IT'S ALL ABOUT WORDS

Words have fascinated me as long as I can remember.  My mother said I was walking and talking before I reached ten months old, but a serious injury a few months later left me silent until I was nearly two. Between my own curiosity and my older sister's diligence in sharing all she learned in first grade, I began reading at four.  I don't recall what I read at that early age except every time my Dad bought gas in the nearby town of Arco I read Boyd's Coal on the side of the building next door and Nehi Orange on the pop bottle he handed me and I had to finish drinking before we left the service station.  Several farm magazines, The Children's Friend, and the Saturday Evening Post arrived regularly in our mailbox.  My mother had a collection of storybooks she shared with me and my siblings. My older brothers and sister brought books home from school, which I read or they read to me. As you can see, I began reading whatever I could get my hands on at an early stage. 

It's not just reading and talking I like, I like words, individual words and words strung together in sentences.  Some words feel good to say.  Some give me a sense of pride because I can spell them.  Some words can brighten an otherwise dismal day. I find it interesting that some words sound like the object or feeling they represent, some don't even come close.  Many lovely sounding words have not-so-pleasant meanings.  It seems such a shame to waste words like diarrhea and pneumonia on such unpleasant meanings.  On the other hand scrumptious just sounds--well, scrumptious. There are some words I avoid speaking aloud because though I know the meaning and the spelling of the words, I've never heard them spoken and have no idea how to pronounce them.  It is said that most people have a far larger reading vocabulary than speaking vocabulary.  That's certainly true in my case.   

Some words cut and hurt.  Some are offensive.  I try to avoid these.  It seems odd that people with the most limited vocabularies are the ones most inclined to depend on offensive words in their communication efforts.   

Words go through a sort of evolution, changing with time and succeeding generations.  Thongs, square, stud, and so many other words no longer mean the same things they did when I was growing up.  In Nephi's day goodly was an adjective meaning someone with a lot of goods or in other words someone wealthy.  Later goodly became a measurement signifying a lot of something.  Today goodly is often assumed to be an adverb referring to character or behavior and is seldom used in modern written or spoken communication. 

The meanings of words are sometimes confused because some words are spelled differently and have different meanings, but sound the same.  Unfortunately meanings are sometimes confused because of similar roots.  Recently I heard someone referred to as onerous when the speaker meant ornery. And who hasn't heard someone say he or she was nauseous?  

Words are powerful.  They give us the means to communicate with others.  They give us the means to support, show kindness, share our thoughts, entertain, soothe, and work together.  Unfortunately they also give us the means to hurt, demean, mislead, misunderstand, bully, and offend others.  It's no wonder wise people have cautioned us to choose our words wisely, not say anything if we can't say something nice, and to speak no evil.  

Words are, of course, the tools of my trade.  Without words I couldn't be a writer. With the passage of years I've learned many words, mostly English (American), but I've picked up a smattering of words in a few other languages and consider myself richer for adding them to my vocabulary.  If asked what is my favorite part of writing, I'd have to say words.

A BIT OF ADVICE

My sessions with the physical therapist always start with twenty minutes in a darkened room with a compression ice machine attached to my knee.  Other than feeling like I'm in a refrigerator this is a relaxing time to just think before I begin a rigorous physical workout to strengthen my knee and relearn how to walk.  During my last session my thoughts turned to some of the advice my parents and others have given me through the years.  Much of it was in the form of clichés, but over the years I've found truth in some of their advice, sometimes humor, and I've even found myself repeating these cautionary words of advice to my children and grandchildren. Though some of this advice has proved helpful, I've also found some well meaning advice to be completely useless, but memorable. 

More and more I find truth in the advice my dad gave me when he taught me to drive.  "Every other car has a drunk behind the wheel and the one in between is driven by a fool," he advised me as he attempted to teach me caution.  And "Never argue the right of way with a truck; there's no value in being dead right." 

When I used to run and was feeling badly because I'm not a fast runner, my brother gave me this bit of advice, "You don't have to be the fastest runner.  If a bear is chasing you, you only have to be faster than one other runner."

I overheard a son-in-law giving this advice to a nephew just before his nephew's wedding.  "There are only two rules you have to follow to have a good marriage. Rule one--she's right.  Number two--refer to rule one."

 

My mother always cautioned me to like and respect myself.  She said if I didn't I couldn't expect anyone else to. 

Whenever I tried to rush through a task, Mama always asked me, "If you don't have time to do the job right, when will you find time to do it over?"

My Grandpa Snowball was an interesting man who led an interesting life and built many of the dams and bridges in Idaho and Wyoming.  He was seldom without a thick wad of chewing tobacco in his mouth.  He also had a parrot that knew every swear word ever invented.  He advised me to eat pie and ice cream for breakfast so I'd get the milk, eggs, and fruit I needed to grow strong. Grandma advised him to keep his vulgar-mouthed parrot locked up when the grandkids visited. 

A classmate in high school advised me to take up drinking since I planned to be a writer.  He assured me that only alcoholics who live in unheated attics become successful writers. 

Somewhere I picked up some sound advice against becoming a know-it-all or paying too much attention to opinionated people: "Those who know the least know it the loudest. 

I've been told by more than one person in the writing/publishing field that a writer should pick one genre and stick to it, "establish your brand as one particular type of writer".  I haven't done this and I'm glad.  Writers who follow this advice may achieve more fame and make more money than I have, but I've had a grand time writing for every section of the newspaper, dabbling in magazine articles, delving into short stories, and researching and writing novels in half a dozen different genres. 

When I was a college student someone gave me a little framed motto for my birthday.  It said "Anything worth doing, is worth doing for money."  At the time I thought it was very clever and hung it on my wall.  Now the motto that graces the door to my office is one given to me by Cheri Crane, a fellow writer.  It reads, "I'm a woman of many moods, and they all require chocolate."  How my understanding of great advice has changed over the years!

There is some advice that seems to be timeless and we're all familiar with "Don't start a trip without clean underwear for in case you're in an accident" and "If your friends jumped off a cliff, would you jump too?"  Cliché, but they still provoke thought.   I've shared a small part of the advice I grew up with.  Now I'd love it if you'd tell me of the memorable advice you've received.

Adding books to Summer Trek List

I've read most of the books on my Summer  Book Trek list except Swept Up by the Sea by Tracy and Laura Hickman and In the Shadow of an Angel by Lynn Larson.  I'm adding a few other books to the list:
The House at Rose Creek by Jenny Proctor
Be Mine by Sandra Norton Flynn
The Grecian Princess by N.C. Allen

I won one of the prizes already, a book I've already read, but will be happy to pass on to a granddaughter.  It's not too late to join.  Click the icon above to learn all of the details and register.

THREE ROMANCES

 

Romance novels outsell all other fiction.  Though women are the assumed target marketing group, many are also read by men.  Even books that aren't specifically romance novels usually contain elements of romance. Romance is often combined with another genre giving us Romantic Suspense, Western Romance, Historical Romance, Fantasy Romance, and even tie ins to Science Fiction.  In the past couple of years a branch of Historical fiction known as Regency Romance has gained stunning popularity with LDS readers.  Edenbrooke, a Regency Romance by Julianne Donaldson was awarded top honors at the last Whitney Awards Gala. 

Over the past month or so, I've read three excellent romance novels that I would recommend to anyone who enjoys a good story.  They're not the kind of mush that turns off many readers when romance is mentioned.  They're two regencies by two excellent authors who have become well known and a medieval romance by another superb storyteller.  Because I review LDS themed novels for Meridian Magazine, I try not to review novels with no LDS connection very often there, so I've chosen to discuss these three novels here. 

Sarah Eden's Glimmer of Hope is based on a misunderstanding which is generally a no-no in Romance fiction.  In this case, however, it works.  A young husband with strong political ambitions, who is still too dependent on his parents, leaves his bride for a trip to London.  She was to have gone with him, but at his father's urging, she is left behind.  An emergency arises and she sets out for her grandfather's estate.  Their correspondence with each other goes "astray" and they are both convinced the other has abandoned their marriage.  Imagine their surprise when they find themselves three years later unexpectedly sharing a house for Christmas.  What begins with a great deal of antagonism and mistrust slowly evolves into a glimpse of what the other has gone through in the years they've been apart and the realization of how they've been betrayed.  Eden does an excellent job of slowly revealing the dreadful loss this pair has suffered and of painting a glimmer of hope for their future.  

Eden draws her characters against a well-researched backdrop of the politics, the class distinctions, and the customs of the regency period in England.  The plot is developed well.  The characters are believable, though I found Carter, the young husband, a little spineless at first.  Fortunately he matures a great deal.  I couldn't help wondering if the couple reunited, what the repercussions of a future pregnancy might be. 

Blackmoore by Julianne Donaldson is also a Regency and I've seldom felt more sympathy for a character than for Kate Worthington, the book's major character.  In an era with an emphasis on manners, she finds herself a social outcast because of her parents.  Her father is a drunk and her mother is a tramp.  She has several sisters who all take after their mother.  Her mother and sisters embarrass her at every turn.  Since childhood Kate has turned to a neighbor her age and the friend's older brother.  He saved her life when she jumped into a river to save kittens someone tried to drown and that was the beginning of her awareness that she was in love with Henry, the heir to Blackmoore manor and estate.  Knowing Henry's mother has made certain he will lose his inheritance if he marries her, Kate vows to never marry and instead longs to accept an aunt's invitation to accompany her on a trip to India.  It has always been Kate's dream to visit Blackmoore and when Henry invites her against his mother's wishes, the visit is more nightmare than dream.  Her mother coerces her into an agreement that if she receives and turns down three proposals while at Blackmoore, she'll stop trying to force Kate into an unwelcome marriage and allow her to go to India. Watching Henry with the young woman his mother has chosen to be his bride and struggling to obtain the three proposals fills Kate with a great deal of misery.
 

Donaldson has a way of making the reader see and feel the moors and the ocean and ache for a young girl with no choices or options in her life.  Not only does she give a strong view of the way of life in England during the Regency period, but she makes a strong social statement on a way of life that offered women and those of a lower social rank a bleak existence.

I've mentioned The Knight of Redmond by Jennifer K. Clark before, but I'll say more about it now.  This story takes place many years before the Regency period during a time when feudal lords ruled and fought for supremacy.  Lily wants desperately to know more of life and have a better chance at marriage than is granted her as the daughter of the village "witch."  She's really a midwife and herbalist. Her uncle begins a journey with her to a cousin who has agreed to sponsor her, but they encounter difficulty and become separated, leaving her to flee for her life.  She encounters a young knight from a rival land and though she doesn't trust him, they join forces to protect the ruling family and her own relatives, though her family long ago turned their backs on her and her mother.

The characters in this book cover a broad spectrum of personalities. Their prejudices and religious beliefs play a strong role in their actions and motives. Conquest and force are part of their way of life with its attendant cruelties and abuses.  Lily begins as a victim of her family and her village with narrow goals and a great deal of resentment toward her mother and everyone else.  As the story progresses she discovers her own strengths, acknowledges her love for her mother and her uncle, discovers she isn't who she thought she was, and learns to trust her own strengths and intelligence. It's a very well told story of a period of history shrouded in darkness and superstition.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, AMERICA!

America, land that I love.  Since I was a small child I've been curious about other countries and through the years I've found a great deal to love and admire about most countries, yet deep inside of me I've thrilled to know that I am an American. What it means to be an American is difficult to put into words because it is a concept only understood by my heart. On this, our nation's birthday, I'll try to express a few of the things my country means to me. 

Freedom comes first to my mind.  To be able to worship as I choose, to get an education and to continue to learn in any field I choose, to develop my own interests and talents, to work and set my own goals, to live where I choose, and to share my life with the people with whom I most wish to be, are some of the aspects of freedom that matter to me.   

I love this land; the mountains, the streams, the fields and meadows, the deserts, the small towns, and the cities. There's a rich diversity of land and land uses across this country and I love the variety.  There's a feeling of pride in knowing America is the home of many natural resources such as rich soil, water, timber, coal, oil, most minerals and gems, rain, wind, and sun. 

The history of this nation brings a swell of pride for the heroes who sacrificed to make and keep this a free nation. It is a melting pot of immigrants from all over the world who have given much to form a nation where race and old world biases are softened, blended, and done away with to form a new people, Americans. 

We have our share of traitors, weaknesses, and attempts to dominate others.  Unfortunately that seems to be part of being human.  Lately our country has been plagued by divisiveness as many have moved away from the strengths of our constitution and from God.  Unless we turn back to those values that made this a choice land, we stand to lose our most valued rights and freedoms. 

Over the many years I have celebrated America's birth I've stored a treasure trove of memories.  Some of my earliest celebration memories include watching my brothers and taking a turn cranking an ice cream freezer, sparklers whipping through the night sky, church bells, fireworks, picnics with Mama's potato salad, a watermelon snugged into a secure hole in an icy creek, marching in parades, then watching my children march with their school bands, foot races, rodeos, and breakfast on the back deck. And always the stars and stripes have flown proudly at our house, led the parades, and adorned our neighborhoods. 

If I were blowing out the candles on America's birthday cake, my wish would be that our nation would continue for many more years to be a Godly nation filled with freedom, respect for one another, peace, and prosperity.  Happy Birthday America!

Summer Book Trek

There's a Summer Book Trek again this summer sponsored by New LDS Fiction.  One of the requirements to join and be eligible for some great prizes is to publish a list of the books participants plan to read this summer.  Here's my list, which will be added to as new books arrive:

Family Size by Maria Hoagland
Through Cloud and Sunshine by Dean Hughes
Glimmer of Hope by Sarah M. Eden
Longing for Home by Sarah M. Eden
In the Shadow of an Angel by Lynn Larson
Belonging to Heaven by Gale Sears
Blackmoore by Julianne Donaldson
Swept up by the Sea by Tracy and Laura Hickman

Thoughts on Marriage

Yesterday morning the Supreme Court made decisions on two bills focusing on gay marriage with reckless disregard for the will of the people and thousands of years of precedent. The term gay marriage is an oxymoron, since the relationship between two people of the same gender will never be a marriage in the true sense no matter what it is called.  Marriage is a relationship ordained by God and has little to do with the legal definitions set out by people.  It's those man-made laws and definitions that need to be examined and in many cases corrected.  When two adults, not related by blood and whether or not there is a sexual relationship between them, live together for an extended period of time, share living expenses and provide moral support to each other, they should be entitled to certain rights if both parties so desire.  In my opinion if they're in an openly committed relationship they should be entitled to the same inheritance or survivorship rights as heterosexual couples, just don't call their arrangements  marriages. 

Society and government's interest in marriage has historically been based on protecting name and inheritance through the legitimacy of offspring and providing for the support of a dependant wife.  During periods when wives generally didn't collect pay checks or have the same educational benefits as their husbands, laws were enacted to protect them when they became widows with no means of support.  Divorce laws were written to recognize the years a woman spent raising her children and running her husband's home.  Society has changed and not many women aren't eligible for their own Social Security or inheritance benefits now and most can or do receive paychecks for their employment.  Perhaps it's time to re-examine laws concerning spousal dependency rather than change marriage.  

The worse bullies I've ever had the misfortune to have to work with were gay.  Yet one of the most competent and capable editors it has been my pleasure to work with was also gay. Several people I care deeply about profess to be gay and live a lifestyle that appears empty and shallow to me, but I see plenty of heterosexuals throw their lives away on meaningless pursuits as well. Competence, talent, and intelligence are not restricted to or absent from either homosexuals or heterosexuals. 

I've felt great compassion for two different young boys whose lives were made a sad circus by overbearing lesbian mothers more interested in forcing a political statement than the welfare of their children.  Two women I know who made big productions of coming out a few years ago, claiming to be lesbians, made me chuckle.  A year after their big announcement one married a man and was pregnant at her wedding. She now has nothing to do with her former partner.  The other one ended the long term relationship with another woman she was in, but remained long distance friends with her partner, who moved to another city.  A few years later she married a man who had been a friend for several years.  Gay couples don't hold a monopoly on arrested development or a lack of parenting skills. We all know heterosexual individuals who are immature, selfish, and poor parents.   

Most of what we hear from either the gay lobby or from the general public, psychologists included, is just hype meant to sway opinion one way or the other and is based on few facts.  There is no gay gene, some homosexuals can change if they want to, a rare few people are born with dual genitals (I knew a seven-year-old child with this problem years ago and I'm convinced no one deserves the hurt and embarrassment she went through before her parents agreed to surgery to remove the unneeded equipment.), there's no positive proof whether homosexuals are born, made, or choose to be gay (I suspect all three), but what we do know is that all people are God's children and as such should be treated with respect.  I'm tired of the accusations that anyone who doesn't support gay marriage is a bigot who hates gays.  Not so.  Most people I know, including me, have friends, co-workers, and family members who are gay and we certainly believe they have a right to careers, to buy homes, to rent apartments, and to patronize the same stores anyone else does. We love them and sympathize with their desire for acceptance. I also believe they are entitled to the same legal and financial benefits as anyone else. Rather than hate them, most people are more prone to pity them. 

Where we differ is in our willingness to set aside God's commandments concerning marriage, chastity, and establishing a stable environment for bearing and raising children.  Marriage isn't a right; it's a privilege, one granted by our Creator with strings attached.  Families in our society are under enough pressure today and face increasing problems.  Liberalizing and devaluing the marital relationship does no one any good. We should be working on stabilizing and supporting families, strengthening individuals, and becoming more obedient to God instead of promoting social divisions, undermining families, and creating judicial chaos.

Recommendations and a Review

I spend a lot of time reading and not every book I read works out for my review column.  I don't review YA but if anyone is looking for a really good book featuring teens but with a lot of appeal for adults, try Lair of the Serpent by T. Lynn Adams.  If you like books that make you laugh and say "been there, done that" take a look at Fatherhood the Manliest Profession by Matthew Buckley.  I wanted to review this one before Father's Day, but since portions are from an earlier book and I already had a review written for that week, so I didn't do it.  I still loved the book.  One more book that caught my fancy, but has no LDS references, so I reluctantly decided not to review it is The Knight of Redmond by Jennifer K. Clark, a medieval romance. I completely recommend all three of these books.

Here's another review I've had ready for awhile.  Tristi Pinkston's Till Death do us Part features Ida Mae Babbit's wedding preparations.  Being Ida Mae, of course there's a mystery involved.

Till Death Do Us Part by Tristi Pinkston 

Reviewed by Jennie Hansen

 

Tristi Pinkston is ending her Secret Sisters Mystery series with Till Death Do Us Part.  That title bothers me; shouldn't it be 'til not till?  Whatever, it's a fun read and as usual, features Ida Mae Babbitt and her friends, Arletta and Tansy. 

Ida Mae is surprised and excited by widower George Gilmore's proposal.  She met the gentleman in a previous book at a nursing home where he was a temporary patient.  She's also anxious to learn whether her nephew, Ren, or the young journalist, Kevin, will win Arlette's granddaughter, Eden's heart.  George springs one more surprise on her by requesting they get married in two weeks while his children who are visiting are still in town and that they get married in his back yard.  She agrees, but begins a hasty scramble to plan the wedding. On a hasty shopping trip before meeting with George and his family to work out details of the wedding, she discovers the perfect dress.  

Ida Mae is stunned to discover George's home isn't some simple little house with a tiny back yard, but a three story mansion in the most exclusive part of town.  The back yard is a carefully maintained formal garden. George's children don't seem too anxious to welcome her into the family and one daughter seems determined to take over the wedding plans, turning it into a major society event.  When George and Ida Mae escape to the roof for a breather marks the beginning of disasters.  First Ida Mae finds herself locked in an elevator, the dress she picked for her wedding is slashed to shreds, then what appeared to be intimidation turns to life threatening. 

Ida Mae isn't quite as brash in this volume as in the earlier books, but she's still a magnet for mystery and trouble.  She seems a little more mature and cautious too, though she doesn't hesitate to stand up for herself or to go looking for answers.  

Part of the fun of reading a mystery is the element of discovery, picking up on clues that eventually lead to the guilty party.  There aren't a lot of clues scattered through the story which leaves a lot of explaining following the denouement.  Since this is the final book in this series it leans heavily toward wrapping up the continuing story line that carried through the series from Ida Mae and her friends being released from their ward's  Relief Society due to skating a little too close to the law, the triangle relationship involving Eden, Ren, and Kevin, and the strained relationship between Ida Mae and her children.   

Tristi Pinkston is the author of fifteen published books.  She and her husband live in Utah with their four children where in addition to writing, she is a popular blogger, editor, and she frequently presents at various writers' conferences. 

* * *

TILL DEATH DO US PART by Tristi Pinkston, published by Walnut Springs Press, 245 pages. soft cover $17.99, available on Kindle.

 

MOMENTS REMEMBERED

A long time ago I taught a genealogy class that focused on writing personal histories.  I remember advising the various classes I taught to write about those little memories that keep coming to mind , not just the big, significant events.  It's important to include in a personal history facts such as when you were born, baptized, married, schools attended, etc., but it's also important to include memories of smaller events and occasions.  If a memory keeps rising to the surface, even if it seems unimportant, there's a reason and it should be written down.  Last night I had trouble falling asleep and half forgotten memories of some of those long ago minor happenings kept playing through my mind. Today I'm writing them down. 

Mama had a black box camera and because developing film was expensive, she didn't use it a lot.  But I remember one occasion when she lined up me, my sisters, and a little brother beside the house to take our picture.  It took too long and I wet my pants. It was a tragedy then, but I laugh every time I see that picture now. 

The farmer who lived on one farm before we did, raised radish seed.  My older sister and I found radishes growing along the ditches, in the hay field, and in other unexpected places that spring. Our play house, mud pies, and even the dinner table was well supplied with radishes. I'm not sure why I think of those radishes at odd times all these years later, but perhaps it's a reminder that seeds scattered to the wind will grow in unexpected places. 

My older brothers teased me a lot and one day one of them pinned me to a clothesline.  I was stuck until Mama noticed and came to my rescue. 

Colleen, my cousin, and I were crazy about horses.  Riding double on Flicka one day, we had a difference of opinion with the horse when she decided to evade a flock of sheep being herded through the barnyard by going inside the milk parlor.  A low hanging wire over the door that separated the milk parlor from the main part of the barn caught us under our chins, scraping us off the horse and onto the cement floor.  Colleen was scraped up, but I was knocked unconscious.  When I woke up I was in my bed and my cousin and her family had gone home.  I didn't even get to tell her it wouldn't have  happened if she hadn't insisted on holding the reins and steering the horse! 

When I was thirteen I became the owner of a huge Harley Davidson motorcycle.  Someone owed my dad money and couldn't pay him, so he gave him the bike as payment. Daddy didn't want the bike, but he knew it was the only payment he would get, and since I was impressed by the huge bike, he said I could have it.  I never rode it; I couldn't even stand it up, but it was mine--until we moved again and Daddy left it behind in a shed. 

It was the first year my husband and I had a full size Christmas tree instead of a small table top tree.  My brother cut the tree on his in-laws' farm.  We appreciated the gift, but we didn't have enough ornaments for it and no money to buy any.  Thinking I was being practical, I baked sugar cookies and my small daughter helped me decorate them.  We hung them on the tree and thought our tree was beautiful.  The next day we had to be gone all day and when we returned home we found the tree lying on its side with the cookies smashed beneath it and all over the room.  I was never sure if the weight of the cookies toppled the tree or if the cat had something to do with the tipped over tree. 

One summer day a Monarch butterfly adopted me.  Each time I stepped outside the door the butterfly would land on my arm and stay perched there until I went back inside the house.  My children and the neighbor children playing with them were so thrilled they begged me to stay outside, so I took a holiday from cleaning house, writing, and cooking to stay outside and play with the children--me and the butterfly. 

My son-in-law, Rich, and I like to fish.  Our family had journeyed to a favorite reunion ranch near Challis, Idaho, when one evening the two of us set out for a nearby stream for a little fishing without the kids.  We stopped at a bridge and cast in our lines.  He had a bite, then I had a bite.  Soon we were reeling in trout as fast as we could release and rebait. In twenty minutes or so we caught fourteen fish, most of which we released.  (We usually only keep the ones from which we can't remove the hook without injuring the fish.) Those fish barely let our lines hit the water before they bit. It was a fisherman's dream and struck us as funny.  We laughed and joked about those fish wanting so badly to be caught we could hardly stand up. 

I awoke in a strange bed in a motel room in another state to the whimpering cry of a baby.  My exhausted daughter slept through his cries, so I crept out of bed to gather him up from the crib the motel had provided for us.  My husband and I and our daughter had been up most of the night before frantically arranging early morning flights to an unfamiliar city to collect the infant our daughter and her military husband had been waiting for for ten long years.  Her husband was deployed so it was my husband and I who accompanied our daughter on that momentous trip. I took the baby back to my bed where I cuddled him and fed him a bottle, letting his new mommy sleep. Something happened as I held that baby and watched his little face in the dim light.  He became my grandson, not through shared blood, but through an invisible link from my heart to his that I knew was destined to last forever. 

Though it's the big occasions that are immortalized in photos and noted on diplomas, certificates, and news clippings, it is the little moments that make up a life.  It isn't the names, places, and dates with which we fill in the blanks on forms that sum up who we are as much as it is the memories, the unplanned moments, and the small things that string our days and years together.

ESTHER THE QUEEN

Here's another review from my backlog of reviews. 

 

ESTHER THE QUEEN by H. B. Moore, published by Covenant Communications, 217 pages, soft cover, $15.99, also available on CD and for e-readers. 

Confession time!  I've always cringed a bit when it comes to fictionalized accounts of scriptural stories.  Most feel a little on the sacrilegious side to me and I have a strong preference for sticking to the scriptural account without the make believe drama and supposed inner thoughts and feelings of a biblical or Book of Mormon character added.  I make an exception for H.B. Moore.  Moore writes a great fictional romance, but it is her attention to historical detail and doctrinal accuracy surrounding her fictional tale that I find impressive. 

Women are definitely in the minority in the scriptures, but every little girl who ever attended Sunday School grew up admiring Esther, the Jewish girl who became a queen and saved her people from annihilation.  Moore whose previous scriptural historical novels have been centered on the Book of Mormon, chose to base her most recent book Esther the Queen, on the beautiful, young Jewess girl who became a biblical heroine.

Yes, she invented a charming love story for the Persian King Xerxes and Esther wherein they meet through a Cinderella-like story and he goes in search of the beautiful girl who caught his eye during the unexpected encounter, vowing to make her his queen.  But it is the details concerning the Jews precarious position in Persia, the year long wait in the palace harem before the wedding takes place, and the intricacies of Persian politics, religion, and law that make the story particularly fascinating.   

Esther is a story of courage.  It's the story of a young woman who chooses to leave her familiar world not because she lacks faith, but because she feels it is what God wants her to do.  Knowing her predecessor was divorced for refusing a request made by her husband, Esther knew approaching him when and where she did was a serious step that could cost her life.  She knowingly chose to try to save her people at the risk of her marriage, her comfortable life, and possibly her own life. 

Though it's a familiar story, Moore instills a new vitality to the story, making it easy for the reader to get caught up in the plot.  In her hands Esther and Xerxes both become warm and real.   

Heather B. Moore who writes historicals under H.B. Moore is the recipient of numerous awards.  She not only writes scripturally based historical fiction, but is the author of a couple of non-fiction titles, and has recently made a foray into romance and women's fiction. She manages Precision Editing and is a BYU graduate.  She, her husband, and their young family live in Utah.