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Book Review: Dawn of Grace

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Dawn of Grace
by Jill Eileen Smith

My rating: 2.5 / 5
Genre: Biblical fiction

Dawn of Grace is the fictional story of Mary Magdalene, from the perspective of Mary herself, starting in her childhood, when the author imagines that she might have first become possessed by the demons that the Bible says Jesus cleansed her of, through the death and resurrection of Jesus. The first portion of the book, when Mary is possessed and dealing with that for years, is intentionally and understandably dark and depressing. Some readers may struggle with the details of the spirits that Mary lets in, so let that be a warning if that might be you. I didn’t have any issue with that, though I have to admit to being a little confused that Mary seems to believe that they are the spirits of her relatives, while also being fully aware that they are demons (does that mean she thinks her loved ones died and became demons?). And demonic possession is apparently rampant in her world (which makes sense, since Jesus and his disciples did cast demons out of a good amount of people in the Bible), so again, it seems strange that she didn’t know what she was getting herself into. But maybe she came to learn about other possessed people as she grew up and I just didn’t pick up on that. Outside of my confusion, though, I felt Smith does a great job here showing Mary’s desperation by the time she meets the “teacher who heals.”

Once Mary was cleansed and started to follow Jesus, I had two main issues with the story—one with the plot and one with the fictionalization. On the plot side, it just felt fairly slow to me. Because Mary is a woman, she spends a lot of her time (sometimes grudgingly, sometimes cheerfully) helping the other women prepare food. It’s just…not terribly interesting. And so many of Jesus’s teachings are re-hashed by “the men” and even Mary and the other women, as they try to make sense of what at the time must have truly been confounding, but again, in a fictional story, it’s just too much repetition to keep at least this reader engaged.

The other main issue I had was with the portrayal of Jesus. I’m not saying that Smith went against the Bible or included anything sacrilegious, but I think that we need to be really careful about any fictional portrayals of Jesus. Other biblical figures (humans themselves) are one thing, but this is God Himself in human form, and anything outside of what the Bible says He did or said is purely human invention. Smith does use Scripture for a majority of his dialog, but the rest of his words, actions, or feelings made me a little uneasy. I worry that there are people who don’t necessarily know how to draw that line, and presenting extra-biblical portrayals of God or Jesus to people like that could cause trouble. This concern isn’t specific to this book, but something I realized as I read. And it made me realize why other fictionalized portrayals of Jesus have set me on edge in the past; I think what this tells me is that I need to avoid biblical fiction that is likely to include Christ himself as a character. (Though I did once read a biblical fiction book that showed Jesus in a private moment, and the author still used Scripture for his words, which I really appreciated.) Even beyond my concern about the character of Jesus having extra-biblical words and actions, there’s also the incongruity of all of the fictional dialog with what is directly out of the Bible. Though Smith’s dialog isn’t exactly modern, it’s different enough from NIV dialog to be a bit jolting to me. 

Overall, the book fell short of my expectations, but I think many people would easily overlook the things that brought the rating down for me. So as always, please check out the link below to see other reviews if you’re interested in reading this book.

Thank you to Netgalley and Revell for providing me a copy of this book to review.

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Book Review: Moonleapers

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Moonleapers
Book #1
by Margaret Peterson Haddix

My rating: 4 / 5
Genre: Middle grade science fiction

The good news is that 12-year-old Maisie is finally getting a phone like everyone at school. The bad news is that her family is going to spend the summer in Maryland so her mom can be with her great-aunt who is dying. A mysterious text on the phone that actually used to belong to Great-Aunt Hazel, a blank book, and a brief phone call from a dying woman launch Maisie into the world of moonleaping.

The official synopsis gives as little clue about what moonleaping is and what angle this sci-fi book takes as I did above, so it sort of feels like a spoiler to explain. But the info is available in the genre sections on both Goodreads and Amazon, and I really don’t think I can write this review very well without stating it, but I’ll still try to be vague. This book is an interesting take on time travel, especially since there’s technically no travel involved. It’s all about communicating with other times, not traveling there. I’m the kind of person who really appreciates a time travel story that is well done, where connections to the past or the future are made well and flow in the way that would make the most sense if time travel were real. And though there are definitely some liberties taken here that are somewhat common in this genre, they really worked for me. I can’t explain further, but I actually got really excited by a sort of twist that the author brought out later in the book to make the time travel angle work in a fresh way.

The story and journey along the way to Maisie discovering what she can do and what she’s supposed to do with it are maybe a little on the slower side, but I was never bored. As the set-up for more to come now that Maisie knows about her moonleaping abilities, the book did what it needed to do and gave plenty of intrigue along the way. Some things are left unexplained—maybe they’ll be explained in a future book, but to be honest, they didn’t feel to me like loose enough threads to be certain they’ll ever be explained. Though that doesn’t make me want an explanation any less. Then there were other aspects that I wish had simply been fleshed out more in the plot, especially some details related to the climax. Also, Maisie’s younger siblings at times acted or talked older than their ages, especially her brother, which threw me off now and then.

Overall, though, I enjoyed this book and am already looking forward to the next one, even though this one won’t be released for over a month! I do recommend this book for anyone who likes mystery and intrigue and light time travel elements. It is middle grade fiction, but I don’t think the younger audience makes the story any less readable for adults.

Thank you to Netgalley and HarperCollins Children’s Books for providing me a copy of this book to review.
Publication date: September 16, 2025

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Book Review: The Collector of Burned Books

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The Collector of Burned Books
by Roseanna M. White

My rating: 3 / 5
Genre: Historical Christian romance

When the Nazis invade Paris, they also take over a library full of books that were banned in Germany. The man sent to catalogue and update this and other libraries in Paris is Christian Bauer, who is only a Nazi officer as a means for survival. Corinne Bastien, a neighbor of the library and regular frequenter, makes herself a target of Christian and some of his Nazi compatriots when she sneaks into the library to try to recover some secrets she’d left behind. But Christian doesn’t want to cause problems for her any more than he does anyone else. Will he be able to stay true to his beliefs when his superiors push for destruction?

I was excited to read this book, because I read and loved White’s The Imposters series, set in Edwardian England, and I enjoy WWII fiction. However, it felt a little off to me. Corinne was a pretty terrible resistance worker, leaving evidence sitting around and drawing so much attention to herself. By the end of the book, the Nazis involved felt a little too much like an idealized version of what I’m used to, both in fiction and non-fiction. I actually hoped for information in an author’s note explaining why White made some of the choices she did—factual evidence or anecdotes to explain why most of the German soldiers and authorities in this book are, frankly, more polite and forgiving than how they’re usually portrayed, but there was nothing. It just felt somehow like the stakes and consequences were lower than they should be, given the setting.

On the plus side, Christian is a very sympathetic male hero. My favorite moments in this book are related to his story. I appreciate that his faith and devotion to his homeland require him to walk a thin line between going along with the Nazi Party and doing what he believes is right. And yet, he questions whether he is sinning when he lies to protect a life. I’m not sure I would agree with the line drawn here in answer to that question, but I also can readily admit that none of us knows for sure what we would do in this kind of situation. The main characters in the book are Catholic and observe various practices that are extra-biblical at best. This is probably not the best platform to go into detail or start a debate, but I think some people would appreciate knowing this information in advance. Overall, the book fell short of my expectations, but I think many people would easily overlook the things that brought the rating down for me.

Thank you to Netgalley and Tyndale House Publishers for providing me a copy of this book to review.

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Book Review: Cloaked in Beauty

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Cloaked in Beauty
by Karen Witemeyer

My rating: 2 / 5
Genre: Historical Christian romance

Scarlett Radcliffe is heir to a fortune left to her by her late father. But her father’s brother wants the inheritance for himself and is willing to kill to get it. To keep her safe from her uncle, Scarlett’s mother sends her away from the age of 6 until her 21st birthday, when she will be able to fully inherit the fortune and hopefully give her uncle no more cause to pursue her. When that time comes, Pinkerton agent Philip Carmichael is sent by Scarlett’s mother to bring her home safely.

It was difficult to find much to like about this book for me. A lot of it is personal preference, the most glaring one being that the romance was far too big a part of the plot and steamier than I prefer, especially in Christian fiction. I’ll address that last part first for others who are like me and want to know about this kind of thing before deciding to read a book. Other reviewers will call the romance sweet and clean, and I’m not disputing that there was nothing graphic or even all that physical involved. But the bulk of the plot seemed to consist of the author finding ways to put the two main characters (physically) close together so they could “notice” each other and have flutterings and such. I’m not going to go on at length about this, but I will just say that I was left with the feeling that the author really wanted to write mainstream romance but was stuck writing Christian romance for whatever reason and so skirts as close to the line as she can get away with. This may seem harsh and is probably completely untrue, but some scenes are close to the line, at least in my view. And even beyond those issues, physical attraction is not the same as romance. To me, it usually just means that the author doesn’t really know how to write real chemistry and connection between two characters and has to resort to physical sparks and even lust.

Now for the rest—the plot was fairly predictable and the characters were one-dimensional. I’d be hard-pressed to tell you a single flaw that either of the MCs had, other than maybe them both being stubborn, but even that trait is shown more as a strength than a weakness. The villain is ultimately an unnecessary, replaceable cliché, and I think that, had more time been spent on the rest of the plot and less on the time the two MCs traveled together, the story and characters could have been more fleshed out. This book, and the series it’s part of, is billed as a fairy tale retelling. I don’t read a lot of retellings, and I did see a lot of allusions to the two fairy tales mentioned (“Little Red Riding Hood” and “Sleeping Beauty”)—though much more the former than the latter—it didn’t seem like what I’d call a retelling. That didn’t bother me or affect my rating, but I thought it was worth mentioning. 

I don’t like to write reviews like this, and I did give the book 2 stars, mostly because the characters do trust God pretty unwaveringly in the story and because it just doesn’t feel like a 1-star book. But I was fairly bored during most of the middle and ended up doing a LOT of skimming. I wouldn’t personally recommend this book, but if you are not bothered by the things I mentioned in my review, please check out the link below to read the positive reviews and decide if this is a book for you.

Thank you to Netgalley and Bethany House for providing me a copy of this book to review.

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Book Review: Dogged Pursuit

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Dogged Pursuit
Andy Carpenter #31
by David Rosenfelt
read by Grover Gardner

My rating: 4 / 5
Genre: Mystery

In this prequel to the 30-book series, Andy Carpenter is a new defense attorney, making the change from prosecution, against the advice of so many. With his marriage a little uncertain and wanting to make further changes in his life, Andy goes to the shelter to adopt a dog and falls in love with a golden retriever named Tara. He doesn’t want to split her up from the dog she’s been sharing a space with, so he tries to adopt both Tara and Sunny. However, Sunny is mixed up in a criminal case with her owner, who is currently being charged with murder. Soon enough, Andy is mixed up in that criminal case too, as he ends up taking Sunny’s owner on as a client.

I’m never sure what to expect with a prequel, and I’ll admit that I was a little nervous going into this one. At the beginning of the book, there’s a note where Rosenfelt acknowledges that there is a continuity issue with Tara, mostly that he knows a golden retriever wouldn’t actually live as long as she does throughout this series. I wouldn’t have questioned that, but I did question the use of some side characters who, from what I can remember of when they were introduced in some of the earlier books in the main series, didn’t seem to have the history with Andy that this book showed.

Leaving aside continuity questions (which was not difficult for me to do, especially considering that I was sad about the potential loss of Andy’s team, yet several of them are still here), this book was a fun, new take on the series while still having the same cleverness and humor that I love about the series. The formula is mostly intact, even with this being a prequel. I could see this being a good place for someone new to the series to start reading, though it’s definitely more similar in style to the later books than the earlier ones. Either way, I recommend this book (especially the audio) for fans of mystery, crime fiction, and courtroom dramas, whether you’ve read any of this series before  or not.

Thank you to Netgalley and St. Martin’s Press for providing me a copy of this book to review.

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Book Review: Night Swimming

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Night Swimming
by Aaron Starmer

My rating: 3.5 / 5
Genre: YA fantasy romance

After graduating high school in 1994, Sarah and Trevor decide to swim every pool in their small town, without permission, in an effort to make the last summer before they move on with their lives last as long as they can. Then they hear about a natural pool in the woods that they know they need to check out. And what they discover there might just turn their dream of making the summer last into a reality.

The premise of this book was fairly vague but intriguing, so at only around 240 pages, I decided to give it a try. The book is fairly straight-forward for a while—Trevor likes Sarah, but she has an on-again-off-again boyfriend and keeps him at arm’s length. He goes along with her plan to swim all of the pools as a way of spending time with her, though he understandably begins to get annoyed with her flirtation, since she’s not ready to let go of her boyfriend yet. Then when they get to the mysterious pool in the woods, the story takes a turn. It becomes more of an introspection on life, romance, youth, and moving on. It’s a little slow overall, a little bizarre, and has an odd, yet not unsatisfying, ending. It’s interesting, but I don’t really feel like it added a lot of value to my life, especially since there’s a fair amount of emphasis on alcohol, drugs, and sex as normal parts of life for teenagers (even in the 90s). I am not sure what kind of reader to recommend this to, so I’d just say that if the premise sounds interesting to you, by all means check it out.

Thank you to Netgalley and Penguin Young Readers Group for providing me a copy of this book to review.

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Book Review: Murder Between Friends

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Murder Between Friends
by Liz Lawson

My rating: 3 / 5
Genre: YA mystery thriller

Grace, Henry, and Ally have been friends for a long time, growing up near each other. Then Henry’s brother Jake was arrested for the murder of a teach at their school, and Claire’s testimony helped clinch the conviction. Two years later, Jake’s conviction has been vacated due to impropriety during the trial. Ally wants to help her best friend’s brother by starting her own investigation, and even though Claire is beginning to question what she saw the night of the murder, Ally wants nothing to do with her traitorous ex-friend. 

I wanted to like this book, as much as anything because I wanted to be able to recommend it to my teenage daughter who loves YA mysteries and thrillers. But in the end, the characters kind of killed it for me. The plot was okay—nothing more or less than you’d really expect for this genre, but decent enough. The story is told in alternating POVs between the three once-friends, 1st person and present-tense in each. (Note on that: an author needs to be really good at writing different voices to pull off multiple 1st person POVs well, and this author probably should have made a different choice. The characters mostly all sounded the same.) Ally got on my nerves with her constant and never-ending, or even lessening, hatred and anger toward Claire. Claire starting to doubt what she thought she saw the night of the murder was an interesting angle that wasn’t used well. Her POV was kind of bogged down by “domestic” minutiae. And Henry mostly just seemed sort of wishy-washy. I didn’t connect with any of the characters, which made the book feel a bit like a slog.

In the end, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the book, exactly (well, other than a larger-than-normal number of typos for a traditionally published book, but those might have been fixed before it was published), but I was probably the wrong audience for it. Even my daughter, who often enjoys books that I don’t, is planning to pass on reading this after I told her about my issues with the characters. Still,  if you’re a fan of young adult mysteries and thrillers, you might consider checking out other reviews at the link below to see what others who liked it more than I did thought.

Thank you to Netgalley and Delacorte Press for providing me a copy of this book to review.

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Book Review: Framed

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Framed
by John Grisham & Jim McCloskey

My rating: 4 / 5
Genre: True crime

This collection of 10 stories of innocent people who were convicted of terrible crimes was difficult to read. Though these incidents mostly happened decades ago and often involved the presence of bodily fluid that couldn’t be tested against suspects due to DNA testing not existing back then, I wouldn’t be surprised to know that these kind of injustices still happen now. After the first 4-5 stories, though, they became a little repetitive. I don’t want to diminish what these people have been through—and some are still going through—but I considered stopping partway through when I could too easily anticipate how the rest of the stories would go. 

Another reason I struggled to read the book was due to the matter-of-fact and graphic nature in which some of the terrible acts were described, particularly multiple sexual crimes, one of a child. So let that be a warning to anyone who is interested in the book but wouldn’t want to read about those kinds of things. I applaud both McCloskey and Grisham, though, for desiring to bring these terrible facts to light and appreciate that people like McCloskey work tirelessly to bring the truth to light. Most fans of true crime will likely enjoy this book, especially if they’re interested in organizations like the Innocence Project or Centurion Ministries (which was founded by McCloskey).

Thank you to Netgalley and Doubleday Books for providing me a copy of this book to review.

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Book Review: I See You’ve Called in Dead

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I See You’ve Called in Dead
by John Kenney

My rating: 2.5 / 5
Genre: Contemporary fiction

After a failed blind date, obituary writer Bud Stanley gets drunk and publishes an outlandish, completely fictional obituary…for himself. The company he works for suspends him and then finds out they can’t fire him, because the system thinks he’s dead. Meanwhile, Bud starts to attend funerals of strangers, prompted by an intriguing young woman who suggests that it might help him learn how to live.

I requested this book on NetGalley because it was listed as humor/satire. Between that and the premise, I thought it would be somewhat lighthearted (or at least darkly humorous) and involve a lot more of what would happen in a situation where his job wanted to fire him but couldn’t. Neither of these things is true. There are a few witty or snarky comments here and there, and I did note at least one scene with satire, but overall, the book is mostly slow and depressing. And his job is so in the background that he only goes there a few times throughout the book. I know that I am the absolutely wrong audience for this, though, so I am not going to spend a lot of time describing what I didn’t like about it. Bud is reeling from a nasty divorce (his wife cheated on him in a particularly bad way), which explains his mental state. However, he’s surrounded by pretty good friends who are giving him some great advice. Yet he mostly just floats through life, not really taking charge at all. His mom died when he was a teenager, which is also something he doesn’t seem to have fully processed and dealt with, even though he went to therapy for a while. Maybe he stopped too soon.

The book is full of introspection and discussion about deep topics, during which Bud often responds flippantly and makes me want to smack him. There’s also a lot of description, which I tended to skim. Overall, the book is about someone halfheartedly trying to find the meaning to life, so if that interests you, you might like this book a lot more than I did. I know, though, that looking for the meaning of life without God (not that there’s never any mention of God in this book, but He certainly isn’t seen as the answer to Bud’s problems) is completely pointless. And, though there were a few decent moments, “pointless” pretty well sums up how this book felt to me.

Thank you to Netgalley and Zibby Publishing for providing me a copy of this book to review.

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Book Review: Storm Warning

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Storm Warning
by Elizabeth Goddard

My rating: 2.5 / 5
Genre: Christian romantic suspense

Remi Grant has come to Hidden Bay, a remote resort where visitors come to watch storms on the coast, to try to recover memories lost during a traumatic event that seems to have left her a target by unknown persons. Hawk Beckett has come to Hidden Bay to forget a recent tragedy that cost him his job and the life of a friend. When a masked menace seems to be stalking Remi and Hawk saves her life multiple times, they realize that they may already be more connected than they realize.

The thing I liked most about this book was the setting—the descriptions of the ocean, forest, and storms were all really immersive. Unfortunately, I found the characters and story only okay. I didn’t get much of a feel for Remi’s character at all, and the only real personality I could ascribe to Hawk is that he’s protective (which is fairly standard fair for the MMC in a book like this). I do like that he’s trying to track down a certain person (don’t want to spoil anything) to try to turn him around (from the “dark side” as is so often said by different characters). The book takes place over only about 4 days, and by the end of the first day, which is quite a ways into the book, Remi and Hawk are already trying to talk themselves out of wanting a future with each other. It’s just too fast of a connection like that for my taste, though I understand that a romance book with such a short timeline would require a quick connection. I didn’t see that connection as natural, though, and besides, maybe in a case like this, it doesn’t always have to involve romance that is actually acted upon by the end of the book. 

The writing is a bit stilted as well, both in the prose and in the dialog. I struggled a lot with the flow and pacing and ended up skimming a lot to get past multiple paragraphs that rehashed the same musings about Remi’s missing memories or Hawk’s difficulties. The book is billed as Christian, but it’s barely that. Not that I need every Christian-genre book to have some kind of strong message, but it’s mostly silent, single-sentence prayers every once in a while, pleading with God for other characters to be all right. Hawk, at least, does have a bit of a progression of his faith, but it’s fairly meager as well.

I don’t think the book was bad, exactly, but I’m learning that this sub-genre of books may just not be for me. It’s clean overall—no language and light on the violence—and though the Christianity in it is a little light, based on other reviews, I think it’s safe to say that if you’re interested in this type of book, you should check it out. There are plenty of reviews in favor of it, so be sure to read some of those too.

I received a free review copy from the publisher in exchange for my honest unedited feedback.
Publication date: February 18, 2025

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