly on the czar, so Dimitri must tread carefully. Without cash and contacts, he plans an impossible journey to get to Natalia, the only trustworthy person able to help him.

I very much enjoyed that the plot, setting, and characters were all much different than anything I have read before.

The only other book I have read from this author, The Rose of Winslow Street, had characters from Romania. With that and this book having Russian characters, I wondered if the author had a Russian heritage or a special interest in that region. The audiobook had an end note with details about the Trans-Siberian Railway, but nothing about the author personally.

Unfortunately, the narrator of the audiobook had an annoying way of over-enunciating. Plus she emphasized minor words in sentences, like propositions. (“He navigated THROUGH mirrored hallways”; “AFTER arriving IN New York . . .,” etc.). She made a faint attempt at the accent of an Irish character but none with any of the Russians. I am going to avoid this narrator in the future.

I didn’t realize, when I started the book, that it was the middle volume in a series. But it read well as a stand-alone. I looked through my Kindle library and saw I had the first book in the series on hand, so I’ll look into that one some time.

Review: Hope Between the Pages

Posted on September 3, 2024 by Barbara Harper

Hope Between the Pages is a split-time novel by Pepper Basham.

In 1915, Sadie Blackwell is the resident library servant in charge of the books in the Biltmore House in Asheville, NC. A book-lover herself, Sadie enjoyed keeping the library tidy, leaving books guests might like on a library table, and reshelving the books once guests were done with them.

Just a year after George Vanderbilt’s passing, Sadie continued in the position her mother held before her.

As a servant, Sadie was supposed to be “invisible,” vacating the room when guests came in. But one day, she couldn’t get to the door in time and hid. She overheard a British father and son, the Camdens, talking with Mrs. Vanderbilt about books. The son, Oliver, appeared to love books as much as Sadie did. Based on his remarks, she later pulled some books she thought he might like. He responded with a note for the “Library Fairy” whose selections matched his tastes so well.

Not content with a thank you note, Oliver wanted to meet this Library Fairy. She found it difficult to remain invisible from such a pursuit.

In present day Asheville, Clara Blackwell owns a bookstore in Biltmore village, inherited from her father, who recently died. Though she loves her work, the bookstore is faltering a bit since the new big chain bookstore opened nearby. And her uncle Julian, her father’s half-brother, is making a nuisance of himself, trying to encourage Clara to sell. On top of all that, Clara is informed by her lawyer that he does not have a deed for the bookstore on file. If she can’t find the deed, Clara may lose the bookstore anyway.

In searching for the deed, Clara finds a box of her grandmother’s with a couple of notes addressed to a “Library Fairy.” The notes led to a series of discoveries about Sadies’s life previously unknown to the family.

Both women’s journeys take them beyond their predictable environments to step out on faith.

The Biltmore House library is my favorite room in one of my favorite places. I’ve wished many times that I could go beyond the cordoned-off path on one side of the library and walk into the room. I wouldn’t disturb any of the books, but I’d like to scan the titles up close, sit in one of the chairs, and soak up the ambience. However, I imagine if all of us who wanted to did that, we’d probably wear out the furniture and carpet. So you can imagine my delight to find so much of the book connected to Biltmore’s library!

The scenes in the rest of the house and the imagined conversations with Mrs. Vanderbilt were fun as well.

And with a librarian and bookstore owner as main characters, the book contained many literary references.

But beyond the bookishness of the stories, I loved the characters and their arcs. Besides the theme of stepping out of faith, being willing to leave the familiar behind, another undercurrent was being seen beyond the surface to what we really are underneath.

A few of my favorite quotes:

Few people are as they appear at first, and it behooves the heart of a Christian to see with gracious eyes our fellow humans, whether of high-bred means or low. After all, I’d been a servant, or the daughter of a servant, my entire life, and certainly hoped, if given the chance, people would see me for more than a quiet worker with nothing of interest to say. I had plenty to say—too much, really, for my occupation (p. 42).

God was there. And here. And all the places in between. Couldn’t I trust Him with the horizon as I trusted this ship to carry me . . ? (p. 147).

I’d lived a quiet life as long as I could remember, so solitude didn’t frighten me. In fact, I slipped it on like a pair of well-loved shoes (p. 164).

Maybe the definition of romance wasn’t some generic ideal dispersed among the romance-reading masses. Perhaps, in real life, romance corresponded to the intimate and individual needs of the two hearts. Unique. A handcrafted, heavenly match (p. 219).

Keep to your Bible and to your fairy tales, sweet girl. One is for your soul and the other is for your daydreams. Both will help you through this, and in both you’ll find your story (pp. 245-246).

My father always told me to never outgrow my belief in faith and fairy tales, but fear has a way of darkening one’s vision, and so I’d lost of the beauty God displayed through magical stories. Not so much the glass slippers or the poisoned apples, but the deeper truths. The light overcoming darkness. The rewards of perseverance. The beauty that can come through trials of thorns or battles or even sleeping death. I’d forgotten that imagination gives me so much more than the ability to fall into the world of a book. It motivates my dreams, inspires remarkable love, and helps me see beyond this world to a greater one (pp. 249-250).

I’d never considered how some of our greatest losses lead us to choices that God uses for bigger things than we could have ever imagined. Sometimes brokenness and heartache force us into self-seclusion and fear, and sometimes they can propel us into something amazing, if we let them (pp. 251-252).

I think many people would love this book even if they weren’t so much interested in the Biltmore House and classic literature.

This book is one in a Doors to the Past series. Each is written by a different author and involves a historic American landmark. I think each may be a split-time novel as well. This is the only book I’ve read in the series.

This is also the first book of Pepper’s that I have read, but it won’t be the last, especially knowing she lives in and writes about the Blue Ridge Mountains area of North Carolina.

Review: Shadowed Loyalty

Posted on August 6, 2024 by Barbara Harper

Shadowed Loyalty by Roseanna M. White is set during the Roaring Twenties. Sabina Mancari is the daughter of Chicago’s mob boss, but she never thought much about what he did. She’s engaged to Lorenzo Capecce, the son of her father’s lieutenant.

Lorenzo, known as Enzo,was one of the few in their families who took his faith seriously. Everyone thought he’d become a priest. But he chose law. He told Manny, Sabina’s father, that he didn’t want to go into the family business, and Manny agreed.

Lorenzo had seemed distant to Sabina for the last couple of years. So when another man, Roman, showed her some attention, she readily fell for him—until he led her into a gunfight and threatened her father with her life if she didn’t surrender. As it turned out, Roman was with the Prohibition Bureau and had just been using Sabina to get to her father.

Sabina called Lorenzo to help her father, putting him in a difficult position. Manny had agreed not to involve Enzo in their cases, but Sabina didn’t know that. Enzo couldn’t refuse her, so he took on Manny’s case, to the detriment of his own reputation.

Then Sabina and Enzo had to work out the situation between them. Did he still love her? Could he forgive her indiscretions with Roman? Did she still want to be engaged to him?

I’ve only read a couple of books from this era, and I don’t think any of them had to do with the mob. It was an interesting consideration—as Sabina’s conscience awakens, she becomes conflicted about what her father did. Yet she loved him as her papa, and didn’t know how to reconcile her feelings.

Unfortunately, this is the first book of Roseanna’s that I was a bit disappointed in. Usually her stories and characters grab me right off the bat, but that wasn’t the case this time. The writing was such that I thought this must be one of her earlier books, but it was published in 2022.

Some of the theology was a little wonky.

With this book dealing with a mob family, obviously they’d be involved in some gritty pastimes. I accepted that as part of the story. I didn’t mind that a couple of prostitutes were characters—prostitutes figure in a couple of Bible stories, as well. But there was one scene that went a little too far for my tastes, though nothing explicit was shown.

So, I have mixed feelings about this one. It’s still a good story overall, but I’d recommend discernment.

Review: When We Were Young and Brave

Posted on July 30, 2024 by Barbara Harper

The day after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, the Japanese invaded the Chefoo school for missionary children in what is now known as Yantai in northern China. They allowed the school to operate and keep to its schedule, though they rationed food and policed activities. Almost a year later, the Japanese took over the school buildings completely and sent the staff and students to an abandoned missionary outpost known as Temple Hill, keeping them under Japanese guard. In September 1943, the staff and student were transported to an interment camp known as Weihsien with 1,500 other people from various walks of life. They remained Weihsien until it was liberated by Americans in 1945.

Hudson Taylor, founder of the China Inland Mission, had founded the Chefoo school in 1881 for the children of CIM missionaries. A few children of other Europeans also attended the school.

I had read of the Chefoo school and its capture in various missionary biographies and in David Michell’s memoir of his time as a Chefoo student in A Boy’s War. So I was interested to learn that Hazel Gaynor wrote a fictional account of the school’s interment in When We Were Young and Brave.

Gaynor’s characters are fictional. She focuses mainly on a ten-year-old girl named Nancy, nicknamed Plum, and and two of her friends as well as one teacher, Elspeth Kent and her friend. The chapters switch back and forth between the point of view of Nancy and Elspeth, so we get both the adult’s and child’s view of events. One of Nancy’s friends, Joan, aka Mouse, gets one chapter late in the book.

The story begins with the everyday workings of the school with the Japanese occupying the surrounding area. The Chefoo school was fairly self-sufficient, so they didn’t fear the Japanese, though they disliked the tension of having them nearby.

Everything changed, however, when Japan declared war on Great Britain. Now everyone at Chefoo school was the enemy.

Thankfully, many students were away for Christmas break at the time of the Japanese occupation. Those at the school over the holidays were unable to be with their parents due to lack of safety to travel.

As the years wore on, the strain became harder to bear with lack of proper food and the increasing fear of the Japanese guards.

The school staff tried to keep everyone’s spirits up by maintaining classes and Girl Guides (similar to Girl Scouts in the USA). But they all faced various hardships.

The book opens and closes with the adult Nancy, thirty years after liberation, reflecting on her experiences.

The book is well-written. The characters are relatable and well-developed. As a reader, I felt the weight of what they were going through.

A few quotes stood out to me:

Our war wasn’t one of battles and bombs. Ours was a war of everyday struggles, of hope versus despair, of courage against fear, strength over frailty (p. 198).

In the most peculiar circumstances imaginable, their interment had insured that they were capable beyond their years (p. 243).

War and interment are part of their lives now, part of their story, part of who they are. . . . I actually think life is meant to have its share of difficultly and struggle. That’s when we find out who we really are, what we’re really made of, not when everything’s going along all jolly and straightforward and terribly nice. We come alive in the dramatic bits, don’t we; in moments that make us gasp and cry (p. 285).

But a few factors marred my enjoyment of the book.

First, Gaynor often refers to the children as “privileged.” Since most of them were missionary children, this was not a posh, expensive boarding school for the higher classes. There was probably some sense in which the children were more privileged than some of the Chinese nationals, who had been fighting Japan for a while already. But it wasn’t necessary to infuse the same sensibilities as one would have for a standard elite British boarding school.

Secondly, the school was established as a Christian school. According to David Michell, the school still provided “a truly Christian education for body, mind, and spirit” when he was there. But there is little mention of Christianity in Gaynor’s book. When Elspeth only took two books with her when they left Chefoo, she chose her Girl Guide Handbook and the Buddhist scriptures a Chinese servant had given her, not a Bible. She mentions struggling all her life to believe in God and says a budding sunflower gave her “more strength and hope that any prayer ever had” (p. 118). The teachers’ encouragement is the British stiff upper lip, “Keep calm and carry on” variety rather than anything of a spiritual nature.

Then, Elspeth feels that the children’s parents put their mission above their children by sending them away to school. That was not usually the case. Though teaching at home predates institutional learning, home schooling was not the industry then that it is now. Parents might have been able to teach their children at home on the mission field for their early years, but likely would not have had the material to do so as they got older. Plus, the children would not have had the credentials to go to college. Thankfully, these days, many mission boards work with parents to teach their children at home.

Additionally, some of the missionaries worked in remote areas with very few other Christians. Isobel Kuhn wrote that the tribe they worked with didn’t worship idols: they worshiped demons. When her son got old enough that she couldn’t keep him at her side all day, she feared what he would be exposed to as he interacted with people on the village. For many parents, sending their children away to school was for their protection.

Gaynor wrote that she drew from some of the internees’ own accounts at Weihsien Paintings and the Chefoo School Archives in London as well as other books. But all her characters were invented (except Olympic runner Eric Liddell, who was a missionary to China, and was interred at the camp. He died there of a brain tumor). Her characters and their interactions largely came from imagining what her own children might do in this situation, what she would have felt like as a parent at the time, and her grandmother’s war-time experiences. So I struggled a bit with not knowing was was real in the book and what came from the author’s imagination.

At some point, I set aside what I knew of the school and just read the book for what it was: a fictionalized account of people enduring and overcoming great, sustained hardships. I enjoyed it much more after that. But it spurred me to get David Michell’s book to reacquaint myself with the real story.

Review: The British Booksellers

Posted on June 6, 2024 by Barbara Harper

The British Booksellers by Kristy Cambron shifts back and forth from WWI to WWII.

Amos Darby and Charlotte Terrington are secret childhood friends with a love for books. But that’s all they can ever be. Amos is a tenant farmer’s son, and Charlotte is an earl’s daughter. Though Charlotte loves Amos, her parents arrange her marriage with Will Holt, the future Earl of Harcourt.

Amos goes off to WWI and comes back scarred. He opens a book shop on Bailey Lane in Coventry, England, but becomes something of a recluse.

Charlotte, now widowed Lady Harcourt, has opened a bookshop as well across the lane with her daughter, Eden. The booksellers have been rivals and enemies for over twenty years, though Eden has tried to negotiate a peace between them.

When an American lawyer, Jacob Cole, shows up with alarming news for Charlotte and Eden, they fight back to keep their estate, even though it is becoming ever harder to maintain.

But when WWII begins and German bombers fly across Coventry, Amos, Charlotte, Eden, and Jacob have to work together to help each other and their neighbors survive.

The Coventry Blitz is referred to as the Forgotten Blitz. The London Blitz received so much attention, Coventry was overlooked in the press. Kristy Cambron says in her author’s notes that some officials suppressed news of the devastation of Coventry so as not to damage morale.

The story includes four Land Girls, part of the Women’s Land Army in Britain who helped out at various farms and homes across the nation. I had read of these women in other books, so it was neat to see their roles fleshed out a bit more.

The historical story was quite interesting, but Charlotte and Amos’ story was so touching.

With characters who have a common love for books and who become rival booksellers, the importance of books comes up often. One of my favorite quotes about this aspect:

Books are an escape that beckons the reader from the heavy burdens of this world.’ Isn’t that what you told me once? They can challenge as well as comfort. Entertain and educate. Even save us in ways we’d never expect. You’ve used the words art, oxygen, and life all to describe them. Anyone who can see such value in these pages ought to also see that they could take him away from a future he doesn’t want. If anything, that is what Dickens wrote for his characters. Isn’t that what you wish for yourself?

I listened to the audiobook, beautifully read by Barrie Kreinik. Happily, this time the audiobook did contain author’s notes about the historical aspects of the book. There weren’t any notes about what inspired the personal stories, though.

With going back and forth between timelines, it was a little hard to keep up sometimes with where we were in the story. It’s not as easy with an audiobook to flip back to the beginning of the chapter to check the dates. Plus 1914 and 1940 sound alike. But it didn’t take too long to get oriented.

Overall, I loved the book and the characters and felt for them.

Review: For a Lifetime

Posted on May 23, 2024 by Barbara Harper

For a Lifetime is Gabrielle Meyer’s hot-off-the-press third book in her Timeless series about time crossers.

In this series of novel, a time crosser is one who lives in two timelines. They live in one period of history, and when they go to sleep, they wake up in a different time without any loss of time between. When they go to sleep again, they wake up back in the first time as the very next day, going back and forth. They all bear a sunburst birthmark that marks them as time crossers, some over their heart, some on the back of their heads. The ones with the head marking have until their twenty-fifth birthday to decide which time they want to live the rest of their lives in. If they knowingly try to change history at all, they’ll forfeit their lives in that time period.

In this book, the time crossers are twin girls, Faith and Hope. One of their timelines is in Salem Village, Massachusetts, in 1692, just before the Salem witch trials begin. The twins are twenty-four, working at their father’s tavern and restaurant. They never knew their mother, having been told she died in childbirth. Their father is harsh and distant, treating them more like servants than daughters.

Their second timeline in in 1912, where Grace is a journalist and Hope is a beginning aviatrix in New York. Their mother in this timeline is a time crosser as well (from the previous book) and lives in Washington DC, where her husband had been a Pinkerton agent during the Civil War and then helped start the Secret Service.

The young women have both decided to stay in 1912 on their twenty-fifth birthdays. Hope thinks they should change history in 1692 so they can go ahead and stay in 1912. Grace thinks the risks are too great–one change could cause a catastrophe.

Grace is dutiful, thoughtful, kind, and level-headed. Hope is adventurous, strong-willed, and prefers acting to thinking.

In 1912, one of Grace’s articles exposed an owner of shirtwaist factories for his unsafe practices which resulted in a serious fire. He struck back by trying to buy the building her parents rented for their orphanage, offering three times the amount the building was worth. Grace wants to confront him, but her father warns that it’s unsafe. So they try to find another way to raise the money to purchase the orphanage themselves.

Also in 1912, Hope is attracted to her flying instructor, well-known aviator Lucas Voland. But he wants to keep their relationship professional. When she introduces Luc to Grace, they instantly dislike each other.

In 1692, Grace is attracted to a neighboring farmer named Isaac, but he only has eyes for Hope. Hope, however, wants nothing to do with him.

In 1912, Grace once looked up a history book about the Salem witch trials and saw, to her horror, that she was said to have accused Hope of being a witch. Grace shut the book and didn’t look up any more information about it. She didn’t tell anyone, and has no intention of accusing Hope–she doesn’t see how such a thing could ever be.

Meanwhile, some young girls are said to be “afflicted,” experiencing convulsions and complaining of being pinched, etc. They accuse a few women in the village of afflicting them. Thus the hysteria begins.

The Salem witch trials are not my favorite time in history to read about. They seem a blight not only on American history, but on church history. The lack of common sense, much less spiritual sense, among the leadership in the village is troubling. If this account is true, if anyone challenged to accusations, then they became a target.

But it was interesting to read how Grace, Hope, and Isaac dealt with life under such situations.

Plus I didn’t like Hope much as first. She seemed immature and selfish. But part of her story arc includes her realizing that about herself.

I had thought, with twins being the main characters, that the major conflict would go one particular direction. It didn’t appear to go the way I was thinking at first until a major, shocking, unexpected plot twist occurred. My interest in the book increased after that.

I listened to the audiobook, nicely read by Rachel Botchan. Happily, this audiobook did include the author’s historical notes at the end. She had ancestors on both sides of the Salem trials, sparking her interest. Her research shows that some of the afflicted girls probably had some form of mental illness, which would not have been understood at the time. But others took advantage of the hysteria. She said the reasons for the hysteria were many and complicated.

She also said both Grace’s and Hopes characters in 1912 were inspired by Harriet Quimby, who was both a journalist and flyer, the first woman to fly across the English Channel. (if you’re interested in reading this book, I would hold off reading about Harriet, or you might get some spoilers.)

I loved how everything ended up in both timelines. There are a number of themes in this book, but one that stood out to me was that God often works the most in our lives through circumstances that we did not want.

Review: Yours Is the Night

Posted on May 21, 2024 by Barbara Harper

In Yours Is the Night by Amanda Dykes, Matthew Petticrew grows up with his sister on a racetrack in New York in the early 1900s until the father who never claimed them sent them away. Matthew’s sister, Celia, was sent to nursing school, Matthew to be a groom at the stables of Harvard University.

When Matthew travels with some Harvard boys to Plattsburg Training Camp to deliver horses, a chance meeting with his childhood hero, Jasper Truett, one of Theodore Roosevelt’s Rough Riders, changes his life.

Matthew and three acquaintances are sent to the Argonne forest for more wood to reinforce the trenches.

One of the men, George Piccadilly, is a Brit whose parents had sent him to Harvard to get a divinity degree to avoid having to fight in the first World War. However, through a series of events, he ends up at Plattsburg Training Camp . He has no use for religion but somehow ends up a chaplain. His joviality and Matthew’s seriousness don’t seem like they would mix, but George sticks close to Matthew because he looks like he would know how to survive. Plus George thinks he can lighten Matthew up a bit.

The last acquaintance is Henry Mueller, a bookish young man who was recruited as a fresh-faced, boy-next-door to write for the newspaper about the war under the pen name Hank Jones.

As they gather wood, they hear a woman singing. George dubs her the Angel of Argonne. And then one night they meet her in person at the freshly dug grave of her grandfather.

Mireilles, called Mira, grew up with her father and grandfather in the Argonne. When the war came crashing into their quiet lives, Mira’s father went to fight. Now her grandfather is gone, too.

The men feel they can’t leave her alone in her forest home so near the front lines. But they don’t want to send her out alone, either. They obtain permission to accompany her to her nearest relative’s house.

The journey will change each of them.

It took me longer to get into this book than Amanda’s previous book, Whose Waves These Are. The point of view shifts back and forth between Matthew, George, Hank, Jasper, and Mira. It took a little while to get them all sorted out. Plus there was a lot of bickering between George, whose character I didn’t really like at first, and the other two younger men. It was understandable, even funny at times. But not my favorite.

But at some point, everything clicked into place. The last few chapters were just beautiful. I loved the ending. Right after finishing, I went back and reread the first few chapters, understanding them better.

The prologue and epilogue tell of the choice of a casket for the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. In the author’s notes, Amanda tells of visiting the tomb on the centennial anniversary year and how much the symbolism meant to her. She writes that she did not mean to fictionalize the unknown soldier, but “His anonymity allows him to represent the countless ones who never came home. . . . I hope that only respect, gratitude, and a fierce guarding of the real soldier’s true story—untouched by this imagined one—is found in these pages.”

Some of the other quotes I liked:

That burning justice is a gift. . . . But you be sure and save it for where it’s needed. Some battles aren’t battles after all (p. 23, Kindle app).

I understood the way words can shape hearts. Evade the creation of mobs and fear, and instill a home-front army of citizens armed with hope (p. 65).

The sky rumbled like only the earth should, and the earth bled like only people should, and people—people lived and died like nobody, ever, should (p. 151).

War happens. We help. It’s what we do. Not one of us can fix this whole mess, but maybe we can help this one moment (p. 151).

Men of few words, I was realizing, said much with their silence over here (p. 174).

“The matches . . . they are hope.” They are hope. The three words socked the air from me. Bringers of hope . . . creators of light from dark, when struck on hard places (p. 178).

It’s not mine to change what has happened . . . I cannot. It is mine to walk through what will come (p. 181).

There are none who can undo the past. But there is one who will carry the pain of it. He knows too well the sting of injustice. No, more than that. The blood of it. But with it, He bears the scars of his own injustice with the same hands that carry me now (p. 182).

Her brother was a thoughtful speaker, one who weighed his words and chose few of them to speak, ones that seemed always to carry so much in their depths. His sister seemed to do just the opposite—speak her words, then catch them and consider them, then say more words to explain. As if she were swimming in them, and happily so (p. 195).

What if what we believe to be our shortcomings, our oddities, are actually purposeful quirks that suit us for the moments we were made for? (p. 257).

Though I loved Whose Waves These Are more, I came to enjoy this book quite a lot as well. I’m a fan of Amanda’s writing and eager to read more of her books.

Review: All My Secrets

Posted on May 15, 2024 by Barbara Harper

In Lynn Austin’s Gilded Age novel, All My Secrets, one of the wealthiest men in America has just died. The Stanhopes were contemporaries of New York’s elite families, like the Vanberbilts, Astors, and Van Burens.

Arthur Benton Stanhope III, known as A. B., was only forty-six when he passed. At the reading of his will, his mother, Junietta, wife Sylvia, and daughter Adelaide, or Addy, all found out that the original Arthur Stanhope had written his will in such a way that the Stanhope business and the bulk of the family money could only be passed down to the closest male heir. A small trust was left for Sylvia and Addy, but it was not as large as it might have been if the investments had the expected time to grow. But with a little economy, and perhaps the sale of the family yacht, they should manage fine.

Such economic measures, however, would send them toppling from the pinnacle of society they enjoyed. That was fine with Junietta. But Sylvia’s position and reputation as a hostess were her life. Sylvia decided the best thing they could do was find acceptable suitors to discreetly introduce Addy to in the hope that she might marry well before their financial state became too dire.

Addy didn’t like the idea of marrying a man for his money or feeling like a bargaining chip. Her mother assured her the choice was hers, and she wanted her to be happy. But Addy felt duty-bound to do everything in her power to keep the only home she had ever known in the family for her mother’s sake. Addy herself, didn’t want anything to change more than it had to.

Junietta thought their palatial home was a monstrosity. It had more rooms than they could ever possibly use. Addy had gotten lost in them as a child. The rooms they did inhabit were too large, their decorations overdone. The money expended on their balls and dinner parties could feed other families for weeks. Their contemporaries were gossipy rivals more than friends.

Junietta was more or less trapped in her marriage, but she wants Addy to know she has choices. Will Addy ever warm to the idea that the excessive wealth they are used to is wasteful, that there are better ways to live? Or would Addy write her grandmother off as eccentric? Junietta was going to have to reveal some of the secrets of her past that changed her own views. Would she have time to, before her erratic heart gave out?

I enjoyed this book a lot. I don’t see many novels set in this era, so it was fun to experience that time. Junietta’s secrets were revealed gradually in flashbacks, eventually prompting Sylvia to share secrets of her own. I enjoyed the characters and the natural way the faith element was woven in. The author makes sure to emphasize that being rich is not a sin in itself, and being poor is not inherently virtuous. But we’re all stewards of what we’ve been given.

But the book isn’t just about stewardship. It also involves loss, love, grief, life choices, forgiveness, and more.

In a fun coincidence, my oldest son visited the Marble House in RI with friends. It was built by William Vanderbilt for his wife, Alva, and started off the “summer cottage” fad among the elite (the “cottages” being 50+ rooms rather than what we think of as a cottage). The day after my son told us about his visit to this house, it came up in this book.

I enjoyed the audiobook, nicely read by Sarah Zimmerman. As usual, the audio version did not contain any of the author’s notes at the end, but I found some of that information in an interview with the author here.

I wished that the author had included an epilogue. The characters are left in such a way that we have a good idea what will happen to them, but I would have liked things to be a bit more wrapped up at the end. I just learned in the interview mentioned above that the author has written a novella with these characters that will come out at Christmas.

Review: Whose Waves These Are

Posted on April 24, 2024 by Barbara Harper

Whose Waves These Are by Amanda Dykes begins in September, 1944. Identical twin brothers in a small Maine village, Ansel-by-the -Sea, have just turned eighteen. Enlistment in military service has been closed “to protect the home-front work force,” but the draft is in effect. A letter arrives from the President ordering one of the twins to report for duty. Robert Bliss assumes, hopes, the letter is for him. He’s single, ready to go. His brother, Roy, is married to Jenny–the girl Robert has loved for years but didn’t speak up for soon enough. Roy and Jenny have just discovered they’re going to be parents.

But, no. The letter is for Roy.

Robert proposes that he could go in Roy’s place. They’ve stood in for each other many times. But Roy argues that it’s his turn to help save others.

Then we’re whisked to Chicago in 2001, where Annie Bliss crunches numbers. She was an anthropology major, but her first assignment to help a small village ended in disaster. In her current job, at least she can’t hurt anybody.

Then she receives news that her “Grandbob” back in Ansel-by-the-Sea is in grave condition in the hospital.

Annie speeds back to Maine, where she had visited as a child when her parents’ deployments overlapped and they left her with Bob. There she is known as “Bob’s Annie.”

While Bob is unconscious, Annie gets reacquainted with the people she knew. There’s one newcomer since she lived there, a quiet, brooding postman and EMT named Jeremiah Fletcher, or Fletch. Annie discovers boxes of rocks in a closet in Bob’s house. Jeremiah shows her even more in the boathouse. Bob has left her a key, but no word about what it belongs to. As Annie asks around town, people either don’t know or aren’t sharing what Bob was up to.

The point of view switches back and forth between these two time frames. The older one unfolds what happened with the brothers during the war and the years afterward. As one grieves the loss of the other, he writes the only poem of his life asking for rocks to represent people lost during the war. He plans to build something to represent hope and healing. But another tragedy halts his efforts.

The twenty-first century timeline shares Annie’s story and shows her discovering the pieces of her history that she had not known.

I loved this book. I just wanted to sit and hug it after finishing it. It left me wishing I could visit Ansel-by-the-Sea, if it were a real place and these people lived there. I love books with a strong sense of place, whose stories could not have taken place anywhere else.

I loved the characters. I loved the way the author unfolded and wove together everyone’s stories.

I also loved many of the author’s turns of phrases. A few:

A wake is a ripple left after a departure (p. 41).

He said it was time to be part of the unbreaking, of the making of something. He told me there was a Carpenter who was going to build me right up, too (p. 75).

She looks at Bob lying there, face mapped in wrinkles carved from compassion (p. 79).

She’s used to city life, rich in its own way, with an energy and bustle from the lives there, but where eye contact is a safety issue and a good neighbor is your insurance company’s tagline (p. 87).

Annie tries for small talk. Which, as she’d learned, could sometimes lead to large talk. Which made the small talk bearable (p. 131).

Don’t get stuck in the dark . . . There’s a whole lotta light . . . Go there instead (p. 171).

Saluting—a stance of the fiercest heartache schooled into firmest respect (p. 173).

The song she offered up was all the more beauitful in its wavering and brokenness. Courageous, and offering. The laying out of her broken heart before her God (p. 188).

Words begin to light up, pour right through, like someone turned on a faucet and he’s just trying to catch them. They’re not his, really, he’s just the one scratching them out (p. 188).

He slaps courage back into himself and goes to church (p. 202).

I choose to believe there is some shred of light left in him. A light I pray he fights for (p. 238).

His thoughts are becoming more like an ongoing conversation with heaven, these days—usually more questions than anything else. And this was a big one. What now? (p. 249).

He looks like someone who’s been cut loose to drift and hasn’t found shore (p. 252).

Not healed . . . but held. Like the pieces of him have been gathered right up, and that is enough for now. The rest will follow (p. 275).

The strength of the storm does not change whose waves these are. There is One mightier still (p. 348).

I was motivated to read this book because I had seen high praise for it. That praise was well-deserved. I’ll be looking up more of Amanda Dykes’ books to read.