Book Review: The Correspondent

I have been a correspondent. In my early days, I had a few best friends with whom I exchanged lengthy letters. In my teen years, I had a friend who had gone off to college (in Indianapolis, at Butler University, of all places). That friend faithfully responded to my many letters. In my college years, I continued that correspondence and also wrote to family members. Post-college, I had a deepening correspondence with a fellow mission-team member. Then came letters back and forth between people I met in my travels. After my oldest son was born, I sought out a foreign pen-pal.  Yes, I have always loved composing and receiving letters!

This book, The Correspondent, by Virginia Evans, articulates exactly how I have felt. It is easier for me to process things and to express myself with the written word. Don't box me into a corner with a verbal fight! Allow me to defend myself and put forth my views in a letter. This is a beautiful book about a character who seeks to deal with life's losses through her correspondence with others. Sybil van Antwerp writes letters to her brother, her best friend, favored authors, and young people she hopes to mentor. She urges a college dean to allow her to audit courses. To some, she writes about her adoption and the feelings it engenders. To others, she writes her terror at impending blindness. Then there are the letters, left unsent, to an individual named Colt. When she starts receiving anonymous letters with ill-intent, she must face her past and all its tragedies and triumphs. As readers, we get to follow this process through the letters she writes and receives.

I love epistolary novels, so when I saw the popular buzz, I knew I wanted to read this book. And when I say buzz, I mean buzz. The book is currently ranked #3 on Amazon. It has won many accolades and awards. My husband came into the room and began talking to me as I was nearing the conclusion. I could not tear my eyes away. Then, the tears threatened and spilled over. Of course, he wondered what made me cry, but he is not a lover of fiction. I tried to explain the great sorrow, but he had not been drawn into it as I had through countless pages. I feel sorry for him. What joy it is to slowly unravel a tale leading to empathy and compassion for a character drawn from the author's imagination. If you read this book, be sure to take time for the author's acknowledgements at the end. I even looked up the scripture reference for James 1:17. Although this is not a Christian book, that verse resonates after reading this story. 

📒 Content Caution

Book Review: The Second Story Bookshop

I enjoyed the play on words for the title of this book by Denise Hunter. The second story bookshop is, indeed, on the second story of a building. However, it is also the "second story" for a woman whose husband has passed away and who seeks a new passion, bookselling. But, everyone is worthy of a second story. Indeed, many characters in this novel find their way to a second chance and a new chapter in life.

The Second Story Bookshop is a grand story of redemption. I love it when bitterness gives way to forgiveness, when brokenness becomes a vessel for God's mercy and grace. Shelby Thatcher has always worked in her Gram's bookshop. Reeling after her grandmother's death, she is stunned by the reading of the will. Instead of inheriting the bookshop, she learns she is only part owner. The secondary owner is her ex, Gray Briggs, who shattered her heart years ago. Then, another blow descends when she discovers her grandmother's debts. Can she forgive Gray and work together with him to restore the bookshop to its former glory and to a profitable margin? Will the town that hates Gray drive him away before he can earn Shelby's forgiveness?

What a seducing promo paragraph on the Amazon page:

"If you're looking for an enemies-to-lovers, second-chance romance set in a cozy lakeside bookshop brimming with healing, heart, and Southern charm, The Second Story Bookshop is your perfect, feel-good escape. Let Shelby and Gray's tender journey remind you that sometimes the path back to love starts at the front step of a bookstore.

Anyone who loves deeply will know pain. But if you avoid pain by shunning love, you shortchange yourself many of life's blessings. This book drives that truth home.

Mid-month Mention: Smiling With Josh and Jase

These days one's Facebook feed can be pretty depressing. Life just keeps racheting up a notch. Division rules the day. But, I've recently been blessed by a new bright light of sunshine in my Facebook feed. I'm sure it is driven by algorithms. The more I watch, the more of this content I see. 

Well, in this case, that's absolutely fine by me. That ray of sunshine comes from two British blokes who love to travel to the United States. Josh Clarke and Jason Riley go by Josh and Jase, and they are everywhere on the internet these days. I could listen to them talking all day long. I love their accents. I adore their wacky reactions to crazy things about my country. At some point, I saw a short about words that don't mean the same thing in the UK. I can't find it now. Alas, it made me laugh as I remembered my own accidental use of words that are taken differently in Britain.

When I first visited Britain, I studied with Wheaton College's summer program at Oxford. I took a bus and spent a weekend with some American friends who were living in London. Of course, these American friends had British friends who wanted to teach me a British sport called Rounders (similar to baseball). I was concerned that they might ruin their white clothes, so I called out, "Don't slide, David! You'll soil your pants!" Everyone burst out laughing as David, looking horrified, cried out in his delightful British accent, "Oh! I hope not!" Apparently, they believed he was wearing white "trousers" while I used their term for men's underwear, "pants." My bad! It would have worsened if I had said, "You might fall on your fanny!" It can be tricky not to mis-step with language.

Josh and Jase are highly entertaining. I'm an older person, so I'm not on Tik Tok or Instagram and am only now encountering this delightful duo. You really must go check them out.

They can be found under several handles on Facebook: Josh and Jase, Josh from England, The Accent Guy, Life With Josh, or Josh's Faith Corner (Josh has sadly lost followers after declaring his Christianity).

Or you can watch their You Tube channel: Josh and Jase.

If you'd rather, you can find them on TikTok or Instagram.

And if you wish to send some support their way, here's a link to their Patreon. I didn't realize how important their support is until I watched this recent video about their lengthy process acquiring visas for travel to continue their content creation in the US. 

To think they had to spend $60,000 in various fees to get these visas blows my mind. Subscribe. Follow them. Let's keep them coming to America and making their fun, lighthearted videos to brighten everyone's day. Maybe one day they'll come to Indiana. I'll stay tuned.

Book Review: Shelterwood

I enjoyed Lisa Wingate's Before We Were Yours. So, I was thrilled to learn my library had another book I've heard about, written by Wingate, Shelterwood. You can tell this author leans into research. She clearly spent a great deal of time investigating the true aspects of this story. Then, she fleshes it out with a fictional story. Like in Before We Were Yours, this is a dual timeline story.

In Oklahoma, 1909, eleven-year-old Olive Augusta Radley is sure her stepfather means to harm her. She takes the six-year-old Choctaw girl, living with them, and runs away. They use their wits to evade capture several times, always on the run from people who wish to exploit them. In Oklahoma, 1990, Valerie Boren Odell is settling in to her new job as a ranger at Horssethief Trail National Park. She is a single mother with a heart for children. Thus, she is drawn into the mysterious disappearance of a teenager, alongside the discovery of the bones of three children buried in a cave.

I didn't enjoy this one as much as the previous book, but that is probably entirely due to a current reading slump. It may have also been harder to stay focused on this long, rambling story because I was only snatching a few minutes listening time here or there in car trips. I will say, the book made me want to write a historical fiction novel (if only I could dig up some interesting tid-bit of history that has been unexplored). It is criminal what happened to young children and orphans when their land was stolen from under them. They were powerless to fight the theiving adults and often ended up living homeless in the woods, like Olive. If you are from Oklahoma or are interested in the plight of young Indian children, this book is sure to interest you.

Book Review: Once Again to Zelda

I can't remember where I heard of this book, but I was curious enough to request it from interlibrary loan. Once Again to Zelda, by Marlene Wagman-Geller, is a collection of stories about interesting book dedications. Wagman-Geller considers herself a dedication detective. Each story reveals deep research. Although I skipped a few chapters (just not interested in those authors or dedications), on the whole it was a very compelling book.

I was unaware of the dedication Charlotte Bronte gave to Jane Eyre, or how much chaos and speculation it stirred. Many of the stories I knew peripherally (Lewis Carroll, Dostoevsky, Frank Baum, and Stephen King). Many of the stories fleshed out more details and extended the stories deeper than I knew. For example, I knew Sylvia Plath's depression led to suicide. I was shocked to learn the woman who had the affair with Sylvia's husband also committed suicide in the same manner. Some stories were entirely new. 

So many of these authors endured great obstacles and tragedies. Laura Hillenbrand suffered a lengthy illness. Several lost beloved parents, spouses, and children.  Indeed, it was J. K. Rowling's loss of her mother that led her to include the Mirror of Erised in one of the installments of Harry Potter's story. I hadn't realized she didn't invite her father to her wedding because she was "upset with him for  moving in and marring his secretary right after [her mother's] death." It seems to write great literature, one must endure great upheaval and extreme challenges. In light of that, perhaps I don't want to write great literature. Ha!

  

Book Review: A Bramble House Christmas

I think I was searching another Christmas book when I stumbled upon C. J. Carmichael's A Bramble House Christmas. This was not inspirational, but still delivered a cozy Christmas read. I thought this was going to be a clean read, but just before the end, in typical modern day fashion, the romance characters end up in bed before marriage (and that with a child in a nearby room - seriously?). The story held my interest.

Finn Conrad uses his pen name to book a room in the same hotel in Marietta, Montana, where nurse Willa Fairchild is spending the holiday with her young son, Scout. Finn is hoping to learn why his deceased father left a large portion of money to this nurse who provided care for less than two months. Is she a scam artist and what secrets is she hiding about her six-year-old son? As Finn investigates, he comes to know Willa and Scout and discerns the reason his father left Willa the money and a treasured heirloom ring. That ring holds mystery, as well.

The characters are believable. The romance is leisurely. Heartstrings are tugged. This could have easily been a clean romance. I did enjoy the story; it just saddens me that the foregone conclusion is that flirtation and chemistry will lead to premarital passions. Thankfully, descriptions were not graphic and amounted to a small intrusion in a touching tale. There is also a 2017 movie on the Hallmark channel. Click here to watch the trailer.

📒 Content caution

2025 Recap

My writing friend, Amy Weinland Daughters, posted this hilarious spoof on the goals we set and the ones we actually achieve. I acknowledge my recap post will be somewhat like this. It won't really interest my readers (no offense if you skip it). I'm primarily writing it for personal reflection on my year's goals. 

Hoping to be intentional in 2025, I started a progress file where I tracked various things daily. I kept stats on my exercise, purging, letter-writing, fasting, and (towards the end) writing for publication. Although this was very helpful in many ways, I still failed to be as productive as I would have liked. You can set the goal. You can track the progress. But, you still have to put in the work to have something to write down. Ha! Sadly, I'm not the most disciplined person.

Exercise: I do believe tracking helps me stay committed to exercise. I'm not a huge walker. Many people put in 10,000 steps a day. I'm far too sendentary, but don't see that changing any time soon. Still, I try to get my treadmill time (or outdoor walks) in every morning. I exercised on 90% of the days (327/365) this year. My mileage declined when I got a new and more narrow treadmill. It declined further after I fell on that treadmill. Still, I walked over 400 miles and averaged 1.25 miles. As I threw out my 2024-2025 planner, I noted that in 2024 I consistently walked 295 out of 366 days (81% of days) for 472-1/3 miles (ave. 1.6 miles). Of course, that was when I was trying to lose weight for my son's wedding.

Purging: I'm a hoarder. I've always admitted this freely. However, I really had hoped to be more successful in my purging efforts. There are so many negative emotions associated with purging. While I enjoyed going through the minutia of past letters and school files, the actual process of getting rid of many items was draining. My year-end total was 102-2/3 hours. I only worked on purging for 51% [186/365] days. On those days, I averaged 33 minutes/day. It is better than nothing, but still feels like diddly-squat. Now that my husband has reduced the estimated time we have left living in this home, I'm wishing I had been far more diligent. May was a total wash, as was December. February was my most productive month (24 hours of purging in 25/28 days).

Fasting: My goal was to fast every Monday in 2025. I only missed the Monday of the spring break trip and the Monday of our 35th anniversary, but I made up for those dates by fasting on another day in those weeks. At the beginning, I started slowly with partial days (fasting until 2 p.m., then 4 p.m., then 6 p.m., then 8 p.m.). But in February, I aimed for mostly full days. By the end of the year, I had fasted 54 days (21 partial days and 33 full days). 

I am not well-suited for fasting. It was difficult in the usual ways, but was also difficult emotionally. It seemed like the full day fasts left me overwhelmed with despair rather than trust. As I poured out my groanings over difficult situations in our family/friends' lives, the focus on the darkness of our tunnel drowned out the consolation of the light God offers. I think, in my clinical depression, I struggle with staying positive and observing the light more than the darkness. I'm a glass half-empty kinda gal. 

Struggles with our prodigal, family tensions, the loss of my mother and subsequent new love my father is fixated on, health questions, the state of our world... it gets to be too much. I think I would have done far better if I had spent my fasting time in singing scriptural promises rather than outlining the various weights and burdens we carry. If I had it to do over again (and I'm not planning on this rigorous fasting in 2026), I would have taken more of the approach I used with my 2023 prayer project. I would incorporate scripture, pray for requests but also praise for answers, and spend more time focused on God's enduring attributes than on the encompassing obstacles before us.  

Writing: I'm not sure I kept accurate records for correspondence. I mostly charted letters sent by snail mail or from my personal email. By not recording letters sent from my author email, I know these stats are incomplete. In all, I mailed 21 letters or packages (sometimes with my book), and sent 51 personal emails.

The biggest victory was resuming writing projects after a stroke of luck with my first goal in September of just putting in 20 minutes finding markets. I wrote and submitted 2 pieces in September (1 of those was published in a digital magazine). I spent 12 hours writing on 13/30 days in that month. In October, I worked on writing research for 100 minutes. I worked on 2 separate projects on 15/31 days for a total of 11.5 hours (8786 words). In November, I spent an hour on writing research. I participated in the Rabbit Room's Poem-a-Day challenge, completing 20 poems from the 30 prompts. Plus, I started a non-fiction book project, working on 22/30 days for a total of 23-1/3 hours (24,867 words). This was nowhere close to the 50 thousand-plus words of Novembers past, but still an accomplishment. Then, as soon as Thanksgiving hit, I petered out to 1 writing day and 1 day reviewing the non-fiction work to date.

I set out to fast and pray, and to purge hoarded belongings. I suppose I met those goals, but wish I had done far better. If only I had known, at the outset of the year, that my husband hopes to move by fall of 2026. Yikes!

For the coming year, I'm not setting hard and fast goals (quantitative goals). At the end of 2025, I read an outstanding essay on Substack by Suleika Jaouad, called "Against Resolutions." The author argues that rituals are more effective than resolutions. "Where resolutions chase outcomes, rituals attend to process." Resolutions lead to all-or-nothing thinking. Michael Bierut said it is like walking a tightrope, where peril increases with each step, until you become convinced you'll never make it across. 

The author ends with this observation, "That's what ritual gives me now. Not a guarantee, not an outcome, not a transformation on a deadline, but a means of staying in motion without hardening, to keep my balance without gripping so tightly... no grand reinvention here--only the patient work of showing up, again and again, nudging myself millimeter by millimeter toward the person I'm becoming."

While I think I've already been focused on ritual, this year I am leaning into 3 words (not an annual word, but a word progression):

WATCH 🠊 WITNESS 🠊 SPREAD

WATCH, as in the sense of expectant anticipation. I want to watch for the return of Christ. I want to watch for God's intervention in our lives (and especially in the life of my prodigal son).

"The end of all things is at hand; be ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer." - 1 Peter 4:7

"Therefore let us not sleep, as others; but let us watch and be sober." - 1 Thessalonians 5:6

"Continue in prayer, and watch in the same with thanksgiving." - Colossians 4:2

"Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man." - Luke 21:36

WITNESS, as in what you see when you watch. I want to witness God's moving and transforming power.

"Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will shew to you today." - Exodus 14:13

WITNESS, as in give a testimony of the gospel's power transforming my life. I want to seize more opportunities (whatever He gives) to share my faith.

"Shew how great things God hath done unto thee." - Luke 8:39

"And with great power gave the apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus: and great grace was upon them all." - Acts 4:33

"And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death." - Revelation 12:11

SPREAD, as in disseminate God's Word into the world. I started this year's devotions adding a book by Cheryl Ford, called Triumphs of the Heart: The Pursuit of Joyful Living. In one of the first sections, she considers the watchful heart of Anna in the Bible. From this chapter, I found my verse for 2026:

"But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ and through us spreads everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of him." - 2 Corinthians 2:14