The Redeemed Reader: Cultivating a Child’s Discernment and Imagination Through Truth and Story
By: Janie Cheaney, Betsy Farquhar, Hayley Morell, & Megan Saben

“When we acknowledge and praise what is good and true and beautiful in a literary work, we are shining a gospel light on both Christian and secular authors. We can rejoice in the common grace present in the work of any author or illustrator. This is a wonderful witness and encouragement to authors, both saved and unsaved.” 

All the stars for this one!

This book is an amazing resource for the busy parent who doesn’t have time to read everything their kids are reading and wants to make sure that their children’s imaginations are tapped and encountering truth!

The Redeemed Reader is first and foremost a website doing for kids books what I’m seeking to do with my own book reviews: help readers make good choices about what they’re reading. Their team of reviewers provides insights on a broad spectrum of books from classics to picture books to easy readers, YA novels, nonfiction, and more.

They approach their reviews from a biblical perspective: “Not, This art is actually kinda Christian, but rather, Here’s what I realized as a Christian encountering this art.”

Their website is great, but I’m glad they chose to publish this book as well. Not only do they tackle every genre of books and offer booklists at the end of every chapter, but they talk about how to develop discernment in your kids and provide good questions to ask them while they’re reading.

“Anywhere we read of goodness, hope, light, loving one’s neighbor, good triumphing over evil, forgiveness and redemption, healthy family relationships, friendships, and beauty and order in creation, we see Truth, and our hearts rejoice. 

Books that hold the most Truth not only show that we need a savior, but that there is a Savior, and therefore we have hope. They point to our deep desire for peace with God and with one another.”

They acknowledge that these themes don’t just show up in Christian labeled books but that we can find threads of the capital T Truth (God’s Word) and capital S Story (grand biblical story of creation, fall, redemption, restoration) in lots of secular works. I’ve found that to be true as well.

At The Redeemed Reader, their goal is to help train children to pick up a book and enjoy what they’re reading while still discerning truth.

“Good stories keep the soul awake, forewarning it of danger and populating it with heroes and heroines whose examples of courage and character give us strength to see ourselves standing against similar foes and refusing to yield to evil. Story has always been and remains our greatest tool in crafting wise and great people.” 

I love the heart behind their work as well as the outcome. I am wary of all the book options available to my third grade speed-reader— I can’t read everything she’s reading and still have time to read myself. I love that I can look things up on their website or offer her books from their curated book lists (with all kinds of categories) and know that what she is putting in her mind tells the story of reality, even if it’s the fallenness of the human condition, and that there is hope and redemption in the end.

“We can disagree with the characters’ conclusions and evaluate their personal choices. We can debate whether they understand the reality they’re living in. We can try to discern what the author believes about free will and personal responsibility and human nature. Good literature allows readers to get inside another person’s mind and understand the world from another point of view. 

By entering the story, readers gain sympathy for a well-written fictional character, even as they learn to recognize the flaws in their reasoning and choices.” 

One of the big takeaways for me was how they recommended readers handle ‘messy books.’ In short, these are books that deal with sin and might make readers uncomfortable.

“books that honestly reflect the human condition are often messy because sin is messy.”

They don’t want us to categorically avoid these books because we are not called to be comfortable, but to be discerning— which is a concept I really agree with.

I loved their evaluation system for messy books. They give a list of ‘P’s’ to ponder when determining if a book is right for your child (or yourself):

• Plot Point vs Political Point: “Is the objectionable (or problematic, or messy) content in the book necessary to drive the story, or is there a clear agenda driving the inclusion of this content?”

• Pleasure or Pain?: “Does the story also show repentance, disgust at sin, or the negative consequences of sin? Or is the sinful act/thought seen to be only pleasurable or desirable?”

• Preparation: “Is the audience prepared for the content, both developmentally and experientially?”

• Proportion: “What is the proportion of messy content to the rest of the book? One throwaway line about a character’s two moms requires a different response than a book in which the protagonist comes out as a lesbian.”

• Pandering: “Is the author simply pandering to a childish audience… to today’s publishing trends rather than to add depth?”

• Protagonist: “Is the protagonist promoting or celebrating unbiblical behavior and beliefs with no evidence of repentance or maturation, or is the villain the renegade?”

• Promise: “Explicitly or implicitly, is the story promising redemption and rescue from sin? Or is it promising rewards for sin?”

• Problematic or Productive: “Productive messy books illustrate biblical traits like compassion, truth-telling, and repentance. Problematic books do not… [and] present unbiblical lifestyles as normal and acceptable.”

They do a great job of being careful in their recommendations and how they offer them. It is not a formulaic science based on a child’s age. Discernment takes thought, consideration, prayer, and most importantly time in God’s Word to develop. Not all the books they recommend will be right for your family; this is (appropriately) not a copy and paste system.

After they discuss messy books they looked at several contemporary issues that come up in literature that we need to know how to handle, including racism, environmentalism, diversity and sexuality, identity, and dystopian themes.

I wasn’t surprised that these are popular topics, but I think reading their discussion about them made me realize how subtly and easily the corresponding underlying beliefs about God, his world, and his people these worldviews require can be inserted into a story.

They were very thoughtful in their communication about how these show up in books, what questions to ask, and why it matters that we think about it.

The next section of chapters goes through specific genres and what to look for or avoid in each one. The genres they cover are picture books, easy readers, humor, poetry, sci-fi and dystopia, fantasy, and romance.

A couple thoughts that stuck out to me were:

• help your children pick their ‘book friends’ like they would pick their real-life friends— it might be time to break off with a book or series if the main character isn’t showing characteristics you would want in a real friend

• “Think of poetry like cinnamon: no one wants to eat cinnamon plain, but no one wants to eat pumpkin bread, apple pie, or a cinnamon roll without it!”

• a good question that science fiction often explores in some way is- ‘Am I becoming more like my machine? Or more like Christ?’

• “It’s important to nudge our kids toward healthier romantic reading and never leave the impression that romantic love conquers all, justifies all, and lasts forever. Only one kind of love does that.”

The last few chapters are for practical application.

They offer guidance in finding the right Bibles for your kids. Their recommendations were ones we’ve already been using with our kids and recommending to others as well! (The Beginner’s Gospel Story Bible, The Biggest Story Bible, The Ology, The Kingdom and the King Storybook Bible)

They talk about how we can encourage authors, secular and Christian; how we can love on our libraries by requesting good books and checking them out; how we can use books to help us understand things happening in the news; and how we can curate our own libraries at home.

I love public libraries and it was a good reminder that we alert our libraries to what we are interested in and want to read more of by checking books out. They take note of what is in circulation so help make your library better by checking out the good books!

That last one about home libraries was particularly helpful for me because I’m about to have a new bookshelf built in my house and I’m preparing to inventory all my books and make a system to let people in my life check them out! They had some great ideas for how to decide what books to donate or keep and offered some suggestions for books to make sure you have for members in your family.

“The goal of managing a home library is to bless your family and friends and to encourage them to explore and use it. The purpose is not to have every title you could possibly ever want, nor to have every book always readily available, but simply to be able to find it.” 

If you want to browse their book reviews on their website, look for the *starred books because these are the ones they recommend without caveats or considerations (other than age considerations). Other books are still recommended but they offer some insight on what to be aware of before picking it out for your specific child.

You can browse their site by age group, genre, subject, special topic, and over 175 curated booklists like ‘recommended graphic novels’, ‘books for young horse lovers’, ‘for 16-year-old girls’, ‘family read alouds’ etc.

They also have a way to contact them if you would like a book reviewed that isn’t on their website.

[Many of the books they’ve recommended I’d already included on my Kids’ Shelf page.]

Lastly, though perhaps I should have put this at the beginning of the review:

“Remember, the only required book is the Bible. May you never be too busy to read it. Our booklists are recommendations, not requirements.” 

Recommendation

I think this would be a great book to add to your personal library if you can. If you can’t, at least bookmark their website as an easy reference when you’re looking for and monitoring books for your kids.

Kids’ imaginations are wonderful, but also very impressionable— we have a responsibility to engage them and allow them to think about hard things, but also protect them from things they aren’t ready to read yet.

The Redeemed Reader is a fantastic resource to guide us as parents, guardians, or librarians with the children in our care, directing them to what is good, true, and beautiful— to what points to Truth and echoes the greatest Story of all.

Definitely read this book and check out all that The Redeemed Reader has to offer! I know I'm going to be telling people about this all the time!

**Received a digital copy of this book from Moody Publishers**

You can order a copy of this book using my affiliate link below.

Just Friends
By: Haley Pham

[Fulfills the prompt: ‘Book you had to wait for its release’ for the Shelf Reflection 2026 Reading Challenge]

[On my list of Most Anticipated Books of 2026]

I didn’t just like this book because it released on my birthday, but that was fun.

I liked it because it was a charming, heartwarming love story that also had threads of friendship and grief, showing how real relationships are meant to support us when things are hard.

I know Haley Pham has millions of follows on Instagram and YouTube, but I actually heard about this book through her husband’s YouTube channel when he and Haley filmed the 50 States in 50 Days summer series last year.

Because of that, I think I’m writing this review from a somewhat unique perspective.

First: the only information I knew about Haley was what I saw on Ryan’s summer series. I didn’t follow her or watch any of her videos. I went into reading this with absolutely no preconceived notions about what kind of writer I expected her to be or her writing to be like.

I can see how it could be disappointing for some readers who already felt like they ‘knew’ her and then felt like the writing didn’t live up to it. The bigger the hype, the more famous the author, the more pressure and expectation put on the finished product.

Second: I don’t read a lot of romance books. I actually tend to avoid them. These days anything with romance ends up being smut which is annoying. You’ll find some romances reviewed on my website but they are typically rom-coms because if we’re going to do the romance thing let’s at least laugh too.

Thus… I don’t have a lot to compare this book to. I think the more you read of one particular genre the more critical you tend to be of it because you develop a specific taste and list of preferences.

I think these two things makes my review different than a lot of others.

I was surprised by the Goodreads ratings on this book. A lot of the negative reviews seem a bit over-the-top, but everyone’s way of reviewing is different. My scale isn’t as extreme as others.

It seems to me that a lot of the negativity stems from her being famous (rich?) and popular or the reader preferring a different type of romance. Some felt like the book read more middle-grade but I disagree.

I think maybe compared to the sex-saturated romance novels full of f-words, sure, it might feel like middle grade but that’s like saying that roller coasters are for babies because you just got done sky-diving and that was way more thrilling. Relax… not everyone wants to freefall from the sky. It doesn’t make them babies.

It’s probably closer to YA than adult but I still wouldn’t call it middle-grade.

A few others critiqued that Haley wrote herself into the main character. Like it was a bad thing. I don’t know the rules of writing but isn’t there something like ‘write what you know’? It’s her first book. It seems fitting to add some of herself into it. I admit, I did mostly just picture her as Blair, especially when she wrote that Blair liked hydrangeas because I remembered from the summer series one of the videos where Haley was excited to see them. I didn’t mind noticing those details. It actually made sense to me that she did that.

I’m sure if she writes another book she will diversify her characters. And at least she didn’t make Declan the same as Ryan (he was a runner not a football player). That kind of writing could probably go to the extreme and detract from the story, but I don’t think it did that here.

BUT ALL THAT TO SAY…

I thought this was a sweet story of second-chance, friends-to-lovers romance.

With the setting being in a cozy, picturesque seaside village in California, I think it makes a good beach-read. Even though it deals with grief, it’s mostly just a light, fun read.

Blair is our main character. Having just graduated from Pepperdine she is headed to New York to begin a career she hopes will help financially support her single mother. Plans change when her great-aunt Lottie’s health takes a turn for the worse.

Blair delays New York and goes back to her hometown where she was basically raised by her mother and Lottie and spends Lottie’s last few days with her. Reeling from the grief once Lottie has passed, she is unprepared for the run-in she has with her ex, Declan, who runs the coffee shop she gets a temporary job at.

They grew up best friends until they finally acknowledged they had the hots for each other in high school. Declan was a football star headed to the pros and Blair was an aspiring writer. An accident was the catalyst to the end of that relationship. We don’t fully know why, we just know something bad happened.

“Declan, to me, became like a blade buried deep in my side. Over the years, he fused so completely that removing him from my life seemed life-threatening. And then he was ripped away from me overnight, and I’d been trying to clot the bleeding ever since. How would I survive being near him again when the original wound never healed?”

The details unfurl as the book goes along and Blair and Declan realize they never should have stayed apart.

But the grief Blair feels with losing Lottie and her fears of Declan being like her father and eventually leaving are clouding her judgment and ability to know if she can enter back into the relationship.

I thought Haley did a good job expressing the confusing ups and downs of grief. I thought there was a lot of maturity in Blair as she realizes other people don’t always know how to help grieving people.

She holds it against her two college friends that they aren’t being there for her the way she wants them to be and adds ‘victim’ to her grief. But then she realizes that she hasn’t shared much with them about what’s going on and they’re miles and miles away. They don’t know.

When she is finally vulnerable with them and asks them to come, they drop everything and come. I think that’s a really realistic take on friendship.

“People in your life could only be as close to you as you let them.”

We tend to privately put expectations on people and then take it personally when they don’t measure up. We can’t and shouldn’t be the center of everyone’s universe. If we get that posture right, then we can be honest with people about what we need and we can show up for each other, having some grace when people don’t respond the way we were hoping they would.

So I enjoyed that added thread of friendship within the romance story. I think a lot of romances are so focused on sexual tension that there are no other relationships involved as if a person only needs one person in their life. People need friends too! I thought that was well-balanced in this book.

As for the romance. I thought it was cute. Perhaps cheesy at times but I think that just comes with the territory. People are cheesy when they’re in love. These are college-aged kids. This is how it goes. It made me think a lot of my husband and my relationship in college and I thought Haley did a good job of capturing what that looks and feels like.

When Blair is struggling with whether or not to get back with Declan, a different character has caused her to question her motives and second-guess whether she can trust herself to make that decision when she is distraught and emotionally spent.

I don’t think it’s trying to promote a ‘follow your heart, your feelings can never steer you wrong’ kind of mentality, but more so that you don’t have to have it all together to be with someone. You can be grieving and not be a burden to someone you love. They want to be there for you through that. Just like they would expect you to show up when they go through something hard.

No relationship is without some messiness. But relationships are a mess worth making. We’re not meant to go through life alone. We are not meant to be self-reliant people. Love is love because it is shared. And true love is unconditional.

I look back at my husband’s and my carefree college love and see where we are now and I choose the emotionally weathered and a little stressed version of ourselves every time because the hard times we went through together authenticated and grew our love in ways our naive college selves never could have predicted.

Sure, the whole missing letter thing is a miscommunication trope that I don’t especially love, but overall I liked the dilemma she put in front of her characters and I liked the way they came through it.

I also liked the little details of the book like the letter graphic and the chapter illustrations that helped the reader differentiate between timelines. I wish more books did that! It would make shifting character POVs or timelines so much easier while reading.

The cover was fitting and cute as well.

The only critiques I had were that a lot of her sentences felt too long. I think it must just be her writing style to have long sentences with a lot of commas and descriptions. I just think some well-placed short sentences can do a lot to engage the reader.

I can also see some reviewers’ dissatisfaction with the way things wrapped up financially for Blair and her mom. I think it made perfect sense with their background with Lottie— I’m not saying it was incongruent with the story— but I can understand people’s desire to see her have to figure out a way to pinch pennies to follow her dream instead of dropping it in her lap where she can do it without a worry about the future.

Usually people who decide to follow a dream or a calling have to make some sort of sacrifice and take a leap of faith. I’m happy Blair got to pursue writing like she felt called to do, but it didn’t feel like a leap of faith.

That is a small critique. I’m usually a fan of happy endings though so I’m not mad about it. I don’t need book characters to reflect my personal life. I might care about relatability more when it comes to memoirs than fiction. Enjoy the house, Blair; I’m cool with it, but I would love to visit sometime if you’re free.

Recommendation

Yeah, I would recommend this book! Especially if you like clean, cute, charming romances with happy endings.

If you are looking for a rated-R romance that’s gritty and whatever other adjectives the negative reviewers prefer to describe their romances, then perhaps this wouldn’t be the right fit.

Like I said, it’s a good beach read and palate cleanser. And for someone who doesn’t take in a lot of romance novels and has no fandom or anti-fandom towards Haley, I had no unmet expectations!

This gets a thumbs-up for me!

[Content Advisory: one incomplete s-word; no sexual content other than kissing]

This book released in March, 2026. You can order a copy of this book using my affiliate link below.

99 Ways to Die: And How to Avoid Them
By: Ashely Alker, MD

[Fulfills the prompt: ‘Book with a medical professional’ for the Shelf Reflection 2026 Reading Challenge]

[On my list of Most Anticipated Books of 2026]

Too much death. 1 Star.

Just kidding.

But I’m going to be honest: I thought this was going to be cautioning me against eating too much whipped cream, or warning me about sticking a fork in my ear in the exact wrong spot, or how my lawn mower can blow up, or if I sneeze during surgery I’ll get stabbed and die. Or even killer bird stuff— those murderous creatures.

I was looking forward to the bizarre and random ways of dying (that’s a weird sentence to type and applies to this particular book only).

Back in the day I used to catch a few episodes of the TV show 1000 Ways to Die and if I’m remembering correctly, there was some pretty crazy stuff (perhaps not my best choice in show).

But, I have to break it to you. This book is not like that.

Let me tell you who this book is NOT for: the hypochondriac. The person with pre-existing fears of illness, food, animals, bacterias, worms, traveling, invisible gases, and the like. You will live a much better life without this book.

For all the other freaks out there who love diseases… have at it.

I’m actually neither of these… although this book has unlocked some new fears I’m not happy about. I’m not death-obsessed or fascinated by parasites. I’m not that worried about germs (to my husband’s chagrin) and I have no interest in visiting the Amazon, the Outback, an underwater cave, or eating pufferfish.

So why did I read this book?

Purely curiosity.

Some say curiosity kills… but that was not covered in this almost 400 page book so I didn’t know better.

Unfortunately, this book ended up being quite the drag for me. I didn’t want to read about ACTUAL ways of dying like strep throat and TB and Ebola and high blood pressure, cocaine, measles, mold, water, cars, and gun violence. And I definitely didn’t need the chapter called ‘butt stuff.’

It was a bit depressing to read the statistics about how many millions of Americans are addicted to drugs, alcohol, or smoking or to know how many are infected with sexually transmitted diseases or to hear about all the children that came through Alker’s emergency department.

I did not look forward to picking up this book each day and seeing what else was in my immediate life waiting to murder me or being confronted with national— and preventable— statistics.

In that way, I guess this book was not really for me and explains why it has taken me two months to get through.

Granted, I did learn some stuff— like that a poop transplant is a real thing and why ‘A dingo ate my baby’ was really said— and was able to confirm my life rules like: no bats, hippos, bodies of water, bushes, eating poop, snails, or tapeworms, recreational drugs, or helicopter rides.

There was some humor (I wouldn’t call it hilarious…) and creativity in the way she described things:

“The brain’s blood vessels are like roads with semi-trucks full of oxygen trying to make their required delivery to different destinations within the organ, and the brain is an Amazon-addicted twenty-year-old with her mom’s credit card. The oxygen semi-trucks are never-ending.”

…and I appreciated her references to Blo-Pens, Murder She Wrote, Michelle Tanner’s horse accident, and Oregon Trail.

Plus once we got 60% of the way through and hit on animals it got a little bit more interesting— though possibly more terrifying (don’t Google Goliath birdeater).

[Important Question: How the heck do we know that the world’s oldest spider is this one specific trapdoor spider that lived 43 years until she was eaten by a parasitic wasp?! Did we Big Brother her and every other spider for 43 years?!]

Buuuuuuut overall 99 Ways to Die just fell short of what I think I wanted.

I think if it was shorter and perhaps less comprehensive, I think the learning part could have been enough for me even if it wasn’t weird and crazy. The chapters and medical knowledge about random diseases and bodily ailments felt too endless and repetitive. I don’t want anyone else telling me to exercise more and eat a balanced diet. Booooring.

I did appreciate the section on health influencers and how they love to employ correlations (rather than causations) in their medical advice, often (inadvertently or otherwise) spreading lies in order to go viral.

She reports an MIT study finding “that false stories are 70 percent more likely to be shared than true stories, resulting in the truth taking six times as long to reach 1500 people.”

Alker is correct to say “the testing of beliefs is essential to finding truth.”

But if we’re going to talk about beliefs then I’m going to have to poke at a few of hers.

Like most scientists out there, Alker touts evolution as a fact rather than a theory (that can’t even be tested).

The first sentence of the book reads: “In the beginning, there was evolution. If I’ve lost you already, this might not be the book you want, but it is the book you need.”

I believe she was mostly saying this to be funny and to lead into her bit about natural selection taking the ones who can’t hack it and thus writing a book to help us all survive: “Every time evolution rears its ugly head in the form of a table saw without a safety stop or a loaded gun stored in a front pocket, emergency medicine fights back… I wrote this book to prevent emergency department visits.”

But joke or not, it still feels worth pointing out the inconsistencies in her ‘beliefs.’

I also want to poke at her ‘teaching’ and belief regarding abortion.

In cautioning readers on the dangers of pregnancy, she mentions abortions. Well, unsafe abortions— “unsafe abortions, which refer to abortions done improperly.”

She is not just talking about abortions done due to ectopic pregnancies because she references legality and those kind of ‘abortions’ are not illegal.

I’m glad that she recognizes life as a miracle but I disagree with what she says here:

“Unfortunately, the gestation of this little miracle will be the total, life-threatening responsibility of the fairer sex until further notice, and that is intrinsically unfair. There will never be equality in the creation of a human being, but there can be equity. Women must fully understand the risks they take in choosing to be pregnant, and society must support their efforts, for there to be any semblance of fairness.”

As a woman who has birthed four babies (two of which were early NICU babies), I think it’s pretty trivializing to call the experience ‘unfair.’ Pregnancy and delivery was definitely one of the hardest things my body has ever gone through, but it was also one of the most amazing things!

She makes it seem like women draw the short stick, but I don’t think that’s true. Sacrificial love is a beautiful and respected thing, not something to shout ‘Not fair’ about. What an honor and a privilege it is that God gave women the unique gift and ability to give their babies a home for nine months before bringing them into the world. Fathers will never get that experience.

I think it’s a cultural belief that sex is the best thing to happen to you and suffering is the worst. And a life built on those two statements is not much of a life. More and more I am convinced how instrumental and vital suffering is to the human life. Suffering leads to growth and resilience and ultimately to joy. We aren’t inspired by stories of comfort. When we think of what makes us who we are, we typically point back to hard things that we were able to overcome that shaped us.

It’s tragic for Alker to look at pregnancy and giving birth merely through the lens of suffering. Sadly that’s what drives the abortion industry. People want to avoid what they think will be too hard and they miss out on something life-changing. They are blinded by their need to avoid suffering that they miss out on a path to deep joy.

Alker does point out women’s need of support. That is true. And that’s why a biblical worldview of sex, marriage, pregnancy, and life is crucial and helpful. God’s design is for a nuclear family where a man and woman get married before having kids. That’s for a variety of reasons, but one result is that the woman is supported by her husband and they share the responsibility to care for and love their child. If both men and women understood their role and took responsibility for the life they created, then maybe abortions wouldn’t feel like ‘solutions’ to the women who seek them.

In a different chapter regarding gun violence she brings up how “two economists offered evidence that the legalization of abortion ‘contributed significantly’ to the plummeting in crime rates, including homicide” as if this correlation should be taken seriously.

How does it make sense to legalize murder to decrease murder? She critiques other correlations throughout the book but doesn’t take the time here to ask any questions about this correlation because it fits the cultural narrative that abortion should be legalized everywhere. But I wonder how much the homicide crime rate went down in relation to how much the abortion rate went up. I’m guessing millions of lives were aborted compared to hundreds that were ‘saved’ on the other side. Even if someone could prove a causation, it would not be enough to make legalizing murder make sense.

After each description of ways to die, Alker gives the way to avoid it: allergies → EpiPen; (half the diseases) → healthy diet and exercise; Mad Cow Disease → don’t eat beef. You get the idea.

It’s almost comical what her solution is for sexually transmitted infections and diseases: wear a condom and have all your sexual partners checked. When it comes to pregnancy, you need to weigh the risks to decide if you want to abstain from being pregnant, but when it comes to sex, abstinence isn’t even in the vocabulary. Nowhere does she state that there is a highly effective option: wait to have sex until you marry and only have one sexual partner. What are the statistics of contracting STDs then? They aren’t going to tell you; it doesn’t fit the narrative that sex is the best thing to ever happen to you.

I think it’s pretty crazy that a medical doctor who claims to really want to help you avoid these things won’t even suggest this to readers. They also won’t tell you that 87% of abortions are for unmarried women.

What we do with our bodies matters for a multitude of reasons and if you actually want to avoid STDs, have support for your pregnancies, and not be so afraid to endure hard things, maybe consider a different worldview than this author and the culture at large.

Given our divergence in certain beliefs, I was curious to see where Alker’s final chapter titled ‘The Afterlife’ was going to go.

She says she doesn’t know anything about the afterlife, but she wants us to acknowledge that “death is more than an end. It is the force that defines human life as a temporary, precious spark of magic.”

“The odds of you existing is less than one in ten billion trillion… And now that you have this life, what will you do with it?”

We could follow the advice she gives henceforth and pay attention to chest pain, finish our antibiotics appropriately, avoid eating mystery mushrooms, and get our vaccines, but that doesn’t quite measure up to what I would call a ‘spark of magic.’

After 400 pages of helping people avoid dying, she doesn’t really give readers any reason to live. If death is all there is in the end and we’re all products of random evolutionary consequence, why do our deaths even matter?

Our lives aren’t magical because they’re short and unexpected.

They’re magical because we have eternal souls created on purpose with a purpose. The ‘odds’ were perfect because a Creator God, in love, breathed life into our bodies.

And there is far more to life than avoiding dying. In fact, the only way to truly live beyond our short time on earth is to die twice. Before we succumb to one of the 99 ways of dying, Jesus asks us to follow us in his death by ‘crucifying’ our sin, dying to ourselves, and living for something better. (Galatians 5:16-24)

There is an afterlife, and if you don’t know what that’s all about, I encourage you to read the Bible, start with John. Meet Jesus. See what he has to say about your life and what you should do with it.

And if you find his words to be true, then these 99 ways of dying will only be the bridge to life eternal with the One who loves you more than you ever imagined possible.

Do more than avoid dying… find a reason to live. And live twice.

Recommendation

I think there is an audience for this book— people who are interested in the medical world and legitimately want to know all the ways to avoid a variety of ailments. If you want to be INFORMED, this book is for you.

I also think authors who are looking for interesting or obscure medical ways to kill off their characters will get a LOT of ideas here.

However, I would not recommend this book for hypochondriacs or people susceptible to anxiety. I would also say there will be a contingent of people who will disagree with the author on one or more things like abortion, sex, vaccines, and Covid. Of course you can read and ignore her advice on those specific things, but if that is something that ruins the rest of her advice to you, then don’t bother with the book.

The reason I didn’t really like this book is not because I have a different worldview than her (I kinda expected that) but hinges on my disappointment in what it could have been. It was long and boring and depressing to read about common and normal ways of dying instead of something more bizarre or random.

It was too long to be only informative.

The End.

**Received an ARC via NetGalley**

[Content Advisory: 1 f-word, 1 s-word; some gruesome details about medical things; obviously the section of chapters titled ‘Sex’ describe some things but it’s from a very medical standpoint]

You can order a copy of this book using my affiliate link below.

The Perfect Hosts
By: Heather Gudenkauf

[Fulfills the prompt: ‘Book with food on the cover’ for the Shelf Reflection 2026 Reading Challenge]

“She feels the sudden urge to flee, to run away from this nightmare. But she knows she can’t. This is her life now. There’s no running. She has to face whatever is coming her way head-on. She has no other choice.”

My first Heather Gudenkauf book was The Overnight Guest. I enjoyed that one and similarly, I found The Perfect Hosts to have the same fast pace.

Set in Wyoming, the plot revolves around a gender reveal gone wrong— wrong like a bomb, someone was murdered, and a bunch of people were injured kind of wrong.

Unlike The Overnight Guest which has multiple timelines, The Perfect Hosts takes place over the course of a few days as the bomb/gun-Fed-guy (we’ll call him an ATF agent) tries to figure out who planted the bomb and why.

The multiple POVs definitely have you side-eyeing the characters— “What are you up to?….” It seems like everyone has some hidden agenda in the works and it’s unclear whose plan is going to succeed.

The cast of characters is not super likeable.

The parents-to-be— Wes and Madeline— are super rich with their ginormous ranch and basically ‘own’ the town in more ways than one. Their obnoxiously planned gender reveal party is evidence of their wealth and superiority.

But Madeline earns points with the reader because 1) she’s pregnant and 2) she doesn’t actually want this grand gesture and facade of a party.

Johanna is Madeline’s best friend and midwife but after she is murdered, we find out she had some sketchy stuff going on and we do NOT like best friends who betray best friends so we aren’t sure about this one.

Lucy is Madeline’s estranged stepsister who just so happens to show up right when all this goes down.

It was interesting that Mellie’s chapters were the only ones told in first-person, and based on the book’s ending, I don’t think it was to garner sympathy. Mellie has her own delusions and is not going away any time soon.

Jamie is the ATF agent called in to investigate the situation. But he’s no unbiased third party. He spent a short stint of his youth in Nightjar, Wyoming and it was the worst time of his life. Not only did his sister, Juneau, go missing, but that same night Jamie was run off the road and beaten to within inches of his life. The culprit was never found, his sister was never found, but Wes found him that night and saved his life. Jamie is here to solve the mystery of both the bomb and his sister’s disappearance.

And of course at the center of it all is Wes. What kind of husband is he? What is his true character and what are the red herrings?

I liked the way the book was written. The alternating POVs and cliffhanger chapters made this book hard to put down. It didn’t have the same Iowa nostalgia as The Overnight Guests (although we did get a cameo of an Iowa Hawkeye sweatshirt) and there was quite a bit more swearing, but it was a good page-turner that kept me guessing.

While we do get some justice in the end, there are some things left a little unresolved. I can’t tell if that means Gudenkauf wants to return to this or if she just wants the readers to imagine what happens next. I think I would be fine either way.

Recommendation

If you are looking for a good multiple POV thriller with a lot of suspects, or enjoy books with horses and pregnant ladies, this is for you.

If you want another book that has Wyoming and horses but a better hero, check out Out for Blood by Ryan Steck.

If you want another book with a bomb and domestic drama and a sketchy woman who shows up and overstays their welcome, you definitely want to read The Guest by B.A. Paris.

Overall, I enjoyed this book and will keep Gudenkauf on my radar— I might have to read some of her backlist!

[Content Advisory: 41 f-words, 11 s-words, couple handfuls of other swearing and blasphemes; infidelity, domestic abuse]

You can order a copy of this book using my affiliate link below.

Scrolling Ourselves to Death: Reclaiming Life in a Digital Age
Edited by Brett McCracken & Ivan Mesa

“The church must step in and speak truth that gives life, redirecting glazed-over eyes and lifting hunched-down faces to behold the one who is infinitely more satisfying than whatever fleeting amusements flash across our screens.”

Wow! What a necessarily pessimistic yet optimistically hopeful book we have here.

Over the years my relationship to technology has oscillated from joy— because I can get my groceries delivered to my house and can google all my weird questions and get immediate answers to satisfy my curiosity— to fear and anxiety as I am bombarded with every global tragedy and angering political stance and spend time wondering how AI will somehow be used to frame me for some bizarre crime I didn’t commit (I read a lot).

It’s a wild world we live in.

How do we make sense of it all? How should a biblical worldview shape our evaluation of technology and our personal use of it? This book, written by 15 different contributors engages with the prescient writings of Neil Postman, writer of Amusing Ourselves to Death, the title of which Scrolling Ourselves to Death is derived from.  

Amusing Ourselves to Death was written at the dawn of television. Postman lamented how easily our culture became content with entertainment instead of substance, visual distraction instead of intellectual engagement.  

I was drawn in immediately in reading Scrolling Ourselves to Death when McCracken (fantastic last name) shared Postman’s evaluation of the dystopian futures depicted in both 1984 and Brave New World. Postman, who was writing Amusing in the year 1984, was curious to see which dystopian prediction had most come to fruition. He observed: 

“Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies … In 1984 people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure.”  

When I recently read 1984, I could see a lot of parallels to today, but now I also see the sneaky control of Brave New World and how susceptible our current culture would be to such methods. 

What Postman recognized decades ago when television came on the scene is even more evident in our era of pocket supercomputers: we are a culture distracted and shaped by technology and our pursuit of pleasure and entertainment.

In every chapter of Scrolling Ourselves to Death an author compares Postman’s findings to what we see in our world today and goes a step further by looking at it through a biblical lens— what does this mean for Christians and what do we do about it?

There have been many books written about this topic— including Haidt’s recent and popular book The Anxious Generation— so you may not be surprised by all the studies finding how addicting dopamine-inducing scrolling is or how isolated and lonely people are even though they’re ‘more connected’ to the world than ever before. You might not even be surprised that the suicide rate for kids increased “62% between 2007 (the year the iPhone debuted) and 2021.”

But you may be surprised to know that the authors of this book are not asking you to abandon technology.

What I loved about this book was not just the thoughtful and careful analysis of Postman’s work and its increasing relevance for today (and where his conclusions fall short), it was how every chapter contained constructive ideas or hopeful encouragement.

Books that critique technology and show us all the terrible consequences of it can just make us more anxious or fearful or overwhelmed by how integrated it is in our lives. How could we ever change something so pervasive? I don’t like the books that tear everything down and then basically hold up two fingers and say ‘Peace.’

In contrast, Scrolling Ourselves to Death actually offers real peace reminding us that:

“Ultimately, the call isn’t to abandon technology, but to bring it under Christ’s lordship.… In him, we have enduring hope, unshakable truth, and eternal life – the things we crave that our secular age and its technologies can’t supply. By keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus, we can boldly and creatively use technology for his glory and for the good of his church.”

While I can’t impart all the good things to you that I read within these pages, I’ll highlight some of the points they make that are especially important for Christians to think about:

Technology is shaping how people determine what is true and good.

Postman recognized the shift in ‘currency’ when television came on the scene. Content depth was traded for entertainment value.

“religious ideas are increasingly judged by their ability to entertain and hold the audience’s attention, rather than by their spiritual truth or theological depth…”

This was the movement into a ‘consumer’ Christianity.

Several of this book’s authors build on that understanding, sharing how people’s beliefs about what is true are so often shaped by TikTok or YouTube videos and the like before they even step into a church.

Rich theology can’t be fully imparted in thirty second videos by people presenting the information in the most click-bait or evocative way.

“Does the internet deliver popular access with complex arguments? Or does this medium— think of social media in particular— privilege certain messages that divide us?”

Postman coined the ‘Now… This’ effect which is a “rapid, superficial succession of information, designed to be discarded.” Even more so than TV, scrolling through so many ads and short clips or quotes keeps our brains from thinking clearly about or processing what we’re seeing. This creates discontinuity and incoherence.

Keith Plummer observed that he’s seeing more and more people disinterested or unconcerned with logic. They are fine with the contradictions of their own beliefs.

Plummer points to the ‘Now… This’ effect:

“Part of the reason contemporary people have become comfortable with contradiction is that they’ve been shaped by a scrolling world in which discontinuity reigns.”  

Hans Madueme echoes this with a call to venture out from an online community when seeking truth: “People still live falsely even while ‘knowing’ the truth— because we are powerfully catechized by the company we keep (1 Cor 15:33). Thus, we need healthy communities that will nurture us to treasure what is true, including people from church, close friends, neighbors, and family.”

All of this matters to us as Christians because we are called to share God’s truth with the world. Truth matters and we can’t allow ourselves to be content with incoherence and discontinuity in our beliefs.

We need to evaluate our own ways of determining truth— have we resorted to online content and snippets or are we willing to have conversations with trusted people or read books (new and old) or above all, study the Scriptures?

This also affects evangelism. Plummer encourages us not to give up because people are unreasonable, but to continue to engage with people and draw them into the real, coherent story God reveals in Scripture about himself and his plan for his people.

“Narratives, whether literary or cinematic, communicate worldviews. The grand, glorious biblical story is what minds trained to think in fragments need in order to see how the pieces of human experience fit together in a larger whole. Evangelism and apologetics are about proclaiming and defending a sweeping, coherent, and imagination-gripping story about the nature of reality that explains our deepest desires as well as the reasons for our resistance to the truth.”

We need to stay committed to working in the field and trusting God with the growth and the harvest.

Technology can trivialize and relativize Christianity.

Thaddeus Williams explains that we can share the truth of the gospel with people content with contradictions by breaking through the veneer of relativism, avoiding trivialization, and going beyond disinformation.

We challenge relativism by declaring that Jesus isn’t just one of many equal ways— he is THE way, “unparalleled in his goodness, trustworthiness, grace, historical reality, bodily resurrection, and saving power.”

He shared a study that found almost half of Christian millennials think it’s wrong to share their beliefs with others with the desire they might come to share the same faith or that to disagree with someone is to judge them.

This is relativism at work and turns the Great Commission “into the Not-So-Great Suggestion.”

When we play along with the gimmicky tricks of marketing and chasing mass appeal as we present the gospel, we are more likely to trivialize Jesus, turning what is precious and sacred into “another cheap gimmick.”

Postman’s definition of ‘disinformation’ is “misplaced, irrelevant, fragmented or superficial information— information that creates the illusion of knowing something but which in fact leads one away from knowing.” 

William’s warns Christians against adding to the noise of disinformation by “posting and reposting unsubstantiated, sensationalistic content and conspiracy theories.”

Especially in the age of AI where the difference between fact and fake is hard to detect. I see this all time, even amongst my Christian friends, where sensationalist and outraging news stories are shared before we get the whole story— many times the original story was wrong! We need to be wise and discerning. Being the first to share an alarming story doesn’t make us virtuous.

Be selective and cautious about what you share online lest you cause everything you share to be called into question. Be committed to telling a better story:

“we must clearly communicate our Christian worldview as a worldview, a Christ-centered vision that makes sense of all reality. Christianity scratches humanity’s deepest existential itches for relationship, freedom, mystery, beauty, awe, hope, and more.”

Technology can make us a disembodied people.

G. Shane Morris talks about the individualistic, performative, and disjointed nature of the online world.

He recognizes:

“the limits our bodies impose on our time, our relationships, our work, and our worship can be good. These limits are not always obstacles we should strive to overcome with technology…  

… Christianity is a physical religion involving tangible sacraments, face-to-face fellowship, and the participation in worship and word in physical spaces. Converts are baptized in real water, commune with real bread and wine, and are welcomed into a real, local body of believers. It has always been so, and to demand Christianity renegotiate these inheritances is to demand it become a fundamentally different, less embodied religion.” 

I think McCracken hits the nail on the head of some of my own anxiety when he states that “we’re overinformed and underactivated.”

We used to only know what was going on in our local communities and could take direct actions to impact our communities. But now we know every tragedy and problem across the entire globe— problems we can’t usually directly do anything about.

Because of this, activism has turned into “slacktivism” in which we merely change our Facebook profile picture to whatever the latest cause is or use the right hashtags or speech and think we’re making a difference.

He includes a great quote from a letter C.S. Lewis wrote lamenting that people equate the state of being worried with meritoriousness.

“You weren’t made to be a gawker but a gardener,” McCracken then admonishes.

The church as an embodied people should be working in the place God has put them.

Read Mercer Schuchardt (who studied under Postman himself) wrote a particularly blunt but refreshing chapter calling readers to tangible participation instead of digital spectating.

“Real love requires real sacrifice. It’s proof of social media’s weaponization of your empathy that you ‘think’ you did a good thing because it ‘feels’ like you did a good thing. But if you can’t name the individuals you helped, or say how you helped them, you likely did nothing except make yourself feel good.”  

My favorite quote of the whole book may be when he said “we were created for realities, not vibes.”

I always cringe at this phrase because it’s true: ‘Good vibes’ are not enough! Participate in the process of life. Show up for the people in your life and in your community in a tangible way. This was probably the most convicting chapter for me. I realize I need to do a better job of looking for needs in my community that I can meet.

Jay Y. Kim speaks to the creation of ‘online church’ during the pandemic. It solved one problem, but created new problems: convenience and low commitment.

Those are the questions the church should be asking about technology: What is the problem that this new technology solves? What new problems do we create by solving this problem?

An embodied church may be inconvenient or messy, but high commitment is a principle of meaning and of real transformation. We lose that when we do church by ourselves on our computers.

“When ‘church’ is reduced to staring at a screen, the mirror simply reflects our preferences and proclivities. But gathering together shatters the mirror and helps us see beyond the abyss of self and out onto the expansive horizon of communal life in God’s kingdom.”  

We were created to be an embodied church, an embodied people.

Recommendation

Scrolling Ourselves to Death was written on the heels of the 40th anniversary of Postman’s book and I don’t think the relevance for us today could be overstated.

Technology is not going away, and it’s going to keep changing. We can’t avoid it or eliminate it, but we can live better with it.

As this whole host of authors has attested in this book’s pages: We can orient ourselves to God’s truth instead of algorithmic suggestions. We can declare the reality of God’s holiness and exception instead of perpetuating disinformation that obscures and trivializes him. And we can participate in a tangible, embodied community that puts love into action instead of isolating ourselves into a digital world of false empathy, performance, and meaninglessness.

Andrew Spencer sums it up well: “The churches mandate is not just to sound the alarm and stop our neighbors from scrolling themselves to death. We must also invite them into life —the abundant life offered in Christ. It’s a life more abundant than all the conveniences of algorithms, more satisfying than all the pleasures of our smartphones, more beautiful than all the wonders we could possibly scroll across.”

I think everyone should read this book that combines pessimism and optimism into a realistic but hopeful resource that will bolster Christians to live well in a tech-saturated and increasingly lonely world.

There is life to be had.

I love the verse Ivan Mesa points to in the epilogue, “the source of life will remain the same. As Simon Peter answered Jesus, ‘Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life’ (Jn 6:68)”

Further Relevant Reading (some of which are authored by this book’s contributors)

Platforms to Pillars by Mark Sayers

The Reason for Church: Why the Body of Christ Still Matters in an Age of Anxiety, Division, and Radical Individualism by Brad Edwards

The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt

The Freedom of Self-Forgetfulness by Timothy Keller

Don’t Follow Your Heart by Thaddeus Williams

How Church Could (Literally) Save Your Life by Rebecca McLaughlin

Strange New World: How Thinkers and Activists Redefined Identity and Sparked the Sexual Revolution by Carl R. Trueman (this is a condensed version of The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self)

God, Technology, and the Christian Life by Tony Reinke

12 Ways Your Phone is Changing You by Tony Reinke

Do Not Be True to Yourself by Kevin DeYoung

Rediscover Church: Why the Body of Christ is Essential by Collin Hansen, Jonathan Leeman

Before You Lose Your Faith Edited by Ivan Mesa

You can order a copy of this book using my affiliate link below.

Lost Lambs
By: Madeline Cash

[On my list of Most Anticipated Books of 2026]

This is a book all about what gnat to do in your life.

It is unapologetic, uncomfortable chaos.

One reviewer said it’s like if Wes Anderson wrote Little Women. I’m not sure about the Little Women part because I only read 100 pages and didn’t finish Lost Lambs and have no idea where it was going, but I definitely agree with the Wes Anderson part.

Lost Lambs is bizarre and quirky and dysfunctional and crude in a matter-of-fact way that I think is supposed to be funny in its absurdity.

I have not watched many Anderson movies but I did watch Asteroid City and when it was over I just looked at the credits rolling and said— ‘What…? Why….?’

I couldn’t necessarily articulate why, I just knew I didn’t like it.

That’s what I felt with Lost Lambs.

This was a debut book on my Most Anticipated List and I was a bit uncertain about it because I don’t usually enjoy dysfunction or irreverence. But in certain capacities it can work and because Goodreads marketed it as “rippling with humor, warmth, and style” and that it was charming and quick-witted and “surprisingly tender,” I thought it might be something outside my normal reading sphere that could be good or at least interesting or entertaining.

It did not take long for me to stop reading and go find some other reviews because it was just so…. weird… and— like I think everyone reading this book— I didn’t know what I had gotten myself into.

Once I got my bearings and saw that there was some underlying ‘mystery’ that was most likely going to join the family together in solving, I decided to press on. I could handle a little weird.

Unlike many reviewers, I actually loved the extra ‘g’s and mostly because it seemed like they were there purely there for the author’s own amusement as they were not character-specific. Why was this my favorite part?!

I liked the writing style. I liked the clever wit. Here’s a couple examples of the style of humor (although the humor makes more sense in the overall context of the story):

“‘I can’t feel my hands in a bad way… What if I never feel them again? What if we never have another thumb war?’
‘It’s alright. We’ve never had a thumb war.’
Abigail wondered if Wes disliked their gratification of war.”

Or:

“‘We don’t have money for that. I have to put you and your sisters through college.’
‘Who’s going to college? Abigail will marry rich, Harper will go to prison, and after high school I have to surrender my life unto God.’”

But the absurd and crude family escapades are not just introductory to the family dysfunction, they are a continual part of the book.

One teenage daughter has a relationship with an older man, the middle daughter is in love with a man online that she’s apparently unaware is an Islamic terrorist who is trying to radicalize her, and the youngest daughter is the weird genius set on uncovering a nefarious plot with her dad’s company. Then we have the wife who wants an open marriage and laments her non-grand/artistic life of being a mom so she gets reeeal friendly with the neighbor. And the husband who does not want an open marriage but is too proud for any sort of self-reflection that could rectify the situation and lives at the whim of his most base desires (and also he lives in their minivan).

In Cash’s own words: “I wanted everyone to have a subversion of their stereotype. The church lady who’s supposed to be a nuisance ends up not only complex but also sexual, almost erotically spiritual, and the local pastor is into French cinema. I wanted every figure to undercut how they’re initially read.”

Subversion means a corruption or overthrowing of something… I think she accomplished the corruption part fairly well.

I was intrigued by where the story was going when we learn that ‘Lost Lambs’ is the name of a support group the husband attends through their Catholic church— is this where redemption and correction begin? Nah… pretty much immediately he ends up at the support-group-host-lady’s house at night and things get out of hand, and I decided to throw in the towel. At that point there was no character safe from moral depravity.

It was interesting to read the ‘praise for Lost Lambs’ on the back of the book… One said they were “laughing throughout— even when I was horrified”… Another said: “With a big surge of energy, Lost Lambs splits the nucleus of the American family. Madeline Cash likes to get dark, but fortunately the dark is where her writing glows.”

I’m just not sure I like the idea of a book that makes light of familial destruction and tries to make darkness shine.

This is a work of satire. Which means it’s meant to be a humorous exaggeration to expose vices or systemic problems.

But even knowing that, I just had no idea what message was trying to be sent. And I didn’t want to wade through all the crudeness and sexual content to figure it out.

Turns out, I think I just don’t really like satire very much. Especially if it’s somehow intertwined with religion or Christianity. I care too much about ‘the truth’ to allow it to be confused with a huge ball of vague exaggeration, hypocrisy, and all manners of sin. In a story like this, how is one supposed to tell which parts are the truth and which parts are the lies? Which parts are they mocking? How do I love Christ’s church if I’m trivializing its existence?

My world is pretty black and white and I have a hard time enjoying myself in the gray areas. I feel morally conflicted when good and evil are blurred together and I’m supposed to laugh about it.

If someone wants to critique the church, great, we should all be held accountable for reflecting the real gospel and I’m open to hearing where the church is falling short. But I would rather read a nonfiction book that deals with facts and evidence and real stories than try to peer through the humorous ‘don’t take us too seriously but also do’ veneer of satirical novels.

Based on a lot of reviews I read, there may not even be much of a redemption arc in Lost Lambs. I think they all just stay lost. Because lost is… raw?… and raw is… best? I don’t know. The secular viewpoint seems to be: let’s explore different ways of loving and how we all still ‘show up’ for each other and how endearing this is even though our choices are unapologetically chaos; lifestyles apparently have no moral consequence as long as people come when it’s super important.

Today’s trend seems to be finding ways of viewing dysfunction as endearing and maybe actually a good thing after all. As long as it’s genuine and confident and in the open, we can do whatever we want- it’s okay!

I wasn’t going to add all this… but then I stumbled across this interview Hannah Tishkoff did with the author, Madeline Cash (who must be a childhood friend of hers).

It offers a little bit of insight as to where the ideas for this book were coming from.

I thought it was interesting that right off the bat Tishkoff wants to make a connection between ‘Lost Lambs’ and Psalm 23. She hears ‘The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want’ and implies— “If God is our shepherd, then wanting is the condition of having wandered. To want too much is not simply to desire, but also to flee responsibility, to take the reins prematurely, to mistake autonomy for adulthood. In this sense, to be lost is not to be free but to remain infantile. A lamb, not yet a sheep.”

Her explanation of ‘wanting’ makes me think more along the lines of the Prodigal Son parable. Someone who had everything he needed but fled for ‘autonomy’ and indulging infantile desires. He ultimately returned home, realizing he really messed up and his way was not the good way.

When I saw the title ‘Lost Lambs,’ I also thought of Psalm 23.

But when I look at the whole psalm I read about a Shepherd who gives us everything we need. We lack (want for) nothing. He gives us peace and restoration for our souls. He guides us in paths of righteousness for his own glory. He comforts us in hardship and gives us confidence to face evil. He invites us to his victory feast as reigning and sovereign King. He sends his grace and mercy after us.

In this sense, to be a lost lamb is to be rejecting God’s provision and guidance, inviting chaos, chasing immorality, living in fear— fear of failure, of death, of unfulfillment, of aimlessness, of uncertainties, wandering without boundaries.

Tishkoff and Cash point out that not ‘believing in anything’ leaves people isolated and alone. They say people need to rely on something outside themselves:

“You need other people. I think that probably is my higher power. It’s not a specific person but just community as a whole, whether it’s your support group or a book club. Just the idea that you cannot do anything alone is so fundamental that it’s biblical.” (Cash)

I agree that community is important and we were created for relationship, but they’re still missing the point. It’s not first about having a flock. It’s about having a Shepherd. In Psalm 23, the sheep aren’t doing anything themselves. They are just following the Shepherd who is leading them to nourishment and protecting them from wolves.

If it was just a flock of sheep boppin’ around the meadow, they might find some food, or they might just get eaten by wild animals. Or they may even follow each other right off a cliff— which is literally called extreme ‘flocking’ and is exactly something shepherdless sheep do. They might have each other, but they’re still lost and in danger.

When Jesus saw the crowds “he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.” (Matt 9:36)

‘You cannot do anything alone’ is truly a biblical concept:

Jesus says in John 15 that he is the vine and we are the branches— we can only bear fruit if we are rooted in him.

Paul encourages the people of Colossae (2:6-8) to walk in Christ, being rooted in him, established in his teachings so they’re not taken ‘captive’ by the theology of the world.

2 Corinthians 3:5 talks about our sufficiency coming from God.

Paul informs the people of Athens in Acts 17 that our very life and breath come from God.

Notice the commonality. While we serve together as the body of Christ, helping one another as we can, the main root is God. Our Creator, Sustainer, and Shepherd.

Cash seems to understand this foundational biblical concept but instead of submitting to it, she seems to reject it, manufacturing a lesser version on her own terms.

It’s no surprise that Lost Lambs is a showcase of rebellion.

Cash says of her characters, “They need to rebel to become well-rounded.” She comments how the parents are rebelling against the institutions of marriage and religion.

She almost treats rebellion as a noble rite of passage to maturity. Buck tradition. Buck the system. I believe persevering in hardship matures us, but rebelling against marriage and truth authored by the Creator from the very beginning does not have the same effect.

So if the author is talking about lost lambs and rebellion and biblical concepts of relying on someone outside ourselves, then we have to acknowledge the foundational truth that a ‘lost lamb’ at its core is someone who rebels against their Creator and his design and the moral character he has written on their hearts as a reflection of his own holiness. It is the arrogance that says ‘I know better’, turns away from the guide and wanders their own way. To rebel is the ultimate sin.

God speaks in Isaiah 30 and calls his people “stubborn children…" saying they “carry out a plan, but not mine, and who make an alliance, but not of my Spirit, that they may add sin to sin.” There are several following verses detailing Israel’s rebellion, that they are “unwilling to hear the instruction of the Lord” and “trust in oppression and perverseness and rely on them.”

Cash shows us lost lambs, these stubborn children, but she seems content to let her characters stay lost, shepherdless.

Praise God that he doesn’t want us to be lost lambs! He comes out looking for us. After all the lamenting of Israel’s rebellion, verse 18 says “Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you, and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you. For the Lord is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for him… your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, ‘This is the way, walk in it.’”

Satire is not just meant to make you laugh, it’s made to make you think.

So think about the problem Madeline Cash has laid bare in Lost Lambs. And decide if her solution to the problem is satisfying. Does it answer your own questions about what it means to be lost or found?

If you resonate as a lost lamb, I invite you to look for the Good Shepherd who is waiting to show you grace and mercy, to give you all that you need, to give you rest and guidance, to care for you like no one else could. Do you have ears to hear the word behind you?

The “freedom” of rebellion is not all it’s cracked up to be.

Recommendation

Well, no, I don’t really recommend this book. It’s got some absurd humor, wit, and some amusing ‘g’s’, but it’s just chaos without redemption.

I can’t really imagining encouraging someone to enter into this mess.

Of course I know there are a lot of people who read my reviews that don’t share my worldview and based on reviews there is clearly an audience for this book. My lack of recommendation is not for writing style, but for content (…and lack of content). So perhaps this is a ‘read at your own risk’ kind of thing.

I would egncourage you, though, that if you are going to enter the vortex that is Lost Lambs, consider the Good Shepherd who is looking for you because this book doesn’t have what you need most.

[Content Advisory: in the 100 pages that I read there were 6 f-words, 1 s-word and a variety of sexual commentary and encounters, solo and otherwise]

Hope Rises (Walter Nash, #2)
By: David Baldacci

[Fulfills the prompt: ‘Book featuring a character pretending to be someone else’ for the Shelf Reflection 2026 Reading Challenge]

Hope Rises is the (mostly satisfying) redemption arc after the chaos and collapse in Nash Falls.

“Walter Nash had gone from reviewing business plans and acquiring companies and flying on corporate jets, with not a whiff of intrigue or danger in his life, to playing a deadly game of cat and mouse and having to fool everyone around him into believing he really was Dillon Hope.”

Attention: You do not want to read this book unless you have read Nash Falls.

You need to read Nash Falls to see the mess Walter Nash got himself into because of the illegal dealings of his boss/company. Pretty much immediately after agreeing to help the FBI and be a whistleblower his daughter is kidnapped and killed and he’s framed for all kinds of stuff.

He goes underground with the help of his deceased father’s Vietnam War friend— Shock— who then trains and transforms Walter from a lanky desk job businessman into a buff, tatted-up fighter with all kinds of new skills. And of course a new name: John Wick. I mean Dillon Hope.

I struggled with the beginning of Nash Falls and wasn’t sure if I would want to read this second one, but the second half of Nash Falls was much better. I was pleased that Hope Rises was even better than Nash Falls in terms of swearing and sexual content— it has half the swearing and if I’m remembering right, only one short sex scene.

Which I take to mean that those things were heavily character-based and not just stuff Baldacci wanted to have in every book. Nash is the stand-up hero-guy so since this part of his story is somewhat removed from his previous life and those people, we are also removed from the debauchery side of things because Walter Nash isn’t going to be like that.

Although this part of his life is more dangerous and therefore more violent so I suppose it’s a give and take.

Hope Rises takes up immediately after Nash Falls: Walter is on a plane to Hong Kong. He has maneuvered his way into being the bodyguard of Rhett Temple (his former boss) and is accompanying him as he reports for duty to Victoria Steers— the criminal warlord and the one responsible for taking his daughter from him.

His plan? Revenge.

He’s going to take down Steers and her global enterprise and avenge his daughter’s death!

But as much as Nash believes he has erased his own humanity and that he’s capable of killing Victoria, Hope Rises is also about following your heart, thanks to a fortune cookie. I mean Victoria’s childhood nanny Hiroko:

“‘The mind thinks too deeply and will play you false when you most need it to be true… But your heart will lead you to where you need to go, Dillon-san. It always does.’”

*rolls eyes*

This is not good advice for real life (Read Don’t Follow Your Heart) but it keeps this book from being a bloodbath of rage and violence so there’s that.

Hope Rises covers a lot of ground. They are sent on a mission to rescue Victoria’s (evil) mother from a prison in Myanmar, he becomes Steers’ bodyguard, there are all kinds of business dealings over the course of many months, we get a small dissertation on the instability and false promises of cryptocurrency (dangit!), and most importantly…. we learn about cows:

“‘you must always remember that no matter whether a cow looks like a cow, and moos like a cow, and gives milk like a cow, there is no guarantee whatsoever that it is indeed a cow.’”

The more time Nash spends with Steers, the more conflicted he comes about whether or not she’s really a cow. (aren’t we all just out here… skeptical of cows?)

“I have every reason in the world to hate Victoria Steers. And yet now I don’t. And I hate myself for that.”

But whether he’s ready or not, when his identity is revealed, things snowball fast and he’s forced to make a decision: is he going to protect Victoria Steers or bring her down?

This is a decently long book. Some reviewers think they should have edited these two books down into one. I definitely think that could/should be done if it was done in movie form. I don’t know if the length necessarily bothered me but the span of time it covers does slow down the plot and the suspense.

But. You can’t just get yoked in a week. And you can’t earn trust from a global criminal in a few days. Some things take time, ya’ll.

While I do love (and prefer) to just hate the bad guys and watch their demise, it was interesting to see Walter battling with his humanity. That there was more to Victoria than meets the eye.

Of course the Steers’ illicit drug empire did a lot of damage in the world (and people who don’t think drugs are a big deal should read this book and consider the economic and political affects of their drug addiction alongside the personal and human detriments to their own life and community) so I wasn’t completely ready to let her off the hook. It’s easy to just think of the ‘daughter’ side of things since we aren’t reading about the real destruction from the drugs. But even her ‘changes’ to the drugs were still harmful.

At times it was hard to picture Nash enduring the criminal world undercover for as long as he did and stomaching being so close to such an evil operation, but patience was a major character trait for him and what was required for the book, so I allow it.

That’s why I say it was ‘mostly’ satisfying. I guess it forces the reader to think about what kind of second chances you would be willing to give certain people and what punishment would fit in Victoria’s situation. I do think there was some justice done and we do see some redemption. And though I totally expected the big ‘twist’ at the end, I was glad I was right about it.

This is a fictional story but it brings to mind the real criminal enterprises operating in the world today and the havoc they’ve wreaked on people’s lives and entire countries all for the sake of money and power. It does feel overwhelming and discouraging to think about how anyone could stop them or bring them to justice or reverse the destruction and addictions.

I am reminded and comforted that God reigns supreme and he says ‘Vengeance is mine.’ He is a God of both love and justice and though it looks like evil is winning and not held accountable, He is working. And ultimately every person will stand before the Lord to give an account. If they have not surrendered their life to the Lord, repented of their sin, and received the gift of forgiveness, they will pay the due penalty of that evil and it will be worse than anything I could come up with.

I can trust that God’s plan for justice is sure and righteous and he will make all things right. Plus trusting him to avenge his name and his image-bearers saves me from having to get a head tattoo and run on a treadmill, so I’m good with that too.

Because I’m always fascinated with how the books I read connect with each other in unexpected ways, I have to mention: Victoria Steers is selling her criminal empire for one dollar. Why does this sound familiar? Because in Everyone in This Bank is a Thief, the bank robber who took everyone hostage said that all he wanted from the bank vault was one dollar. He’s GOT to be the guy buying Steers’ business! What a twist!

Recommendation

I enjoyed this book and was glad that the second book had less swearing and sexual content than the first. I was happy with the redemption arc Baldacci chose for Walter Nash and Victoria Steers.

You can’t really read this as a standalone so my only hesitancy for recommending it would be whether or not you can handle Nash Falls, so I would recommend reading my linked review for that one first if you are considering Hope Rises.

If you like the concept of this story but want it without a ton of swearing and sexual content, I would highly recommend Out for Blood by Ryan Steck, Broker of Lies by Steven James or even Baldacci’s Memory Man books (though I read the first of that series a really long time ago and am not sure what content it had). The first two for sure I recommend to everyone— they are great!

[Content Advisory: 28 f-words, 55 s-words, 8 b-words, 22 a-words, 9 blasphemes; some sexual innuendo and one short not-super-descriptive-sex scene]

**Received an ARC via NetGalley**

This book releases today (April 14, 2026)! You can order a copy of this book using my affiliate link below.

Nash Falls (Walter Nash, #1)
By: David Baldacci

In short: This is like The Accountant meets Taken meets The Fugitive meets a regular businessman with a head tattoo.

And I gotta be honest.. I was not diggin’ this book for the first 30-40%. I didn’t like ANY of the characters. There was a lot of swearing and sexual content and I wasn’t sure where it was even headed.

Had I known about the swearing and sexual content I’m not sure I would have picked it up. But I am at least happy to say that after 50% the book got much better!

I still didn’t like most of the characters, but you at least develop a few that you like and the plot becomes a little more noble. A lot of the swearing comes from one particular character who is a Vietnam vet and not that it makes it easier to take in, but I guess it helps it make a little more sense .

I’ve had this ARC for too long now and had already also got the second book so I was a little nervous that I wasn’t going to want to read the second book after all. But Nash Falls ends on a pretty big cliffhanger so now I’m very glad to have Hope Rises all queued up and ready to go! No waiting for me!

In case you’re wondering, Nash Falls is not the name of a picturesque series of waterfalls. Knowing the sequel is named Hope Rises, you get a better understanding of the nature of this book.

The main character, Walter Nash, has a similar personality and intellect to The Accountant (the guns, muscles, and fighting show up in the latter part of the book) and works at a company worth billions. He’s living the good, rich life until he’s approached by someone from the FBI about Nash’s boss:

“‘Let me cut to the chase. The FBI strongly believes Rhett Temple to be a criminal consorting with some very dangerous people over some highly illegal business… That’s why I’m here, to recruit you as our inside person to build a case against Temple and his partners and tear down the whole nefarious enterprise, brick by brick.’”

Nash is not given much of a choice and begins his role as informant/whistleblower. Pretty much immediately things go south. Even though he’s aware that the three lower-level informants before him were found out and murdered, he is unable to stop his 19-year-old daughter, Maggie, from being taken.

It’s not quite like The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins— instead of actually doing something wrong, Walter Nash is framed for a bunch of terrible things he didn’t do and he’s not rising by rebuilding his reputation, he rises by doing a secret couple-year stint of Rocky-style fight training montages compliments of his late father’s Vietnam buddy (Shock) and remakes himself into a completely different person named Dillon Hope with a head tattoo who now has a special set of skills and is going to Liam Neeson the crap out of the people who kidnapped his daughter.

So. Yeah. You get it.

Nash stops being the boring, rich guy who puts work before family and becomes the protective loving father who will do anything to get his daughter back. Likeable character.

Shock stops being the obnoxiously rude and hostile war buddy who takes the side of Walter’s estranged dad and becomes the confidante and stand-in father who teaches Walter everything he knows, giving him the loyalty he previously demonstrated for Walter’s dad. Still obnoxious but likeable character.

Maggie and her dad have a really meaningful conversation right before she gets kidnapped so you also root for Walter to get her back because you want them to be together again.

Other than that… everyone else is pretty shady, shallow, disgusting, or immoral. But now that we have a noble revenge arc and the lines are properly drawn, I can understand and respect the story.

Obviously stories like these require some suspension of belief and I’m all good with that, but one critique I had with how the story played out was when Rhett finally went to Nash’s house to ask Judith more questions. The answers led him to search Walter’s study where he finds the letter Walter got from his dad after his passing which immediately sends him to Shock’s compound.

That was too easy. You’re telling me when the ‘crime’ first occurred and Walter was the prime suspect the police didn’t search his study?! It’s not like Rhett found the letter in a secret spot. It was just in the desk. But this letter in a desk just sat there for like two years untouched?

No. The police would have searched the study, found the letter, and been immediately led to Shock’s ‘secret compound’ that was conveniently listed under his real name for some reason. Walter would have been found.

I think Baldacci needed to make that whole discovery make more sense and been more difficult considering how much time had passed.

But moving on.

The second part of the book gets more exciting, you are more invested, and you’re ready to see some bad guys brought down!

Nash Falls ends with Nash’s full transformation and re-entrance into his old life as a new man, his plan in motion to go after the people who kidnapped his daughter. These are really bad people with deep and wide ties in high places all over the globe, endless resources, and billions of dollars riding on the protection and maintenance of their ‘enterprises’. How Walter is going to infiltrate and take that down all by himself is the problem for the next book and I’m ready to see how it goes!

“I failed the people I was supposed to take care of. But I may have gotten a second chance to make restitution, at least in a small way. And I will sacrifice everything I have, including my life, to make it right… I will try my best. And I’m Ty Nash’s son. .So bet against me at your peril.”

Recommendation

If you love Taken or any movie/book where the guy’s wife or kids are killed or kidnapped and the guy goes heroic rage-style to get revenge, then yeah, I think you’re going to like this book— as long as you don’t mind or can handle some of the other content.

I think the swearing and sexual content would probably be the only reason I would warn against people reading it. So you’ll have to decide if that’s a factor for you.

Or if you saw my Reggie Dinkins reference and think Nash Falls will be like that… you will be highly disappointed.

I will add that if you read this book, you are basically signing up for two books (unless Hope Rises ends on a cliffhanger, then it’s more) because you will not get closure until you read the next one. I think it would be hard and a little depressing to read this one and not keep going unless you’re able to easily forget about it; there’s some hope in this book but we don’t really see any redemption yet. I’m hoping that comes next!

[I’ll try to update and clarify that part once I finish Hope Rises— I already started it!]

If you like the concept of this story but want it without a ton of swearing and sexual content, I would highly recommend Out for Blood by Ryan Steck, Broker of Lies by Steven James or even Baldacci’s Memory Man books (though I read the first of that series a really long time ago and am not sure what content it had). The first two for sure I recommend to everyone— they are great!

[Content Advisory: 37 f-words, 101 s-words, 10 b-words, 59 a-words, 6 blasphemes; infidelity and several scenes throughout the book of somewhat graphic, though short, sexual encounters and sexual harassment; a couple male side characters are married to each other but it’s not a plot point or major part of the story]

**Received an ARC via NetGalley**

You can order a copy of this book using my affiliate link below.

The Art of Disagreeing: How to Keep Calm and Stay Friends in Hard Conversations
By: Gavin Ortlund

“Can you imagine how the church might be changed and the world might be impacted if we conducted our disagreements with the love of Christ?”

The world would be a better place if everyone read this book. And not because it would magically make everyone agree with each other— it’s not trying to do that.

People are going to disagree— that’s reality and because of the nature of truth, it can’t be avoided. People are going to disagree about what is true. So how do we handle disagreements and maintain our friendships?

This short book (under 100 pages) does a great job of providing practical guidance to that end.

The chapter titles are the principles Ortlund advises: Kindness, Courage, Listening, Persuasion, and Love.

Throughout the book, Ortlund is careful in describing each principle and recognizing the common pitfalls we may be tempted by. For example, kindness is not at odds with discernment and conviction; courage does not see every disagreement as a battlefield.

Ortlund refers to a social psychology theory about two contrasting ways people deal with disagreements. They can be rhinos or hedgehogs. Rhinos are aggressive and charging. Hedgehogs are defensive and shield themselves. Neither is helpful. Rhinos need to exercise restraint and hedgehogs need to find more courage.

Ortlund posits that we need both kindness and courage to have healthy agreements.

“Kindness without courage is too flimsy; courage without kindness is too brash.”

We can stand for truth with both kindness and courage— but only with the right focus:

“When we look to Jesus, his kindness and courage flow into us, enabling us to speak the truth courageously but to do so with love in our hearts.”

I think a lot of people assume that to show love in a disagreement means we give in or we wave the disagreement away as if it doesn’t matter. Truth matters. This book is not questioning the ‘what’ (truth) but the ‘how’ (our conduct and heart) of our disagreements.

I thought it was important how he talks about the sincerity of the kindness.

“When we sincerely wish others well, it comes across. People can tell. Similarly, when what is in your heart toward someone is contempt and a ‘rolling of the eyes’ attitude, this also will come across… They can feel either our respect or our disdain.”

We need to come to a place where we can sincerely wish them well and care about them as people, even if we disagree with them. A couple things he recommends to help with that is to first pray blessings for them and for ourselves that we would see their dignity and complexity as a human being made in the image of God.

Other practical advice is to not talk ill of them behind their back and to consider how their experiences have shaped their perspective. While lived experience is not an authority on truth, it does help us to understand where other people are coming from.

Kindness is the commitment to the person. And this needs the proper balance of courage, which is commitment to the truth.

Gavin Ortlund also wrote the book Finding the Right Hills to Die On: The Case for Theological Triage that I found helpful when considering where to place our courage, how to pick our battles, the right hills.

Our culture doesn’t always do a great job of showing real courage. Ortlund points out false ‘macho’ courage that lacks vulnerability. Courageous acts, he says, are often done in the quiet, private moments of decision making.

“Part of the reason courage feels vulnerable is that it is often forged in the context of decisions the outcomes of which are uncertain to us. We genuinely don’t know what will happen. We are not in control. It takes courage to embrace what we believe is right without any guarantee of success.”

He also points out how courage often means being willing to apologize when we are wrong or make a mistake. We are a prideful people and I think we’re often afraid that admitting wrong means we’re losing all ground in fighting for truth. But that’s simply not true.

Truth will shine through, and people are more likely to recognize it when they see humility in admitting wrong. It leads to respect and openness in hearing our perspective. A person who is never wrong is not an easy person to engage with.

In his chapter on Listening he gives a lot of practical strategies on how to be a better and active listener. I’m sure many of these won’t feel like new information, but they are good reminders, nonetheless.

Many readers might see there’s a chapter on ‘Persuasion’ and feel uncertain. Ortlund already says how disagreement is important and good because it deepens relationships, makes conversation interesting, and helps us learn, doesn’t persuasion undermine the ‘neutrality’ of simply disagreeing?

Some think of persuasion as manipulation or a domineering way of imposing views. Persuasion does have a power to it; your words are moving someone, changing their opinions. But contrary to a lot of cultural rhetoric— not all power is bad.

Persuasion can certainly slide into manipulation or domination and we should be careful to evaluate that, but:

“The truth is that done rightly, persuasion is an act of love.”

As one example he asks us to think of the person persuading a loved one not to commit suicide.

“If we care about people, we should want to encourage them toward truth and wisdom. Even when no one changes their mind attempts at persuasion help us understand one another better.”

Ortlund purposefully placed the Persuasion chapter after Kindness, Courage and Listening because we can’t do persuasion rightly without all of those things done genuinely.

He reiterates in the Love chapter that the purpose of our persuasion is not to win. If we are just trying to prove our intellect, impose our superiority, or win an argument, we’re doing it wrong. We are trying to win people to Christ, to freedom, to love. Our commitment is to eternal souls, not to winning for our own benefit.

I thought it was interesting that the main driving point behind people believing something or changing their mind about something was not the content (facts) or emotion, but trust.

An essential component of good communication is trust which requires sincerity, transparency, and purity of heart. It’s not about ‘appearing’ trustworthy, but actually ‘being’ trustworthy.

If you are interested in more practical examples of persuasive and tactful ways of sharing truth, I would highly recommend Greg Koukl’s book Tactics. He also has a lot of online resources/videos through the organization Stand to Reason.

Ortlund concludes that:

“The art of disagreeing rests on the presence of real love. And this love must start in our hearts with a deep acceptance of what Christ has done for us on the cross.”

The book is not The Science of Disagreeing, it’s the Art. It’s not formulaic. It’s more of a dance. It’s learning how to love the specific people in your life that disagree with you and it is rooted in the gracious love of the Father for us, who showed that love by dying for us while we were yet his enemies.

Ortlund’s book is not soft on truth yet pushes us to pursue unity.

Recommendation

Short, helpful, and wise, I can’t think of a reason not to read this book. Even if you think you know what it’s going to say, it’s worth reminding ourselves of these things. To bring them to the forefront.

There are increasingly more ways that we disagree with those around us; it is good to be preparing our hearts for whenever those arrive so we are ready to exercise both kindness and courage, to listen well, and persuade lovingly.

Ortlund quotes from Jonathan Haidt’s book, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion. I haven’t read this one yet but I’ve really respected Haidt’s other books (The Coddling of the American Mind and The Anxious Generation). If you want a more in-depth look at the psychology of disagreement from a secular viewpoint, this would be a great book.

What Ortlund provides in The Art of Disagreeing is what Haidt’s book (I’m assuming) is missing: a biblical worldview. For Ortlund (and for Christians) the stakes of unhealthy disagreement are high because we are representatives and ambassadors for the gospel. The Bible says people will know we are Christians by our love. (Jn 13:35) If we aren’t handling disagreements well, we’re not representing Christ well.

I think The Art of Disagreeing will help us represent Christ well.

You can order a copy of this book using my affiliate link below.

Everyone in This Bank Is a Thief (Ernest Cunningham #4)
By: Benjamin Stevenson

[Fulfills the prompt: ‘Book with a door on the cover’ for the Shelf Reflection 2026 Reading Challenge]

[On my list of Most Anticipated Books of 2026]

“There’s more you can steal from a bank than just money.”

Oh Ernest… you’ve done it again…

What is it this time?

“how bout a bank manager locked out of his own vault, a bank robber who doesn’t seem to care about money, a guard who doesn’t care about protecting it, four dead bodies, a priest who can’t talk, and a talking bird that won’t shut up?”

Ten heists. Lots of suspects. Spontaneous human combustion. A mysterious apostrophe. This book has it all.

The complexity of the mystery, the humor, and the creative and clever writing style made this book a very enjoyable read; but by now, I’m not surprised. Kudos to Stevenson for the consistency in this series. We know exactly what we’re going to get but at the same time we have no idea what’s coming.

Benjamin Stevenson provides his WhatsApp number in the author’s note and invites readers to message him their guess after reading Chapter 40. My initial thought was: let’s do this! But then I read that far and I didn’t want to embarrass myself so I refrained.

I was so close to finishing, I didn’t want to take the time it would have required to go back through all the clues I highlighted and figure it out. I actually did manage to guess the right person/s and had the right clues but I did not put it altogether.

This one is pretty complex, I’d be impressed by anyone who could nail it down! I would love to see the mapping Stevenson did to write this thing.

If you don’t know who Ernest Cunningham is by now, you really should go back and read the series in order. I do think you could get by with reading this as a standalone, but it’s going to be a better experience if you understand Ernest and Juliette chronologically.

At this point in Ernest’s life, he has solved three murder cases that he just so happened to get himself involved in. And then he wrote books about them (because he’s a Golden-Age mystery writer).

He’s now trying to set up a legit detective agency but requires a loan for that to be realized.

“One banker told me my books were only shelved in bookshops as ‘murder mysteries’ because there isn’t a section for ‘insurance nightmares.’”

He has not had luck securing a loan so when a banker from Huxley, Australia (fictional city near Byron Bay— I probably would have gone with Mullumbimby… for obvious reasons) approaches him with an offer, Ernest jumps at the chance to check it out.

“‘You’re in need of a bank. And it just so happens I’m in need of a detective.’”

Winston, the bank manager, cannot open the bank vault. His brother Edward (co-manager) changed the vault code and has now disappeared. Winston needs Ernest to find Edward so he doesn’t have to publicize the vault debacle.

Of course, Ernest finds himself in quite the predicament when suddenly a bank robber strolls in and takes him and a bunch of other people (including a priest, a sick woman with an IV pole, a teenager with a piggy bank, and the Hollywood producer who is optioning one of Ernest’s books to film) hostage.

Ernest’s missing person case just got a lot deeper.

But Big Ern is not one to back down from a challenge. He’s going to solve this case even if it costs him his life. Which isn’t as heroic as it sounds considering he makes some pretty stupid decisions in the book.

But at least he admits it:

“remember, I’m an idiot, not a psychopath.”

Thus, we immediately find out in the book that he’s writing this all down from inside a vault from which he cannot escape and is running out of air. How’d he get himself in there? And does he know who the thieves slash robbers slash murderers are?? Will he be able to get out in time to have a dramatic parlour scene where he reveals all the things?!?

You’ll have to read the book to find out!

As mentioned before, Stevenson is just a clever writer and I thoroughly enjoy his creativity and sarcasm. Ernest’s character is so good. I was trying to figure out who to compare him to and the best I could come up with is: the wit, down-to-earthness and self-deprecation of Nate Bargatze mixed with half of Tony Stark’s intelligence (maybe a fourth, I don’t know if I fully grasp Stark’s genius) and a dash of Owen Wilson’s confidence. Perhaps a bit of Harlan Coben’s Myron Bolitar character too.

It’s like a more likeable version of Adam Sandler’s character in the Murder Mystery movies.

It’s like he was raised by Steve Martin’s Pink Panther character but turned out (mostly) normal.

Clearly I’m still workshopping this.

Anyway, here are a few funny lines in the book to give you an idea of Stevenson’s writing style:

“Juliette has a list of careers as long as the rib-cage tattoo of a poetry-loving surfer.”

“I was as surprised by Winston Huxley’s words as his head seemed to be to have hair on it.”

“‘If you’d have just died like you were supposed to, you wouldn’t be so offended.’”

“[Byron Bay] where positive thinking meets negative gearing and people walk barefoot to connect with Mother Nature, provided that Mother Nature is the name of their wi-fi network.” (and is the home to the Hemsworth boys)

Amidst the chaos and Ernest’s weird case-solving energy, we do get a existential moment of clarity from Ernest that I appreciated, however short it ended up being:

“I would rather die with a reason than live without one.”

Wise words.

Okay, I finally have some new Australian lingo to share with the world!

Let’s see if you can figure out what they mean by this sentence:

If they would have stopped telling porkies about the weather I could have grabbed my brolly before I carked it from getting too wet.

Those who live in Australia (and possibly the UK) would agree— people are sayin’ this stuff allllllll the time.

So yeah porkies are lies. A brolly is an umbrella. and to cark it is to become a carcass. I mean die.

Seriously, Australians are so much better at slang. In America all we get is bro and 6 7.

Speaking of language… this book brings up leetspeak. Which is wild because I just read the book Fatal Intrusion by Jeffery Deaver and Isabella Maldonado and that’s a big theme in that one. So if you’re interested in books with the obscure combination of leetspeak and crimes, check it out.

Speaking of things from this book that are in other books, there was a quote from Everyone in This Bank Is a Thief that sounded very familiar to me:

“This is no longer a murder mystery. It’s a rescue mission.”

I figured out why. The quote I chose from the book Gone Dark by Ryan Steck was “This wasn’t a rescue mission anymore. It was a crime scene.” So I just read the inverse story apparently!

Speaking of the future… I have a guess at what Stevenson is going to write next.

He keeps making comments about whether someone is going to die at their wedding or not, so I’m going to guess that’s what the next book will be about: Everyone at This Wedding is a Cheater. Actually that would be terrible to read about.

Let’s get obscure: Everyone at this Wedding is a Detective.

And everyone’s trying to solve their own little mystery that brought them to the wedding but it’s all going to be related to one thing… Spoiler: it was an elaborate challenged planned by Ernest, himself, as a wedding gift to his guests. And of course it goes all wrong and someone ruins the cake and another one dies (by natural causes), but hey, you can’t have it all. Anyway, Stevenson, let me know if you want to write this one together ;)

P.S. Why did Ernest ask if Edward knitted or crocheted?

Recommendation

Totally.

[Content Advisory: 5 f-words, 3 s-words; no sexual content; we do read about some human combustion and their face melts off and a few other grotesque things but it’s science-y so don’t have feelings about it… ]

**Received an ARC via NetGalley**

This book just released March, 2026. You can order a copy of this book using my affiliate link below.

The Cross of Christ
By: John R.W. Stott

“I try to show that the cross transforms everything. It gives us a new, worshiping relationship to God, a new and balanced understanding of ourselves, a new incentive to give ourselves in mission, a new love for our enemies, and a new courage to face the perplexities of suffering.”  

This is a theologically rich book that will deepen your understanding of the cross and why it is necessary, beautiful, victorious, and a revelation of God himself.

John Stott first wrote this book in 1985. I read the 20th Anniversary Edition that was republished in 2005 with a new foreword by Alistair McGrath. The Cross of Christ has long been considered a staple read for Christians (kind of like Knowing God or Mere Christianity) and I concur with that. I’m not sure there is another book out there that is more detailed and comprehensive regarding the cross and atonement.

I’ve had this book on my shelf for a few years now, always intending to read it, but knowing it would take me awhile, continuing to push it off. I’m glad I finally picked it up. Especially because recently I’ve been encountering more and more people rejecting penal substitutionary atonement (most recently in The Myth of Good Christian Parenting) which has baffled me.

I, like Stott, am surprised by how unpopular substitutionary atonement is. I then learned about all these different ‘theories’ of atonement, which I somehow hadn’t heard of before, but felt a little overwhelmed. I had no idea when I started Stott’s book that he would lay them all out for me, showing me what is appealing about each, where it is based in a truth, but most importantly, where they are incomplete.

That alone is worth reading this book because I think the average church-attender might not know how to discern distortions of the atonement. But there is so much more to this book than that. I took like 60 pages of typed notes while reading this book, folks. Even for someone lacking in brevity, that’s a lot of pages for me.

Stott’s writing, though a little dense at times, is very clear. It’s almost like a whole bunch of sermons in one book. He will have three reasons for such and such or four things we learn from this or four pictures that illustrate this, etc, and many summary statements that make it easy to follow along. If you wanted to outline the entire book (for some reason) it would be very straightforward to do.

One thing that is great about the book (at least in the anniversary edition— not sure if it’s in the original) is the Study Guide at the end. I didn’t notice it until I was a good chunk of the way through or I would have utilized it more, but it would be very useful for people wanting to read and discuss the book together or, individually, as a way to sum up and remember the main points of each chapter as you go along.

If you’ve ever wondered… why is the cross what most symbolizes and represents Christianity? why did Jesus die? why couldn’t God just forgive us? is the Old Testament God full of wrath but the New Testament God full of love? how do we reconcile God’s anger with his love? can God suffer? can God die? what’s the difference between justification and forgiveness? how is the cross glorious? why is the Lord’s Supper important? why would God allow us to suffer?… then this book is definitely for you.

It answers far more than these questions and even presents questions that I didn’t know I wanted the answers to.

Stott divides his book into four sections: Approaching the Cross, The Heart of the Cross, the Achievement of the Cross, and Living Under the Cross.

I’ll just share a few of the things in the book that really stuck out to me and my ultimate recommendation is at the end.

In the section about approaching the cross where he talks about why Jesus died and looked at the role of Judas, the high priests, and Pilate, he reminds us that we can’t fully separate ourselves from what happened on the cross. It’s worth quoting at length:

“If we were in their place, we would have done what they did. Indeed, we have done it. For whenever we turn away from Christ, we “are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace” (Heb 6:6). We too sacrifice Jesus to our greed like Judas, to our envy like the priests, to our ambition like Pilate. ‘Were you there when they crucified my Lord?’ The old negro spiritual asks. And we must answer, ‘yes, we were there.’ Not as spectators only, but as participants, guilty participants, plotting, scheming, betraying, bargaining and handing him over to be crucified. We may try to wash our hands  of responsibility like  Pilate.  But our attempt will be as futile as his. For there is blood on our hands. Before we can begin to see the cross as something done for us  (leading us to faith and worship) we have to see it as something done by us (leading us to repentance). Indeed, ‘only the man who is prepared to own his share in the guilt of the cross,’ wrote Canon  Peter Green, ‘may claim his share in its grace.’”

In the section on the heart of the cross he gets right down to one of the hardest parts to understand about the cross and forgiveness. Why did Jesus have to die? Why couldn’t God just forgive us?

Much is said about God’s love today, and rightly so because he is love. But what is missing about this description is what Stott calls his ‘holy love.’

“His love is “holy love”, love which yearns over sinners while at the same time refusing to condone their sin. How, then, could God express his holy love— his love in forgiving sinners without compromising his holiness, and his holiness in judging sinners without frustrating his love?”

The answer is the cross.

“On the cross divine mercy and justice were equally expressed and eternally reconciled. God’s holy love was ‘satisfied.’” 

The only response to sin by a holy God is justice. But because of his holy love, instead of making the guilty parties pay the cost, he substituted himself in our place.

As Stott goes through the other views of atonement, he shows that:

“All inadequate doctrines of the atonement are due to inadequate doctrines of God and humanity… The essential background to the cross, therefore, is a balanced understanding of the gravity of sin and the majesty of God. If we diminish either, we thereby diminish the cross. If we reinterpret sin as a lapse instead of a rebellion, and God as indulgent instead of indignant, then naturally the cross appears superfluous.”

For example, the view of atonement often called Ransom to Satan or Christus Victor originates from the idea that the cross was necessary because God had to satisfy Satan, that somehow he owed something to the devil because of our sin. But the cross was not a transaction with the devil as if he lorded any debt over God. It’s God we have sinned against.

Ambrose’s view of atonement is that Christ had to satisfy the law and that God had his hands tied, forced to require punishment for disobeying the law. But God is not imprisoned by his own law, he is the creator of the law and the law “is the expression of his own moral being” which is always self-consistent.

Anselm’s view is called the Satisfaction Theory and rightly accounts for the gravity of sin, the holiness of God, and the perfection of Christ and his voluntary death for us, but it seems to put Jesus and God on opposing sides, almost painting God as a “feudal overlord” demanding honor that Jesus, apart from God, decides to satisfy.

Abelard’s Moral Influence view emphasizes the cross as a demonstration meant to inspire repentance rather than an actual payment of sin.

“In differing degrees, all these formulations are true. The limitation they share is that unless they are very carefully stated, they represent God as being subordinate to something outside and above himself which controls his actions, to which he is accountable, and from which he cannot free himself. Satisfaction is an appropriate word, providing we realize that it is he himself in his inner being who needs to be satisfied, and not something external to himself. Talk of law, honor, justice and the moral order is true only in so far as these are seen as expressions of God’s own character. Atonement is a ‘necessity’ because it ‘arises from within God himself.’” 

God must satisfy himself. And Jesus, as a member of the Trinity, is never at odds with the Father or the Spirit. They are one.

“We must never make Christ the object of God’s punishment or God the object of Christ’s persuasion, for both God and Christ were subjects not objects, taking the initiative together to save sinners… their wills coincided in the perfect self-sacrifice of love.”

Stott says that he hasn’t seen a more careful statement about substitutionary atonement as this one by Dr. Charles Cranfield:

“God, because in his mercy he willed to forgive sinful men, and, being truly merciful, willed to forgive them righteously, that is, without in any way condoning their sin, purposed to direct against his own very self in the person of his Son the full weight of that righteous wrath which they deserved.” 

Stott then spends time talking about the Old Testament sacrificial system and the Passover to underscore what substitution means, who was eligible to make it, and why it was just.

Stott takes on all the objections and arguments and does a great job leading us through Scripture to show how essential the principle of ‘satisfaction through substitution’ is for Bible-believing Christians. He has strong words against anyone attempting to remove these from their theology. We can be sure that there is nothing immoral about penal substitutionary atonement (Christ taking on the legal punishment for our sin) because the substitute for us was “the Lawmaker himself.”

Again, I’ll quote at length here because it is a good summary that I’ll probably refer back to:

“The cross was not a commercial bargain with the devil, let alone one that tricked and trapped him; nor an exact equivalent, a quid pro quo to satisfy a code of honor or technical point of law; nor a compulsory submission by God to some moral authority above him from which he could not otherwise escape; nor a punishment of a meek Christ by a harsh and punitive Father; nor a procurement of salvation by a loving Christ from a mean and reluctant Father; nor an action of the Father which bypassed Christ as Mediator. Instead, the righteous, loving Father humbled himself to become in and through his only Son flesh, sin and a curse for us, in order to redeem us without compromising his own character. The theological words satisfaction and substitution need to be carefully defined and safeguarded, but they cannot in any circumstances be given up. The biblical gospel of atonement is of God satisfying himself by substituting himself for us.”

In the section on the achievement of the cross, he covers three things the cross did: rescued us (salvation), disclosed himself (revelation), and overcame evil (conquest).

He goes through four ‘theology’ words with helpful and easy to understand illustrations that help us see a complete picture of salvation:

“Propitiation introduces us to rituals at a shrine, redemption to transactions in a marketplace, justification to proceedings in a court of law, and reconciliation to experiences in a home or family. My contention is that ‘substitution’ is not a further ‘theory’ or ‘image’ to be set alongside the others, but rather the foundation of them all, without which each lacks cogency.” 

“Each of these four New Testament images of salvation highlights a different aspect of our human need. Propitiation underscores the wrath of God upon us, redemption our captivity to sin, justification our guilt, and reconciliation our enmity against God and alienation from him.” 

He declares that ‘substitution’ is not a ‘theory’ of atonement but the very essence of it.

In the section on living under the cross, I really enjoyed the chapter about self-understanding.

Many today confuse self-affirmation with self-love. He does a great job of showing how it is biblical to both deny yourself and affirm yourself:

“The self we are to deny, disown and crucify is our fallen self, everything within us that is incompatible with Jesus Christ. The self we are to affirm and value is our created self, everything within us that is compatible with Jesus Christ. True self-denial is not the road to self-destruction but the road to self-discovery.” 

“the cross is the God-given measure of the value of our true self, since Christ loved us and died for us. On the other hand, it is the God-given model for the denial of our false self, since we are to nail it to the cross and so put it to death… we see simultaneously our worth and our unworthiness, since we perceive both the greatness of his love in dying, and the greatness of our sin in causing him to die.”

(These truths align so well with Galatians which I just happened to be studying while reading this book. It was a pleasant surprise that the Conclusion went through the entire book of Galatians!)

The cross not only corrects our view of self, but is also the foundation for how we love our enemies.

This chapter was the practical ‘how to live in your community’ with this knowledge part.

The last chapter looks at how the cross informs our view of suffering. I thought this part was really good too. I’ve read a lot of books on pain and suffering— which I can only imagine must mean God is equipping me for something down the road— so this wasn’t necessarily new information but it is always good to be reminded how suffering is attached to growth and maturity. Suffering, however painful, is not Godforsaken; God is there with us. We share his sufferings that we might share in his glory when all is made right.

When we change our mindset to expect suffering, knowing God is refining us, pruning us, we can endure for our loving God is producing a holiness in us that is made for heaven.

“The cross does not solve the problem of suffering, but it supplies the essential perspective from which to look at it. Since God has demonstrated his holy love and loving justice in a historical event (the cross), no other historical event (whether personal or global) can override or disprove it.” 

Some other quotes:

“whether we like it or not, we are involved. Our sins put him there. So, far from offering us flattery, the cross undermines our self-righteousness. We can stand before it only with a bowed head and a broken spirit. And there we remain until the Lord Jesus speaks to our hearts his word of pardon and acceptance, and we, gripped by his love and full of thanksgiving, go out into the world to live our lives in his service.”  

“that Christ died for us, for our good; that the ‘good’ he died to procure for us was our salvation; that in order to procure it he had to deal with our sins; and that in dying for them it was our death that he died.”  

”It is altogether an error… to suppose that God acts at one time according to one of his attributes, and at another time according to another. He acts in conformity with all of them at all times… It is a case of combined action, and not of counteraction, on the part of these attributes, that is exhibited on the cross.”— Thomas J. Crawford 

“What looks like (and indeed was) the defeat of goodness by evil is also, and more certainly, the defeat of evil by goodness. Overcome there, he was himself overcoming. Crushed by the ruthless power of Rome, he was himself crushing the serpent’s head. The victim was the victor, and the cross is still the throne from which he rules the world.” 

“In fact, all three of the major explanations of the death of Christ contains biblical truth and can to some extent be harmonized, especially if we observe that the chief difference between them is that in each God’s work in Christ is directed toward a different person. In the ‘objective’ view God satisfies himself, in the ‘subjective’ he inspires us, and in the ‘classic’ he overcomes the devil. Thus Jesus Christ is successively the Savior, the Teacher and the Victor, because we ourselves are guilty, apathetic and in bondage. [1 Cor 1:30] ‘justification, sanctification, and redemption’… some may gravitate to the great Deliverance, some to the great Atonement, and some to the great Regeneration’ yet all are part of the Savior’s total accomplishment, ‘the destruction of evil, the satisfaction of God, and the sanctification of men.’” (Forsyth) 

“To sum up, the gospel includes both the death and the resurrection of Jesus, since nothing would have been accomplished by his death if he had not been raised from it. Yet the gospel emphasizes the cross, since it was there that the victory was accomplished. The resurrection did not achieve our deliverance from sin and death, but has brought us an assurance of both.”  

“To be an enemy of the cross is to set ourselves against its purposes. Self-righteousness (instead of looking to the cross for justification), self-indulgence (instead of taking up the cross to follow Christ), self-advertisement (instead of preaching Christ crucified) and self-glorification (instead of glorying in the cross)— these are the distortions that make us ‘enemies’ of Christ’s cross”

Recommendation

This will not be a light or fast read, but I do believe it to be an accessible and essential read to expand and deepen your understanding of the cross.

I think I’ll be coming back to my notes a lot as different questions come up. This book is a classic for a reason and I recommend it whether you are a pastor, a layperson, or even an atheist who wants to know what the heck the deal is with all the cross stuff.

Rest assured, the cross does not put God’s wrath at odds with his love, but presents the most beautiful combination of them— his holy love— that is our path to freedom and to life and leads us to worship and service in gratitude that he made a way for us that we did not deserve. Thank you, Lord.

You can order a copy of this book using my affiliate link below.

Daughter of the Rebellion
By: Jamie Ogle

[Fulfills the prompt: ‘Book about a historical event that’s not from WWII’ for the Shelf Reflection 2026 Reading Challenge]

[On my list of Most Anticipated Books of 2026]

“‘We trust that right will prevail in the end. It is rarely easy, always costly, but never hopeless.’”

It’s been awhile since I’ve read something set during the Roman empire! I was going to say that was a fun change of scenery but it’s about gladiators and gladiatrixes so fun is not the right word.

This was a fictionalized telling of the historical Telemachus and his influence in ending the gladiatorial games in Rome.

Daughter of the Rebellion is a love story filled with pain, bravery, vulnerability, honor, and heroism. It shows that we can trust God even with our darkest moments.

That “‘Just because something seems impossible doesn’t mean we do nothing.’”

The gladiator system might have touted valor and honor, but it is empty and false because it rejects the dignity of image-bearers. Christianity entreats us to honor God who is the source of both strength and mercy, justice and love. Part of honoring the Lord is honoring his creation— his image-bearers— and treasuring life.

It’s always humbling to think about Christians before me and the persecution they faced (and still face around the world). The Christian life is not an easy one, but it’s the only one with true hope. This book gives us a good example of how to stand and resist what is contrary to God’s design. What a legacy of faith and trust Christian martyrs leave behind!

The cover image is a little misleading. Our main character is a female— Adelgard— but she is a prisoner of war sold to a ludus and forced to be a gladiatrix. Pretty much the entire book revolves around that situation. The cover makes it seem like she is living this calm, fancy life when in reality she spends her days in the sand fighting for her life and her honor.

I had never heard of Telemachus before. In my own research it seems we don’t know a lot about it and some stories differ from one another. That’s probably why Ogle opted to imagine her story focused on two other characters— a gladiatrix and a medicus— that knew Telemachus rather than make him the true focal point.

I don’t know if the final publication will include an author’s note at the end that shares which parts of the story were true. I read the advanced readers’ copy and to my chagrin, that version did not. I would love to know what Ogle found in her research! Based on the details of the gladiator life she wove into the story, it’s clear she did a lot of it.

[UPDATE: I have confirmed that the final publication has an author’s note that separates fact from fiction]

It is hard to read about the gladiatorial games because we do know the true history and horror that played out in those arenas; Adelgard’s plight is heartbreaking. Having visited the Colosseum in Rome, it was sobering to look around and imagine people treating violence and death as a form of entertainment.

At the time of Telemachus’ ‘event’ (I won’t say exactly what it is because I feel like that’s a spoiler) Rome was ruled by young Emperor Honorius who was recognized as a Christian. At this point in history Christianity was the established state religion. Telemachus is appalled that Christians would still be allowing, promoting, and enjoying the despicable practice of the games and was urging the emperor to stop them.

In the story Adelgard is a Visigoth, a people group from the Balkans ruled by Alaric at the time. Though, historically, Alaric was responsible for the sack of Rome in 410, Ogle used his animosity a little differently in the story and the timeline is different. I’m guessing this is fiction, but in the book Alaric is threatening to attack Rome if the emperor does not release his people who were captured, including his own wife and daughters.

Telemachus tries to press upon this information and persuade Honorius to meet Alaric’s demands. In this story Telemachus, a monk from the East who spent time as a gladiator earlier in his life, had been with the Visigoth people teaching them the Scriptures. He knows Adelgard personally and because of his own experience, knows what she’s going through as a gladiator.

Meanwhile Adelgard is telling herself that she doesn’t mind being a gladiatrix. Feeling betrayed during her capture, previously ostracized by her people, and feeling unwanted by her own father, she views her role as a gladiatrix as something purposeful, a way to achieve her own worth.

She thinks she is being taken care of by the Romans, fed and clothed, and because of her fame, loved. No one has ever fought for her before so she is perfectly fine to take her life into her own hands and work her way up to a better life.

“The only way to stop fighting forever was to prove herself worthy and earn a place among the magistri— or die trying. To be unable to even try… That offered a fate worse than death.”

Enter character two: Felix. Felix, schooled as a doctor in Alexandria, left the family business at the ludus because of his Christian beliefs. Now he would do no harm. But when his father disappears after accumulating a big debt, Felix feels forced back to the family business to provide for his mother and sisters. He becomes one of the doctors to the fighters.

This is where he meets Adelgard. And where we get the romance aspect of the book.

Felix becomes close to Adel and cares for her. He eventually teams up with Telemachus and some other monks to try to help Adel and the other captives escape their fate.

“‘I do not know if anyone can survive what is coming. You have given us hope, Felix. And that is a better gift than any I have ever received.’”

Adel unknowingly helps give Felix the courage and strength to do the right thing, and Felix helps Adel know her worth, that not every man will lie to her and take advantage of her:

“‘You, Adelgard, are a woman worth fighting for.’” *cue swoon

Jamie Ogle has written a compelling story that makes you feel like you’re there. Even though it’s a heavy atmosphere, she still manages to include some humor and lightheartedness. I enjoyed Felix’s relationship with his sisters and the banter he shared with Adel.

I loved the themes that explored courage and love and how the characters realized they were both justifying something wrong because they weren’t trusting the Lord for what they needed (Adel justifying her own abuse, calling it love; Felix justifying being part of a murderous organization because he needed provision).

It’s a dark part of history, but Ogle shows us where the light is.

Recommendation

I thought this was a great read, especially if you enjoy historical fiction or books set in the Roman empire.

We might not find ourselves in a Colosseum like Adelgard, but we still must be on our guard against compromising our beliefs for what is popular. We have our own battles to resist the lure of sin, of complacency, of fame, of self-sufficiency. This story reminds us that though our journey is hard and costly, it is never hopeless.

‘The Lord brings the counsel of the nations to nothing; he frustrates the plans of the peoples. The counsel of the Lord stands forever, the plans of his heart to all generations.’ (Psalm 33:10-11)

This was my first Jamie Ogle book, and I’d read another.

[Content Advisory: No swearing or sexual content (there was some sexual harrassment); Many of the fights are described so there is a lot of violence and some death but I wouldn’t say it’s super graphic or gratuitous.]

**Received an ARC via Tyndale House Publishers**

This book releases May, 2026. You can pre-order/order a copy of this book using my affiliate link below.

Fatal Intrusion (Sanchez & Heron #1)
By: Jeffery Deaver & Isabella Maldonado

[Fulfills the prompt: ‘Book with a title that would make a good excuse for being late’ for the Shelf Reflection 2026 Reading Challenge]

“The man lying at his feet hunted snakes, but this time he’d been the one hunted. And by a far superior predator— a spider.”

If you didn’t have arachnophobia before, you might after reading this book. The antagonist, aka Spider (a person, not the creature), is a serial killer who fashions his kills like those of various spider species (the creatures). I was blissfully unaware of some of these facts and now my bliss has been stolen.

Not only did it remind me of my spider fears, but it also unlocked some new fears in regards to cyber security and hackers. So that’s neat.

I’m now concerned that the customer representatives I speak to on the phone about my appliance warranty is going to use my personal information to plan an attack and then plant fake emails in my inbox to distract the police from finding my suffocated body. But whatevs. I’m cool. It’s cool. It’s not real. Is it real?

Serial killer and thriller books don’t usually bother me because I know that it’s NOT REAL. But this book felt on the edge of reality because I don’t actually know what the hacker scene is out there. Can peoples do these things right now?!

The real problem in this book— which I can’t reveal— is crazy scary. How can people live with themselves when they do these things?

I just want to keep believing that my email is secure and my locks will keep the bad guys out.

It was bad timing that while reading I also happened to watch a YouTube video (which I hardly ever do) about the potential partnership with Ring doorbells and sidewalk cams to use for facial recognition and some sort of neighborhood watch collective that sounds like a really terrible invasion of privacy.

“The dangers of video surveillance and facial recognition occupied three solid hours in his course.”

Jake Heron would be turning over in his grave right now. (If he were real and also dead).

This book was a little more gruesome and disturbing than I was expecting. I’ve read a lot of Isabella Maldonado books— she’s one of my auto-reads which is why we’re here— and her books have some disturbing serial killers, but there was just something about this book that felt different.

Maybe it was Deaver’s contribution? It had twice as much swearing as Maldonado’s ‘usual’ amount. It’s hard to put a finger on why this book felt worse. Maybe it’s just the spiders. I don’t know. But I do think there will be some readers that might not get into this one because of some of the disturbing parts.

ANYWAY.

Overall, this story, set in California, had a bit of a slow start but there were some great twists and turns that ratcheted the intrigue and conflict up in the second half when you suddenly realize that things aren’t what they seem.

This book had layers and I liked that.

I also liked the partnership between Sanchez and Heron.

Carmen Sanchez’s skills, intellect, and character are pretty on par with Maldonado’s other series (Nina Guerrera and Daniela Vega). She’s the tough but brilliant federal agent who will stop at nothing to capture the killer. Also because the killer attacked her sister, but she would have done it anyway, you just know.

Professor Jacoby Heron is a cyber security genius who can write righteous code (that’s what it’s called, I’m not tapping into my inner-Crush) and is obsessed with ‘points of potential intrusion.’ But it’s precisely this intrusion knowledge that is essential to identify who the killer is.

“‘The first step toward analyzing a crime is identifying the Points of Potential Intrusion. How the victims were selected and targeted. That’ll lead to the perp’s motives and eventually identities. We need to keep looking for PPIs. They’re there, and I can find them. It’s what I do.’”

Of course, it’s not just any partnership. We learn there is some sort of history between the two that they will need to resolve.

“‘Active dislike bordering on open hostility… but we trust each other.’”

But considering it’s a series, you know it somehow works out because they’ll be together on another case in the future. And beware, it could get romantic (based on all the sexual tension talked about in this book).

I do think the reader gets to know Heron better than Sanchez. Heron has a more interesting personality. He is quirky and funny. Maybe it’s because Heron has a civilian role and we only get Sanchez ‘on the job.’ We get some snippets between her and her sister that try to add depth, but largely her character just feels a little one-dimensional compared to Heron’s.

Hopefully in the next one we can see some of her flaws or her quirks, a little more personality.

There is also something with her family that is left unresolved in this book and I hope that gets picked up in the next one too. That will probably help shape her into a more interesting person.

Some other random thoughts and comments:

Most books leave the villain nameless and mysterious because it’s another character in the book that you would least suspect. This is not one of those books.

This one is about the chase. The reader knows the name of the killer pretty much right away. I’m not always a fan of that because it feels like it removes too much mystery. But this one is less about who the guy is and more about what he’s part of. The mystery is in the game of cat and mouse and if they uncover what’s really going on. It worked okay here.

If you’re wondering about potential points of intrusion, here’s some of what Heron covers in his class: “Crime, for one. All criminals intrude. Then war… Then there’s political intrusion. All laws and regulations affect us, and some consider those intrusive. Government snooping? Intrusion. Corporate data mining? Intrusion. And what about religion? When does a comforting sect step so far into your life you find yourself in a cult or a terrorist cell?”

Also, “humor was one of the most dangerous forms of intrusion. If you made people laugh, you owned them.”

See? Isn’t this fun? We can even be afraid of funny people!

Similar to the points of intrusion is geographical profiling. I loved this reference because it reminded me of Steven James’ serial killer series The Patrick Bowers files which is so good and the main killer-catcher-guy (Patrick Bowers… like Jack Bauer… but… Patrick…) does geographical profiling for the FBI and it’s awesome.

I probably already knew this but I verified that this is real-life-happening-today. Electronic detection canines are real. It’s wild! They can sniff out a chemical component used to create electronic devices. I’m not a dog-lover, but I love that dogs can do this. And that someone figured out that dogs could do this.

Another thing I learned is the difference between a labyrinth and a maze. There is only one way through a labyrinth, you get to the middle eventually. But a maze has branches off and dead ends: “A maze could trap you forever.” Does this have any bearing on the book? Nope. But you can annoyingly correct the next person who uses them interchangeably now.

Recommendation

So I had The Grave Artist (the next book in this series) on my to-read list without realizing it was a series so I obviously had to come back and read this one first. They do set the next book up quite well so sure, I’ll read the next one. Let’s see what other security blankets Deaver and Maldonado can destroy for me. Should be fun.

Sarcasm aside, I will read the next one, but depending how that one is, I may not read further. I will probably just stick to Maldonado’s solo books which are somehow less disturbing for me. I don’t make the rules.

If you have an intense fear of spiders or are grossed out by someone possibly being boiled up like a stew or would like to avoid knowing about all the cyber-scares out there haunting us, then this book could be a fatal intrusion on your life you could probably do without.

For all others: good luck.

Keep an eye out for my review of book two and we’ll see where my list of fears is at.

[Content Advisory: 22 f-words, 43 s-words, 12 b-words; some sexual innuendo and crudeness]

You can order a copy of this book using my affiliate link below.

Humility: The Joy of Self-Forgetfulness
By: Gavin Ortlund

“Humility is the nourishing, calming acceptance that you have a small place in a much larger story: that your life is being guided by something far bigger than your plans or controls, and serving something far bigger than your ‘sole benefit.’”

This book is not to be confused with Tim Keller’s book, The Freedom of Self-Forgetfulness, which is also a great read. Ortlund has written this nice little book (95 pages) that is super practical for both leaders and non-leaders to kill pride and foster humility that can’t help but turn into joy.

While there is naturally some overlap, they look at humility from a little different angles.

If I’m remembering Keller’s book correctly, it focuses a lot on achievement vs rest and how our identity is not wrapped up in what we do right or wrong.

Similarly, Ortlund does touch on how the gospel message fuels our humility. Both authors also make distinctions between self-love, self-hatred, and humility.

However, Ortlund goes a little further than I believe Keller did by giving a lot of practical action steps. He gives ten steps to kill pride, and he has chapters written specifically for humility in leadership (which includes parents), humility towards our peers, and humility towards leaders (as church members).

Both books are short and valuable so go ahead and read them both!

Ortlund begins his book with addressing three misconceptions of humility that are very important. I think we get these wrong a lot!

He says that humility is not “hiding,” “self-hatred,” or “weakness.”

It’s been said that humility is not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less. It’s not about self-degradation or puffing yourself up, but having a correct view of the self.

Ortlund advises, “Whatever else humility will require of you, it will never rob you of your dignity as an image bearer of God.”

We can still take care of ourselves and view ourselves in a healthy way that recognizes our dignity as God’s creation.

Because our identity and worth is in Christ and not in our achievements or appearances, “it frees us from the restricting needs of the ego— the need to be in charge, the need to look good, the need to defend ourselves, and so on.”

Ironically, self-hiding, self-hatred, and self-protection all cause us to still be pre-occupied with ourselves. Humility frees us from self-preoccupation.

When we think about how the gospel is the foundation and the fuel for humility, Ortlund points out that we need to face these sobering thoughts first:

“The gospel teaches us to measure our pride by the cross of Christ… our pride put the Son of God on the cross… our sins put Jesus on the cross.”

“We bow twice… We bow first before God because we are creatures and he is Creator; then we bow again because we are sinners and he is Judge and Savior.”

We must see this reality first, and then we can move on to the next reality: the gospel also says that those sins are covered.

We have been given new life; we are new creations. We have been offered forgiveness for those sins and the gift of Christ’s righteousness. None of this is our own doing, but rests solely in the power and hands of Jesus. Our ego can have no foothold.

All of this is proof that we are so tenderly loved by God, so we are humbled and filled with joy that we can just be part of God’s bigger story of redemption. We are free from having to tell a better story that puts us at the center. The joy of humility and self-forgetfulness.

I won’t list them all but some of the ways he recommends to kill pride was to become better listeners, to practice gratitude, to learn from criticism, laugh at yourself, and enjoy life— gratefully accepting right pleasures as gifts from God.

When Ortlund talked about humility in leadership he was clear and transparent about the failures of so many leaders who used their position of power to abuse and hurt others. He believes these things can ultimately be traced back to lack of humility.

“I’d put it this strongly: if you are in a position of authority, you will become either a servant or a bully. Your authority will be experienced by others as either freedom or oppression, depending on whether it is marked by humility.”

His strategies for maintaining humility as a leader (including parents) is to be unthreatened by others’ success and abilities, to be able to delegate to others, make a practice of encouraging others, correct in gentleness, and be willing to apologize.

I don’t hold a corporate place of leadership but as a parent, I recognize how these are so important and relevant to leading my kids. I need to do a better job of those last three and I think that will make a big difference in my relationship with my kids. I think we forget that it’s easy to become a bully of a parent rather than a servant because we think that’s the only way to teach obedience, but it’s definitely not. Humility is such a key to good parenting and I needed that reminder!

The chapter about humility towards peers zeroed in on combating envy. I thought it was good how he showed the danger and miserableness of envy. I think we downplay it way more than we should.

To fight envy, we can pray for the blessing of others. Another way— this is his epilogue— get off social media. Get off any platform that puts you in an endless cycle of seeing all the things you don’t have but want, seeing what everyone else is doing that you’re not, seeing what everyone else’s friends or spouses are doing that yours aren’t. All it does is sow discontentment and envy which steals your joy so easily.

Ortlund doesn’t say to get off of it. He more so addresses self-promotion and meanness, which are also good reminders, but I think some people might be so entrenched in the social media world that they need to take a hiatus to see how much it really is affecting them.

The last chapter is about humility towards leadership. This is a tricky chapter because the main theme is ‘submission’ which always makes people flinch— myself included. I’ve had bad experiences with church leadership where it made submitting really hard.

Ortlund reminds us: “Submission does not mean blind acceptance or passive reception of whatever the leadership says or does.”

Instead, a better way to look at submission is “accepting something you otherwise would not choose. It means turning, changing, adjusting.”

It takes a lot of discernment to know when the leadership is just doing something you wouldn’t choose or when it has crossed the line into something that needs church discipline, etc.

We can pray for discernment, but another way Ortlund encourages church members to submit to leadership is to simply be teachable: “you want to be the kind of person to whom it is easy to give advice, who really listens to and values others’ feedback.”

I thought this was a really good, but convicting, piece of advice: “Instead of saying ‘I will support the leadership if I have a good reason to’ say, ‘I will joyfully support the leadership unless I have a good reason not to.’”

Recommendation

It’s a little book that packs a punch and gives actionable steps to embrace humility whether you pastor a church, parent a family, or interact with peers.

I would definitely recommend this book.

The Ortlund brothers have written some great books, if you’re interested in more you can see what I’ve reviewed at these links: Gavin Ortlund, Eric Ortlund, Dane Ortlund.

You can order a copy of this book using my affiliate link below.

A Curse Upon Tides (The Empyreal Guardian Saga #2)
By: A.M. Daylin

[Fulfills one of the two for prompt: ‘Two books by the same author’ for the Shelf Reflection 2026 Reading Challenge]

“‘While the future we see when we choose to hope can never be guaranteed, it gives us the strength we need to endure today— to help us draw closer to that potential outcome.’”

This book makes me want to throw the elbow. Which means nothing to you unless you went to college with me, but I assure you, it is a good and exciting thing.

Our great adventure from These Hallowed Binds continues in A Curse Upon Tides! This was a roller coaster of ups and downs as our beloved characters continue their quest to save their world from the curse. I hope I don’t have to wait too long for the next book!

I just love the characters of this book and their mission. Daylin does a fantastic job of continuing and developing all the character arcs. I don’t always love when books change POV from chapter to chapter, but I love all her characters and enjoy each piece.

Each one of them is struggling with real and relatable things. Daylin doesn’t shy away from hard questions, but provides natural and truthful guidance that speaks to readers’ hearts as well.

This series reminds me of why I loved Ted Dekker’s Circle Series so much. There is a real battle for our souls and books like these help us see it more tangibly, to recognize that the quest for truth and salvation is all that matters. Following Christ is hard, but the best thing we’ll ever do.

A Curse Upon Tides sounds like a Pirates of the Caribbean movie, and thus is well-titled because they do find themselves on a ship— complete with first and second-mates and a crow’s nest and even some swashbuckling (depending on if my definition of this word in my head is correct or not)— on a cursed sea as they set out to find Toaph— the Guardian they believe is their only hope for their world’s restoration in defeating Ta’Nathel.

In short, These Hallowed Binds left off with the exciting news that Toaph is alive! Calden, Nori, Alani, and Elias have reached the Citadel. Nori is to begin her ward training. And Calden now suspects his ‘curse’ is actually Toaph trying to communicate with him. He is trying to figure out how to access that information without triggering the violent outbursts that usually come with the visions. It must be the key to finding Toaph!

In long, see below.

If you haven’t read the first one, this review might feel confusing to you. Do yourself a ginormous and fun favor and start there first!

[I’m just going to use the same organization I used from my review of the first book because that makes the most sense in updating what we know about each thing.]

Summary/ Plot Points

A Curse Upon Tides begins just days after These Hallowed Binds. Nori’s induction ceremony is at hand. And while she doesn’t quite achieve all the marks, the council decides (with the persuasion from Calden) that she is ready enough. She can finish learning on the ship. They need to begin their journey to Raevre.

Why?

Elias shares some important information with Calden. This war that King Arlo and the Raevreans are fighting is because of a vortex that was discovered in Raevre in The Valley of the Four Winds. The superstitious people of Raevre are interested in hidden magic, but King Arlo is afraid of magic and would like to prevent anyone from obtaining it.

The winds from all directions have converged, creating an unrelenting vortex. Of dust. Dust like what Calden sees in his visions. The winds are too strong for anyone to explore it: could this be Toaph? Could he be calling Calden to come to him?

Perhaps we will also learn more about Nori’s father and his death as we continue on— he was one of the first spies to investigate Raevre. Maybe he found something out he wasn’t supposed to know. Did he somehow share that information with Nori and she hasn’t realized it yet?

As I suspected, we do meet our other Bind members. First is Odessa, Calden’s sister. Her personality is a bit standoffish and ‘I’m above you’ kind of thing. Somewhat similar to Zuko’s sister, Azula, in Avatar (yes, I’m still referencing Avatar…), but without the evilness. At least that we know of. Part of me wonders if she is actually going to be the one to betray them.

Odessa’s Master Talent is to take vitality from other living things to strengthen her vitality wards and make them last longer. Technically she could draw vitality from other people to their own demise which is partly why I think Odessa might be more dangerous to the Bind than we first suspect. How pure of heart is she?

Big news in this book (it happens early on so I don’t feel like it’s a big spoiler): Calden’s father is alive. And he is the Oracle! That was shocking news for him that shook everything he knew about his father and his mother and his sister. How could they keep this information from him?

Turns out his father turned to corrupt magic because he was trying to help Calden with his search.

“It wasn’t for evil that he forsook us. It was for love.”

His mother and sister kept this information from him (and everyone else) because they feared Calden might try to follow his father— you know, because of his rebellious nature and tendency to push boundaries and question traditions that don’t make sense.

Calden finds out this information by running into his father in the tunnels (with Elias). And his father plants seeds of doubt in his mind. The Oracle claims that Toaph is actually the one who cursed the world. Ta’Nathel came to help but Toaph caged him. They need to free Ta’Nathel because he’s the only one that can defeat the corrupted Toaph. Calden has it backwards, he says. He lures him in with the promise of freedom from his curse (from Toaph) and accuses Toaph of wanting to limit and control the people.

Dangerous lies. Or are they?

These lies play into Calden’s internal struggle. Wrestling with his lot in life, the burden of bearing his ‘curse.’ He expresses this to Zamirah:

“‘I’m just thinking how much simpler life would be if El-Alam made me a scout rather than a prince. And a cursed one at that.’”

He feels like his life has never been his own.

And now he has to wonder if he’s gotten everything wrong this whole time.

I won’t give details, but a main event in this book stems from the fact that they are all vulnerable to be on the sea with Calden and his unpredictable curse. If he blasts a hole in the ship, they are at the mercy of the sea and all the creatures it contains.

Can they arrive in Raevre unharmed?

Let me just say, that no, they cannot. We lose a most valuable and loved member of the team and it is the worst.

New Characters:

Rhys and Rhiana are siblings and serve the royal family in the Citadel

Odessa- Calden’s sister and fellow bind member

Echo- the canyx (wolf-dog-fox-thing) they rescue in the tunnels that was supposed to be accursed but seemed to be kind; Is Calden blinded by his compassion and needs Elias to save him from Echo’s deception with his wisdom and scrutiny? Or is Echo the real deal and Elias needs to learn about trust and vulnerability?

Zamirah- crew member who can send messages across the sea

Willian- crew member who can control the wind

Sidenote: I noticed that with the alternating POV chapters, each character has their own symbol with their name. Zamirah has a bird (obviously), Elias has a lyre, and Nori and Calden have their bind mark arrows pointing in different directions. I was hoping that the arrows would move to new directions depending on where their ‘interal compass’ was pointing, but that would probably be too crazy to actually accomplish. So each one always points in the same way.

Biblical Allegory?

The allegories continue in this book (see These Hallowed Binds for more):

Part of Nori’s induction is being endowed with the tears of El-Alam (the God-figure in this world). In order to access his power which is behind all of their ‘magic’ wards, they must accept his tears of both joy and sorrow. I really liked this aspect. It’s like saying how we, as Christians, must take up our cross and follow Christ. Our road is not promised to be easy. In fact, we are told to expect hardship and persecution, but the road is still good.

To follow El-Alam is to acknowledge and accept a road with both sorrow and joy.

We get a bit more information on my speculations regarding Calden and Toaph that I share in the ‘How it Ended’ section as it’s kind of spoilers. We still don’t have definitive answers but we’re learning more and more about how deliverance will come.

I just think what Calden is going through is a confusion that a lot of people can relate to. It’s not exactly parallel to Scripture— God cursed the world, not Satan, though Satan obviously played a big part in introducing sin to Adam and Eve. And God’s curse was not unjust.

So a little different, but the idea that we have to discern lies from truth in a world where a lot of the lies sound right at first blush is relatable. Calden is also undergoing a lot of pain and internal hardship which is when we are the most vulnerable and susceptible to believe lies. When we hurt we always question the love and purposes of God. We think because every good thing comes from God (which is true) that any bad thing we face cannot have come from or be ordained by God.

Our view of goodness is so limited by our finite minds and volatile feelings. I think Daylin did a good job writing about this struggle because even as a reader I feel like I’m second guessing whether Toaph is good or not. What if everything IS backwards? (in this story— I’m not actually questioning God)

Which is why one thing I really hope is that Toaph is actually good in the story. I think that’s going to be really confusing for readers who are parsing out the allegory. The wardens are presented as the true followers of El-Alam, endowed with his power. If they’ve been believing a lie this whole time, that would really ruin the allegory I believe Daylin is writing. This isn’t the place for a twist like that and I don’t think Daylin would do that. I think she will expose the father of lies and have her characters hold fast to what is true, even when it hurts.

But we have not seen it put to the test and we have not been given definitive answers on the identities and purposes of all the players. We shall see.

Love Triangle

Daylin squashed the love triangle pretty quickly and handedly in this book, and I’m not mad about it!

I shared in the last review that if we’re going to have to pick a team, I’d pick Elias. And the reasons why I thought that felt very confirmed here.

Elias and Nori finally share their true feelings with one another:

“I’m here anytime you want to pretend you’re home.”

Nori was confused because of what she felt when Calden healed her, but once that’s sorted out she realizes her affection was also misunderstood. Her romantic love is rightly placed with Elias. Her home. *me making my hands into a heart

Calden realizes that he was only in love with the idea of Nori, not necessarily Nori herself. She was someone who saw the person behind his curse. Someone who wasn’t afraid of him. He’d been longing for that.

I love his honor and loyalty to Elias.

“Even if Nori never chooses him, me attempting to win her over would be a death sentence for our friendship. A treason of the highest order.”

He tells Elias: “What I felt for her before discovering who she is to you was only an ember of what you feel. And I will not fan into flame a fire that will burn you, my friend.”

[group hug]

Thanks Daylin! We can love them both!

And Calden is not doomed to be alone. Enter Zamirah. Her Master Talent is sending messages across the sea (using melody). She has been privy to everything regarding Calden from sending Calden’s mother’s messages trying to find a cure for him. Yet she does not fear Calden either. She is a strong and compassionate confidante for him.

She tells him- “‘Even the greatest blessings can come with consequences. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t still blessings.’”

She is instrumental in helping Calden process his struggles and pointing him back to the truth of El-Alam and his purposes for his people.

I’m excited for both of these relationships and that Daylin chose not to maintain the conflict that strained the friendships.

Alani also gets to find a partner! She finds her match aboard the Celestella ship— Willian. Another sea-farer. Also a perfect match for her. They are epic ship-people because Alani’s Master Talent is controlling water (ahem, water-bending?) and Willian’s is controlling air (you get it).

We don’t get many details on their interactions. They just pop-up in the background with dancing, lovey-dovey eyes, sweet nothings, and the love of the sea binding them together. We see you, Alani!

[I just keep coming back to the fact that Odessa is not as bound to anyone as the others. If she doesn’t betray them, I will be shocked.]

The Magic

We get more information about how the wards work, and I love it!

“‘The power in the wards is alive as the God who grants it’… Her casual comment reminds me again that I’m not just drawing pictures, I’m stewarding a great and holy power that only a small percentage of humanity has ever been entrusted with.”

“Your mind commands the energy, your body conducts it, and your heart releases it. If your heart disagrees with the action, it will not release the energy.”

I like this idea of ‘stewarding power.’ It’s a more tangible representation of how we, as Christians, have access to the power of the Holy Spirit. Not to shoot vitality balls, hide doorways, or heal each other, but power to resist evil and to overcome the sin in our lives. Real, living power that we are entrusted with.

We were left with the question of how Calden was able to heal Nori and Elias couldn’t. We find out that it wasn’t because Calden loved Nori more deeply than Elias. But he was able to heal her by being a conduit for El-Alam’s love. The love Nori felt when she was being healed was El-Alam’s, not Calden. That’s why they were confused about their love for each other.

But this speaks more into Calden’s abilities as a warden. He has some sort of stronger access to El-Alam’s power than the other wardens. Probably tied to his ‘curse.’

Pronunciation Guide

I’m notorious for mispronouncing things so I had to find out how some of these things were said. She has a video for pronunciation for this book and the next on THIS Instagram post. I’ve added the ones for this book at the end of the previously compiled list:

Calden: Cal-den

Elias: ih-lie-us

Norielle: nor-E-elle

Alani: uh-lah-nee

Toaph Elbara: tow-off el-bar-uh

Ta’Nathel: tah-nah-thel

Behria (Nori’s hometown): buh-ree-uh

Lake Daleia: duh-lay-uh

Silvirdia (world): sil-ver-dee-uh

Alémor (kingdom): ah-lay-more

Raevre (enemy kingdom): Rave-ree

Rimrir: rim-rear

Zamirah: zuh-meer-uh

Willian: will-ee-an

Celestella: cell-es-tel-uh

Ashtera: ash-tair-uh

Critiques

My only critique is that I’m not holding book three in my hands right now.

How it Ended

Again, this section will have spoilers because I need these details later, especially since I have to wait awhile for the next book. Skip if you haven’t read this book yet.

Okay, the first spoiler is HUGE. And terrible. But then hopeful!

After Calden’s episode blasts the ship apart and everyone escapes in boats, they’re attacked by the sea sentinels and they’re all fighting to try and save Calden from drowning. Elias jumps in after him but then gets grabbed by the sea monster. He’s dead.

For real. I was like— what the heck. This cannot be.

But wait! His bind mark is still there, just very very faint. They believe the sentinel took him to his lair under the island of Raevre. Elias might still be alive! PTL. In what shape? We don’t know. Was the sentinel somehow trying to save or rescue Elias? We also don’t know. They will have to go find him when they get there.

During Cal’s episode, Zamriah shockingly helps him by not restraining him or fighting him in that state but holding him and helping him feel safe.

This then allows Calden to finally see a clear vision. Of Ta’Nathel ‘slaying’ Toaph and Toaph disappearing into a blue wisp that travels across the land until he finds baby Calden with his parents. He tells his parents to put the baby down. He enters Calden and then Echo shows up, puts him in a basket and carries him away. We don’t find out anything else about his parents. (Which… I do need more information about this encounter because it didn’t feel like a loving situation, it felt like a desperate one)

I could have put this in the biblical allegory section, but that would have been a spoiler: I love when Calden realizes “I’m not cursed. I’m a vessel harboring the soul of an immortal being.”

I don’t think I fully grasp the gravity of the privilege we have as Christians that God no longer needs the Tabernacle to dwell in— his presence, his Spirit lives in us. We are now the temple. His presence stays with us. We don’t harbor his soul in the same way as Calden and Toaph, but we are his vessels that carry his Spirit and that changes everything!

Throughout the book we are wondering if Calden will be persuaded by his father to turn to the dark side— hello Luke Skywalker— or if he will hold fast to what he’d been taught about El-Alam and Toaph.

I believe we get an answer— and I love it! Calden sets his face toward Raevre and determines in his soul:

“Whatever Toaph’s alignments, El-Alam is where my loyalties lie, and an enemy of El-Alam is an enemy of mine. For it was by His hallowed hands that my life was given, and to Him my life belongs. Even if He has imprisoned me in this purpose of mine, taking from me the pleasantries of a common life, I will surrender to His far greater sovereignty. For I am foremost His vessel, whether the Guardian inside me is wicked or pure.”

Chills.

So they get to Raevre and we think Calden is going to go in there and get the ball rolling with the Raevre wardens and save the day. Except he walks right into a trap. It’s not the wardens he meets in the secret tunnels. It’s the Oracle. There hasn’t been wardens there for years. And now they’re all captured by the one set on freeing Ta’Nathel to destroy Toaph.

Calden’s only bargaining chip is that only a few people know that Toaph is inside him.

Dun. Dun. Dun.

I’m guessing Zamriah will be able to send a secret message back to Calden’s mother to send help and tell them what happened but it will take them weeks to traverse the sea. They might be on their own in the next book. But something tells me the Raevre wardens aren’t truly gone but were just forced to be even more hidden. I bet they’ll arrive at just the right time to help.

I also suspect that Nori and Elias will have to face some stuff from their fathers’ pasts in the war. But at least they’ll have each other! Perhaps whatever showdown happens will lead to Nori getting an epic Master Talent.

Recommendation

I echo my thoughts from These Hallowed Binds: I continue to whole-heartedly recommend this book and this series! It’s a meaningful and creative world that champions compassion and sacrifice and truth. The characters and the quest and the allegories are all so good!

I plowed through the first two books back-to-back and am sad I have to wait for the next one!

It looks like this is marketed to a young adult audience and I affirm that; readers as young as 13 would probably be fine reading this as well. And obviously also adults because that’s me and I love it!

If you are curious about her other books, A.M. Daylin has a new stand-alone romantasy book that is releasing this fall called Eventide that I am interested in. I decided to join her Kickstarter campaign for it. She is also an artist so one of the options for that is an illustrated copy with her one-of-kind artwork and I caved!

She also has started the Luminors trilogy (Where Darkness Cannot Follow) if you want to check that out.

You can be sure that I’ll be reading and reviewing some more of her books!

[Content Advisory: no swearing or sexual content; some death/violence but nothing gratuitous]

**Received a copy via the author in exchange for an honest review**

You can order a copy of this book using my affiliate link below.

These Hallowed Binds (The Empyreal Guardian Saga #1)
By: A.M. Daylin

[Fulfills one of the two for prompt: ‘Two books by the same author’ for the Shelf Reflection 2026 Reading Challenge]

“‘Please don’t let a lie steal your destiny. El-Alam summoned you knowing every action you’d ever take or fail to. And I need not remind you, He’s not one to make mistakes.’”

This is a new-to-me author and I am loving this series! (I already started the second book before I started writing this review so hopefully I can keep my thoughts here to this book specifically.)

The first line of the book says, ‘Children are swimming in the lake that murdered my father, but no one else seems to care.’ And I was immediately invested in this story!

In short, this is the story of a girl, rescued from the same fate as her father and called on a quest to save her world from a curse that threatens to destroy it.

Daylin has created a really interesting world with unique characters. It explores themes like found family, identity, hope, bravery, and belonging.

This book falls into the YA Christian fantasy genre but even if you are not a Christian, I think you can really get into this story. Everyone enjoys a good good vs evil story, an adventurous quest to fulfill a destiny, and magical powers! With the added romantic interest, there is something for all kinds of preferences.

Further down I’ve shared images from the back of the book that show the four main characters’ bios. I really liked that Daylin included that. It will help us follow along on each character arc as they encounter conflicts that tap into their biggest fears and desires or play to their strengths.

I’ll give some background and plot points (future reference for myself in keeping all the fantasy series I read straight) and then share some comments about the allegory in the story, the love triangle, the magic system, and what I expect to come in the next book.

Summary/ Plot Points

The world of Silvirdia, created by El-Alam, is watched over by their Empyreal Guardian— Toaph Elbara. Until Toaph is slain by the corrupt and immortal Ta’Nathel. Ta’Nathel unleashes a curse over the entire world, trying to destroy it so that he can be released to go elsewhere.

The Sentries (wolf-like characters) went from being protectors to hunters. The Wardens, endowed with power from El-Alam himself, are the only protectors left. But King Arlo and many of his people (wrongly) believe them to be working with Ta-Nathel and has sent out Hunters to kill any Warden they find. The Wardens must now work secretly.

Meanwhile, in the kingdom of Alémore, and the city of Behria, 18-year old Norielle has found herself an outcast. A year ago her father was killed in Lake Daelia when the lake suddenly became sentient and pulled him down to the bottom, wrapping his legs in seaweed and holding him down until he drowned. Nori managed to escape, but no one believes her when she tells them what really happened.

They believe their city has been favored and protected by El-Alam from Ta’Nathel’s world-wide curse. She is given an ultimatum— stop telling people the lake can come alive and murder people or leave town; if you stay and keep bringing it up, we’ll take away the allowance your widowed mother needs to help feed your brother and sister.

She decides to face her fear and go back in the lake and see if she was right. Again, the lake tries to pull her down and drown her. But this time, she is rescued by a young man. Turns out he had been given a vision and had run for days to get there in time to save her. He tells her that she has been called by El-Alam to join him in his group (his Bind) on a mission not yet explained.

When she goes home and tells her mom about the lake and her mom still doesn’t believe her (even though her sister witnessed it too) she realizes the only decision to be made: she must leave.

But she can’t tell her mom the truth about where she is going. The man who rescued her— Calden— is a Warden… and the Warden Prince.

So the rest of the book is about her journey with Calden away from home to the hidden Citadel where she will be inducted into the Ward and begin her quest for El-Alam. Of course, the journey back is not easy and they must face Hunters, cursed beasts, and Blood Wardens (those who defected from the Ward to use corrupted power instead).

She ends up meeting Elias, a scout and friend to Calden, who accompanies them back, and Alani, another member of their Bind who comes from a naval family of wardens.

Still dealing with the guilt of ‘abandoning’ her father at his death, Nori is both anxious and determined as she explores what her new role and life will look like. Her faith and resolve will be tested.

“‘It is better for the whole world to perish while upholding its faith in El-Alam than to turn against our Creator in worship of Ta’Nathel. For one death is temporary, and the other, everlasting.’”

I’m going to add here that I loved the character of Ila. My closest late great-aunt was named Ila and had a big impact on my life, including my love of books and puzzles. Characteristically, I’m not sure how similar my Ila is to the book-Ila, but just reading her name made me smile.

Biblical Allegory?

Of course no allegory is perfect, but I really loved the way Daylin weaved into this story the gospel message. (It’s possible that was not her intent, but I couldn’t not see it) A Creator (El-Alam) who desires to rescue us from the curse (of sin) and give us the power to resist evil. He calls us to something greater and wants to work through us to draw more people into his kingdom (the Ward).

We like to see ourselves as the hero when we read stories like this, and that’s all well and good, but what I think is going to make this series special (if I’m correct) is that Daylin is not necessarily setting up the four main characters as the true heroes but just preparing the way for Toaph Elbara— what I wonder is the Jesus figure— to be the hero and to come back and break the curse, restoring the world.

“‘El-Alam is never late… the next Guardian will be presented in just the right time to save this world before it’s lost.’”

Another thing I started to speculate on was the character of Calden. He was found in a basket by the lake and adopted by the Sovereign Mother (think Warden Queen). This made me think of Moses. Calden has an unexplainable curse that manifests somewhat like the avatar state in Avatar: The Last Airbender and Calden had a similar experience to Aang hurting Katara with his power. Calden can’t control this curse and is also worried about hurting others.

We find out more about that in the second book, but when I was reading this first one I wondered if Calden is a Moses-like character who will be tasked with ‘delivering’ the people from Ta’Nathel.

I also wondered if he was Toaph Elbara incarnated as a baby to grow up and be the Jesus-figure, sacrificing himself for his people. I don’t really know what kind of beings the Empyreal Guardians are and if they’re material or spirit. If Toaph could be slain then maybe Toaph was already the Jesus-figure and Calden is his resurrected being that has not revealed his identity yet. But that doesn’t fit as well with Calden’s character since he is unaware of what’s happening to him. It also doesn’t really fit with the love triangle that Daylin has fashioned.

So all of this is speculation; we’ll see where the story takes us.

Love Triangle

There are many opinions about love triangles. They always seem to pop up in YA books. I’m not diametrically opposed to them, but I’m also not obsessed with the idea of them.

Nori has the classic rescue-fantasy-attraction to Calden. But then Elias enters the picture. At first Nori just sees him as smug and annoying. And then she realizes he is Kieran— a childhood friend her father had actually chosen for her to marry eventually. But Kieran’s parents died and he was sent away to live with his grandparents.

After realizing who he really was, their friendship is rekindled and their previous closeness comes back.

Now Nori has attractions to both of them.

I honestly like both of them and could see both paths being good, but if I HAD to pick a team, per expectations, I would choose Elias. I’m a fan of longtime friendships turning into romance. Plus her dad taught Elias how to play the lyre and Elias was playing her father’s music so it’s a connection to him that is really sweet. We aren’t given a lot of details on their childhood relationship so perhaps I’m exaggerating a relationship that wasn’t super deep, but nonetheless it seems to me a firmer foundation than the ‘trauma bond’ type of connection it seems like her and Calden started with.

I think Calden is going to have to do something sacrificial later on so I don’t think romance is going to be able to get in the way of his mission. I also think his feelings for Corene are still too fresh for him to move on yet.

While this love triangle has created some tension in Calden and Elias’ friendship, I do like that Daylin seems to be maintaining that relationship. (This might be more prevalent in book two)

The Magic

There are lots of different magic systems throughout the fantasy genre. In this particular series we have magic manifesting through wards which are specific symbols drawn and then activated by the mind. They are drawn with a special pen that is fueled with the tears of El-Alam. I’m not sure how they got his tears or if there is some sort of ‘blessing’ of water that turns it into tears? That wasn’t really explained.

The defectors no longer have the power of El-Alam so they create magic by using the drained blood of the Accursed. Sometimes defectors can be restored and brought back, but every time they use the corrupted magic their corruption becomes more and more permanent in their souls.

One part of the magic in this story that I love the most is the healing ward. Someone can heal another person with this ward, but they must absorb the person’s pain into themself. It’s a sacrificial thing. Which is so biblical. In order for justice and forgiveness to happen, a debt must be paid. Someone absorbs the cost of that. Biblically, it’s God who does this— that was the cross. So this magical healing process is a reflection of that. There is a cost to healing and someone has to absorb it, thus you must love the person you’re healing or you wouldn’t be willing to take on that pain.

We learn more in the second book about this process and exploring why Calden was able to heal Nori but Elias wasn’t.

Daylin added a section in the back for the Wards with pictures of the symbols and descriptions of what they do. I thought that was a helpful guide to have too!

Pronunciation Guide

I’m notorious for mispronouncing things so I had to find out how some of these things were said. She has a video for pronunciation for this book and the next on THIS Instagram post. I’ve put down the relevant ones for this particular book below:

Calden: Cal-den

Elias: ih-lie-us

Norielle: nor-E-elle

Alani: uh-lah-nee

Toaph Elbara: tow-off el-bar-uh

Ta’Nathel: tah-nah-thel

Behria (Nori’s hometown): buh-ree-uh

Lake Daleia: duh-lay-uh

Silvirdia (world): sil-ver-dee-uh

Alémor (kingdom): ah-lay-more

Raevre (enemy kingdom): Rave-ree

Rimrir: rim-rear

Critiques

So do I have any critiques? Not really. I do think there could have been more descriptions to help me picture the world. I’m not sure I can visualize the setting as strongly as I have been in other series.

I also think there could have been more explanation for what the Guardian Empyreals are/do— and are there other worlds and other Guardians? I’m guessing it’s hard to do that in an organic way since there’s not a narrator, and perhaps more will be revealed in future books, I’m just not entirely sure what the possibilities are with that part of the world’s dilemma.

Otherwise, no qualms!

How it Ended

I usually need this section when I’m about to start book two and can’t remember what happened last. If you don’t want the potential spoilers, scroll past!

Okay, so by the end, Calden has saved Nori from a crypt-crawler death but had to kill Corene in the process. They made it back to the Citadel where Nori finally meets Calden’s mother, the current Sovereign, and delivers the good news: while Nori had been captured and questioned by the Blood Wardens they revealed that Toaph Elbara is alive. They are trying to find him to get rid of him, but this knowledge is the hope everyone needs that freedom of the curse is at hand!

We also discover that Toaph may be trying to communicate with Calden and that his curse is not actually a curse but some sort of experience connected to Toaph, wherever he is.

Thus, the speculation is that their mission must be related to finding Toaph Elbara and helping him restore the world.

In the next book we will most likely meet the other Bind members, Nori will start training, she will wrestle more with her conflicting feelings about Calden and Elias, and will get a better idea of what her role will be in the Bind. Perhaps she will be able to pick a Master Talent (I love this concept), but that may be more of a book three thing.

At least I think there will be more than two based on how much of the story I believe is left to tell and what size of book the next one is…

Recommendation

I definitely recommend this book and this series! It’s a meaningful and creative world that champions compassion and sacrifice. The characters are easy to be invested in and the quest and adventure looms large.

It’s a very compelling read and I’m very glad I had the second book on hand to start right after finishing this one.

This book is a great introduction and launching point in the series and I look forward to all that is to come.

It looks like this is marketed to a young adult audience and I affirm that; readers as young as 13 would probably be fine reading this as well. And yet, even as an adult I’m excited about the series!

If you are curious about her other books, A.M. Daylin has a new stand-alone romantasy book that is releasing this fall called Eventide that I am interested in. She has a (more than funded) Kickstarter campaign for it that I’m eying! She is also an artist so one of the options for that is an illustrated copy with her one-of-kind artwork!

She also has started the Luminors trilogy (Where Darkness Cannot Follow) if you want to check that out.

You can be sure that I’ll be reading and reviewing some more of her books!

[Content Advisory: no swearing or sexual content; some death/violence but nothing gratuitous]

**Received a copy via the author in exchange for an honest review**

You can order a copy of this book using my affiliate link below.

The Liar’s Treasure (A Speranza Team Novel)
By: Connie Mann

[Fulfilled ‘A book that takes place in 3+ countries’ prompt as part of Shelf Reflection’s 2026 Reading Challenge]

[On my list of Most Anticipated Books of 2026]

“‘You have been deemed a liar. You proclaim your desire to do good in this world, yet you sin under cover of darkness. The price for your transgressions is death.’”

Just like its predecessor, The Crown Conspiracy, The Liar’s Treasure reads like a movie! It’s a thrill ride from start to finish as Mann takes us from New Orleans to Italy to Germany and the Bahamas on a dangerous treasure hunt.

There is some overlap in characters from the first book as it is a Speranza Team Novel, but where The Crown Conspiracy focused on Sophie and Lise, this one centers on team member Camille and her daughter Cass.

The Speranza team is made up of all women— a centuries old ‘organization’ of women specializing in secretly helping women and children.

Of course, with a global adventure of danger and treasure, the team comes to her aid and we get Sophie, with her forging, thieving, and lock-picking skills, Mercy, the nun with the medical expertise, and Hank, the vehicular expert/driver/pilot/MacGyver person back in action.

Picasso is their research/tech gal but apparently she had recently undergone some surgery related to her mysterious scars and was unavailable to help. Considering there is not much time spent on this in the book, I would assume it might related to whatever story comes next. I like the continuity in the series and threads that continue in other books, so if it is actually not part of anything, I’ll probably be annoyed because why else include it here. If it’s not going to be anything in the future, then they should have just had Picasso helping them. So let’s hope it’s foreshadowing!

Sidenote: I’m not sure what Camille’s niche/role in the group is… She is a photographer but I don’t think that was her special set of skills. Is it fighting? Fill me in.

The Crown Conspiracy happened in the art world. The Liar’s Treasure happens in the ‘pirate’ world! Like The Crown Conspiracy, the book begins with a prologue that takes place in the 1700s. On a ship. Where pirates encounter a book carried by a girl. It supposedly judges motives of whoever touches the book (harking back to the biblical account of Ananias and Sapphira who lied about their money). Those unworthy to handle the book and the treasure it points to, fall over dead. Which is exactly what happens to one particular pirate, right before the girl jumps overboard and escapes with the book.

Fast forward to present day when Camille’s daughter, Cass, is given an old pirate diary from her treasure-hunting, indebted to mobsters uncle, Marcel. Because she’s a teen, she obviously posts pictures of it on Instagram unwittingly leading all kinds of dangerous treasure hunters to their doorstep to intercept the diary which allegedly contains clues to where the Book of Days (the judging book) and the Liar’s Treasure can be found.

They spur into action and Camille is torn between wanting to be with Cass to keep her safe and needing to lead people away from Cass and make sure the treasure doesn’t fall into the wrong hands.

Unfortunately, Camille’s mother, Octavia (who also works for Speranza and is tasked with watching over Cass) makes a really dumb decision to meet someone 'with information’, takes Cass, and of course walks right into a trap and Cass is kidnapped. The stakes are even higher for Camille as her motivation is now finding the treasure to get her daughter back.

Because there were so many different groups of people going after them and the book, it was a little challenging knowing who was with who and what their motives were.

The secondary plot that gets woven in is a school friend of Camille’s, Jolie, who needs help. She works at a non-profit organization that has water projects building wells in other countries. One of her colleagues was suspected of poisoning one of their newest wells in Romania and then is found murdered.

Mann connects this plot with the treasure part, and there ends up being a Liar’s Trial at the NPO’s summit which is the climax of the book. But the connection between the well situation and the treasure situation felt a little tenuous and distracting. The epilogue wrapped up some of the loose ends but not really in the most satisfying way.

As with The Crown Conspiracy, The Liar’s Treasure has to have it’s own romantic plot line. We already got Sophie and Mac’s story (Mac does have a short cameo in this book so we know they are still a thing).

Now we have Camille and Lucien. Camille’s first husband, JT, was killed while deployed in the military. Lucien was best friends with JT in high school and feels responsible for his death, believing he convinced him to join the military.

Apparently Camille and Lucien shared a kiss back in high school while Camille was still with JT. It’s been years now— JT died right before Cass was born— but feelings are rekindled for Camille and Lucien. Oh yeah, Lucien is in the mix because his family most likely descended from pirates and they’re after the Liar’s Treasure. Actually both Camille’s and Lucien’s family believe have a aright to the book because they descended from the original family who owned the Book of Days.

Thus Lucien is partially forbidden love because he is also their opposition in locating the treasure. Lucien’s loyalty to his grandpa seems at odds with his feelings for Camille and wanting to keep Cass (JT’s daughter) safe, and he has to work through that tension.

Plus ANOTHER side plot— I guess this book had more layers than I thought— is this vigilante person who has taken it upon themself to exact justice on those who are corrupted and hiding their ‘sins’, lying about their virtue. That person said the quote I put at the beginning of this review right before he killed them.

The showdown between all the different parties occurs at the Liar’s Trial when all is revealed.

It’s a lot to pack into a book so some parts get a little lost or are hard to follow, but I bet if I read it through a second time, more things would come together— just like watching a layered movie again.

I wasn’t a huge fan of the teenager-ruining-things-by-posting-stuff-online-and-texting-her-friends trope or of Octavia’s decision to meet for information as if they really needed any, but for the most part I was fine with how the story played out.

I enjoyed the different settings of the book— New Orleans is a fun starting point. And then we go global— I like to read about real places and what they have to offer.

I’ve been to Florence and walked up to the very top of the Duomo so that was a nostalgic reference for me.

Some other things that caught my attention:

The Moon Church of Oradea in Romania that has a mechanism in its spire that tracks the phases of the moon. It reminded me of the astronomical clock I saw in Prague last fall that is featured in Dan Brown’s newest book, The Secret of Secrets.

There was reference to Florence in the 1500s and a ring of women who used poison to get rid of their husbands. I think this is a disputed historical claim, but it did remind me of the premise of Sarah Penner’s book, The Lost Apothecary, if that interests you.

The Heidelberg Castle in Germany that has the world’s largest wine barrel. They talked of a dance floor on top of it and it helped to google this because I was having a hard time picturing what was described in the book. My research says it was rarely used to actually store wine so I’m not sure how much of what was included in this book was legend or historical fact.

I think some readers have read this as a standalone and thought it worked that way, but I do think it would be helpful to read The Crown Conspiracy first to understand more about the team and how it works.

I wouldn’t say the faith theme is super overt but the phrase ‘putting feet to my faith’ was prevalent. I do like the idea that our faith is not a passive thing but an active thing— that we are called to live it out, not wait around for stuff to happen. That we often need to step out in faith even when things are unsure.

Now, did these characters HAVE to find the treasure and put their faith into action in that way? I’m not so sure. I guess once Cass was kidnapped and they needed to solve the murder of Jolie’s coworker before more people were hurt, then it became a necessity, but the beginning part of this journey seemed a little dicey in that regard.

Nonetheless, I appreciate a good clean, exciting story that emphasizes faith and family while we’re out gettin’ the bad guys. Plus the whole treasure hunt for the Speranza team was not financially driven which was good too.

Recommendation

All in all, I love the Speranza team and seeing their varied skills at work. I love the action-packed writing style. There were a few parts that were hard to follow and not all the layers fit together as nicely as I would have liked, but this was still a really enjoyable read and a series I’ll continue to read!

The more books we get in this series, the more full each character will be. There are a lot of possibilities for this series to expand so I’m excited to see where else Connie Mann decides to take it!

[Content Advisory: No swearing or sexual content, some violence— it’s not every day a nun bashes a guy with an altar piece]

**Received a copy via Tyndale Publishing in exchange for an honest review**

This book releases in March, 2026. You can pre-order/order a copy of this book using my affiliate link below.

Psalms: Singing with Jesus: 7-Session Bible Study
By: Christopher Ash with Alison Mitchell

The Good Book Company has a whole series of little devotionals like this one that go through entire books of the Bible in 6-8 sessions. They have companion books with more commentary if you want deeper study as you go along.

I previously did their study on 2 Corinthians that I reviewed HERE. Obviously psalms are usually impactful to go through so it could just be that I like that book of the Bible better, but I liked this study a little better than the 2 Corinthians one. I think the reason for that is that in this study there was more cross-referencing other Scriptures and comparing the psalm with another Bible passage.

I liked that it helped me connect the psalm with the Old Testament context it was written in. I think the way they go through the psalms would also be helpful if you wanted to continue studying other psalms in a similar way.

As the study is only seven sessions, they do not go through all 150 Psalms. They actually looked at 9 different psalms (two weeks had two companion psalms). If you are interested in which ones they cover: 1 & 2, 22, 23, 42 & 43, 84, 90, and 145.

David wrote at least 73 of the psalms, so several of the ones covered in this study are his. It was neat to study how so many of King David’s writings were prophecies pointing to the great King to come.

It was also interesting to think about Jesus singing these songs. For some reason that’s not something I’ve really thought about before. But many of these psalms were sung corporately as a body of believers. So Jesus would have been singing these songs knowing they were about him.

Each session covers 1-2 chapters with ten questions. There’s always an icebreaker type of question first about personal experience (related to the content). Then there are some ‘investigate’ questions that seek to understand what is happening in the passage, and ‘apply’ questions that take what we learn from the passage and see how that affects the way we are living and thinking.

There are some ‘getting personal’ optional sections that are self-reflection questions and opportunities to be more vulnerable about what we may struggle with or be susceptible to.

Each session ends with prayer.

Now that I’ve done two of these I can confirm that they would be great small group options. Its often challenging to find something to study in a small group because you have varying preferences on homework or reading or worrying about how to lead a discussion, etc.

They include a leader’s guide in the back of the book that provides answers and suggestions for every question with a few other group exercises thrown in that would definitely help someone facilitate a group discussion.

I don’t think everyone in the group would even need their own copy of the book, but if they wanted their own they’re only like $8. You could have them read the Scripture ahead of time but there really wouldn’t be much prep and the questions are conducive for discussion.

Depending on the leader and the type of group, I think it might be beneficial for the leader to have the corresponding commentary and read it on their own in case there are certain things that stick out to them they want to bring to the group. But even without that, there is plenty to reflect on in these psalms. You could even go through this study as a group and then just pick other psalms and continue studying more of the psalms as a group and following a similar framework. It would take a little more work from the leader to find other passages ahead of time, or you could do that part together as well.

I’m a bit notorious for doing solo devotionals and really kind of skimming the questions. I think I answer them in my head but in reality I think my answers trail off and I move on without forcing myself to really think through them. While using these studies, I’ve forced myself to write down my answers to the questions and that has been a good exercise for me even if I didn’t have a group to talk about it with.

As with the study in 2 Corinthians, the book begins by explaining- Why read this particular book of the Bible?

Why Psalms?

I love what they say here so I’ll quote it at length:

“The Psalms are God’s chosen way to engage our thinking and our feelings in a way that is passionate, thoughtful, true and authentic. They show us how to express our varied feelings; but, more than that, they reorder our disordered affections so that we feel deeper desires for what we ought to desire, more urgent aversion to that from which we need to flee, and a greater longing for the honor of God in the health of Christ’s church. The Psalms form within us a richer palette of rightly directed emotions. It is not so much that the Psalms resonate with us as that they shape us so that we most deeply resonate with the God-given yearnings they so movingly express.”

A couple of the main takeaways for me this time around were how good it was to go through Psalm 23 more carefully. Having memorized it, you stop thinking about the meaning of what you’re saying. It inspired me to have my kids memorize it now and to show them how to use it as a framework for prayer. The Lord is our Shepherd and that has so many great implications for us.

I also really enjoyed studying Psalm 90, written by Moses, where he prayed that God would “establish the work of my hands.” To focus on the eternal impact of what we are doing with our time, our words, our money. It was good to study how first we need a right understanding of who God is and who we are in relation to him. And then we can see that what we can do here on Earth is not futile but in the hands of the powerful and almighty God, can have big kingdom impact. I need to be seeking to do the Lord’s work with an eternal perspective.

Recommendation

I definitely recommend this devotional— for personal or group use— and also recommend checking out their entire collection to see if there is a different book of the Bible you or your group are interested in studying.

I’ve read lots of Good Book Company books and so far I have not taken issue with any of their theology— they have been very gospel-centered and uphold the Bible as our ultimate authority. (Their statement of faith can be found HERE if you want more specifics.)

Now that I’ve done two of their studies, I can pretty confidently recommend them and I plan to do more of them in the future.

**Received a copy via The Good Book Company in exchange for an honest review**

You can order a copy of this book using my affiliate link below.

The Queens of Crime
By: Marie Benedict

[Fulfilled ‘A book with a queen’ prompt as part of Shelf Reflection’s 2025 Reading Challenge]

“I had no idea that the despicable behavior by certain male Detection Club members would spur us into solving actual crimes.”

“‘Never forget that we women aren’t what you call us— witches or crones or madwomen or surplus or nobodies. We are all Queens.’”

This book, set in London in 1930, is a fictional story about historical figures: namely Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers, Ngaio Marsh, Margery Allingham, and Baroness Emma Orczy. All five women were crime writers in their own right and were part of the Detection Club, created by Sayers.

The club is real, the characters are real, but the plot of the story is fiction.

(Fun fact: G.K. Chesterton—Gilbert— was the first president of the club.)

This was a cozy mystery for me. Not one that was particularly hard to solve or suspenseful in writing. I was most interested in imagining writers of mystery novels using their own skills or knowledge and solving a real life mystery. I was also interested in Sayers’ and Christie’s actual lives. Unfortunately, the execution was a little drab for what I was expecting.

(I am not familiar with Marsh, Allingham, or Orczy but maybe I’ll have to find something they wrote.)

But if you love a good ‘women power’ story, you might enjoy this. More on that later.

These authors were working during the ‘Golden Age’ of detective fiction. There are some modern writers who have attempted to mimic this style, including Benjamin Stevenson, Tom Mead, or Charles Finch.

The oath they take as part of the Detection Club suggests some of the rules they abide by in writing their mysteries:

“I vow that the detectives I create will actually detect the crimes and mysteries presented to them using the intellect I grant to them, and I will not allow those detectives to use hocus-pocus, trickeries, superstitions, epiphanies, acts of God, skullduggeries, or divine intervention. All detectives will use fair play in solving their mysteries.”

The Detection Club was started to try to increase support and validity for mystery novels:

“Above all, I hope the rites inspired members to extol one another’s talents, support one another’s novels, collaborate on books, and elevate our genre so reviewers see that our detective novels are every bit as good as so-called literary fiction.”

So why are these five women solving a real mystery?

Well a big theme of this book is the view of women vs men during this time period. Sayers wanted more women in the Detection Club, so she went off on her own to gather some other female authors to join without having it approved by the other members. The women just show up to the meeting and take the oath.

They aren’t welcomed in with open arms, though, and feel ostracized from the group because they are women.

In an effort to prove themselves worthy of being in the group, Sayers thinks they should try to solve a real crime.

“No one would dare slight us or question our place in the club then.”

The case at hand is about a missing nurse— May Daniels— whose body was just found in Boulogne, France. Her disappearance was somewhat of a locked room mystery— she went into the bathroom at a train station and never came out.

Dorothy’s husband, Mac Fleming, is a journalist and is sent to cover the story. Dorothy tags along and the other Queens (as they call themselves) discreetly meet her there. Together they do their own investigation and sleuthing, trying to figure out what happened and get justice for May.

The five women have distinct characteristics that are usually emphasized by their clothing throughout the book:

“Emma, our stately matriarch… Ngaio in her wide-legged pantsuit and Margery in a flowery frock… Agatha sits alone in the upholstered chair to my right, hiding her strength behind frumpiness as always…”

I agree with some other reviewers that said they would have liked less information about food and dress and more depth to the women’s intellect and who they were as people. I was intrigued by the New Zealander but come away just thinking she really liked pants.

May’s body was found with a syringe and all the journalists— including Mac— and police officers (who are men) are tainting her name, accepting that it was some sort of drug deal gone wrong. She is depicted as a loose, unsavory kind of woman.

“‘So missing young women are either labeled surplus and disregarded or labeled whores and disregarded?’”

In this time period, so many men had died in WWI that the prospects for marrying were slim for women. These single women were called “surplus” and looked down upon.

“a young woman attempting to earn a living in a society that frowns upon unmarried working females, even when the dearth of men makes finding a husband nearly impossible.”

“The terrible injustice done to May unfolds before me. Anger and anguish course through me in equal measure, and I will not allow her to go unavenged. Like so many other women who’ve gone before her. Like me.”

And so the book is the story of how they sleuth their way to get justice for May and deem themselves worthy of being in the male-dominated Detection Club.

The side plot of the story is that Dorothy keeps referring to her secret and her shame.

“Mac knows all my secrets. Even the one I am determined to keep hidden from all others forever.”

If you are familiar with her life you probably already know what it is, but I wasn’t so that was a part that I was waiting to be revealed.

Now I am pro-women. I know how smart and capable women are. I also cheer the feminism that enabled women to support themselves and to vote, and to be looked at as equal to men in their standing and their intellect. In history past women have been disregarded and taken advantage of with little to no recourse.

We have come a long way and I am glad for that.

I enjoy reading stories of women who did great things or who may have been overlooked. And I respect the uphill battle people like Sayers and Christie had in their careers. But I’m not really a fan of books that have a man-hating vibe.

I know there were many terrible men that did many terrible things. And they should have to answer for them. But a lot of times books that set to expose that do no counterbalancing of decent men.

In this book, there were no noble men. All the men in power were doing a terrible job and belittling women. The other men were depicted as clueless or bumbling or ‘boys’ club’ men. Even Dorothy says this of her own husband:

“How could a man who supports my career, a man who has daughters of his own, harbor such shameful and antiquated views of a young woman?”

Here are a few more quotes that on their own, I have no problem with, but taken altogether throughout the book feel a bit heavy-handed:

“Perhaps Emma was correct when she pronounced that May’s murder needed to be solved by women, in part because only female sleuths properly credit female witnesses.”

“Headlines like ‘THE SUPERFLUOUS WOMEN ARE A DISASTER TO THE HUMAN RACE’ routinely run in newspapers such as the Daily Mail…”

“The male members of the Detection Club would certainly not deprive themselves for a second: in fact, I doubt they’d make themselves uncomfortable in any way”

“‘Men are so often put on a pedestal, and women are taught to prop them up there. But we only learn about our humanity and develop empathy from our mistakes— and we could do with more doses of humanity, here and elsewhere.’”

I think what puts me off with these books is not so much that I think they are untrue (though I believe there have always been decent men in history) or because I don’t think women like May need justice (they absolutely do!) but more so that in contrast to first wave feminism, modern feminism is not something I champion in the ways our current culture is promoting. It’s no longer about making women ‘equal’ in worth to men but in trying to raise women as superior and above men by tearing men down.

Even though this book is historical and in a time period where women were disregarded or viewed shamefully as superfluous, the vibe that I felt reading it seemed more in line with modern feminism. I think we can elevate women to where men are without tearing men (as an entire group) down.

There’s more to be said on that because I’m approaching this topic with a biblical worldview that I know is controversial to modern ears, but I won’t get into it.

I’m merely trying to iterate why this aspect of the book hit different for me than it probably does for a lot of other readers. And that could very well just be a personal thing and nothing necessarily wrong with the story. I just would have liked to see more decent men depicted in contrast. Even G.K. Chesterton was not really written as a man open to the woman’s plight but more as just cluelessly falling in line with what Sayers was doing with the club—which gave me pause. I don’t know enough about his personality and character but is that even accurate?

So anyway— that would be my main critique.

Moving on to more fun things.

If you want to take in the ‘sites’ of the book: The Vole Hole is still a restaurant in the oldest building of Boulogne and Simpson’s in the Strand is set to reopen this month! (It closed in 2020 due to Covid)

I had the pleasure of googling what a Ner-A-Car looked like and finding out it was named after Carl A. Neracher which was a pun on his last name and the phrase ‘nearly a car.’ Which is amazing.

I’m becoming more and more familiar with British slang and older vernacular for things, but this book threw me for a loop with this one:

“I ignore the dog’s breakfast I’ve made of the flat.”

Hahahaha. Why did we (I’m British now) stop using this? Dog’s breakfast means a total mess. My house is a dog’s breakfast all the time. Why do I just think of vomit?

Many of the characters’ books were mentioned throughout the book, including Peril at End House and Have His Carcase. I read online that The Nine Tailors was one of Sayers’ standout novels if you want to get a taste of her reading.

I had heard of Dorothy Sayers in a Christian context so I was surprised to find her connection to Agatha Christie, just as I had with G.K. Chesterton.

In my side research I found that Dorothy Sayers stopped writing detective novels after 1939 and did mostly religious dramas and nonfiction. She spent years translating Dante’s Inferno into English. She was also friends with C.S. Lewis, as was Chesterton. In fact, C.S. Lewis credits Chesterton’s The Everlasting Man for his conversion. calling it the best defense of the faith he knew.

I would have liked an Author’s Note at the end that tells what parts were true and where she embellished. Based on some other reviews, it’s probably because I read an ARC and it looks like the published version has that.

Recommendation

This wasn’t a book that necessarily sticks out as a favorite or a must-read by any means. But if you really enjoy historical fiction, cozy mysteries, and female empowerment stories this would be a great fit for you.

I enjoyed stepping into the lives of these five women; it seems Benedict did a lot of research to incorporate historical facts about their lives and their personalities. I also liked that it spurred me to look things up and see the setting and understand the historical context, etc.

I think the simplicity of the mystery, the shallowness in the characters we came to see, and the somewhat heavy-handedness of the women vs. men theme made this less riveting for me personally.

I had planned to read The Personal Librarian by Marie Benedict at some point and am now rethinking if I take the time for that or not.

This is one of those books that I’m like— not my fav, but others might enjoy it. There are plenty of positive reviews of this one, just depends what you’re looking for.

[Content Advisory: No swearing; mention of rape and miscarriage but no details described]

**Received a copy via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review**

You can order a copy of this book using my affiliate link below.

2 Corinthians: The Gospel in all of Life: 7-Session Bible Study
By: Gary Millar

The Good Book Company has a whole series of little devotionals like this one that go through entire book of the Bible in 6-8 sessions. They have companion books with more commentary if you want deeper study as you go along.

I did this book on my own and was happy with my experience, but I it is more geared for small groups.

Each session covers 1-2 chapters with ten questions. There’s always an icebreaker type of question first about personal experience (related to the content). Then there are some ‘investigate’ questions that seek to understand what is happening in the passage, and ‘apply’ questions that take what we learn from the passage and see how that affects the way we are living and thinking.

There are some ‘getting personal’ optional sections that are self-reflection questions and opportunities to be more vulnerable about what we may struggle with or be susceptible to.

Each session ends with prayer.

I’ve only done one so far (at the moment I also have the Psalms one to do) but I think these would be great small group options. It seems challenging to find something to study in small group because you have varying preferences on homework or reading or worrying about how to lead a discussion, etc.

At the back of this book is a leader guide that provides answers and suggestions for every question with a few other group exercises thrown in that would definitely help someone facilitate a group discussion.

I don’t think everyone in the group would even need their own copy of the book, but if they wanted their own they’re only like $8. You could have them read the two chapters of Scripture ahead of time but there really wouldn’t be much prep and the questions are conducive for discussion.

Depending on the leader and the type of group, I think it might be beneficial for the leader to have the corresponding commentary and read it on their own in case there are certain things that stick out to them they want to bring to the group. But even without that, I felt like I got a better understanding of 2 Corinthians just in this little book.

I’m a bit notorious for doing solo devotionals and really kind of skimming the questions. I think I answer them in my head but in reality I think my answers trail off and I move on without forcing myself to really think through them. This time around I forced myself to write down my answers to the questions and that was a good exercise for me even if I didn’t have a group to talk about it with.

Now, why 2 Corinthians?

“… this letter is the place to go in the New Testament for a description and embodiment of what gospel ministry is all about. For Paul, gospel ministry is what we all do. It is walking with, speaking for, and serving Jesus in all of life… 2 Corinthians takes us through how to live by faith in our broken world. It’s the key to embracing our weakness and living in the strength which God himself supplies.”

In this second letter to the Corinthian church that Paul first established, you see the messiness and complexity of church in a pagan society. False teachers stirring trouble and leading people astray, Paul having to remind them of what they were first taught, having to remind them of his own God-given authority as an apostle, the loving rebuke from a man who sacrifices his own health and body for the spread of the gospel and the ministry of reconciliation for others to God, and the charge to boast in weakness, allowing God to be our strength.

The tone of this letter was interesting to read because you sense the frustration and sarcasm regarding things we aren’t given specifics about but can imply by the way Paul is responding to what must have been said. It’s a side of church no one likes to talk about, but if we really love people and see them with an eternal mindset, an eternal soul, then it should matter to us if they are adhering to false doctrine or living in unrepentant sin.

My one critique is that because they only have 10 questions in each section, there are parts of the Bible passage that aren’t necessarily covered. I was disappointed that we largely skipped over 2 Corinthians 10. Of course, in a group you can do what you want and spend time there in your discussion, but I would have liked that to be included in that session’s guide. There’s a lot in that chapter about spiritual warfare and destroying arguments and taking our thoughts captive that I think are important things for us today.

Recommendation

I definitely recommend this devotional— for personal or group use— and also recommend checking out their entire collection to see if there is a different book of the Bible you or your group are interested in studying.

I’ve read lots of Good Book Company books and so far I have not taken issue with any of their theology— they have been very gospel-centered and uphold the Bible as our ultimate authority. (Their statement of faith can be found HERE if you want more specifics.)

**Received a copy via The Good Book Company in exchange for an honest review**

You can order a copy of this book using my affiliate link below.