Welcome to the July 2026 edition of An Open Book, hosted both at My Scribbler’s Heart and CatholicMom.com!
For Father’s Day, my husband received a copy of Vice President J.D. Vance’s conversion story, Communion: Finding My Way Back to Faith. He previously enjoyed Vance’s memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, and was eager to read Communion. I expect it has fewer colorful stories than the memoir, but Vance’s eventual conversion to Catholicism will be of interest.
I generally can’t resist a new historical Christian novel by Karen Witemeyer. Part of Your World is a The Little Mermaid retelling set in late 19th century Galveston, Texas. The author was creative in removing some of the more fantastical elements of the fairytale and adapting it for the setting she chose. The main characters, Muriel and Zane, were true to the Ariel and Eric we’re familiar with. While the Catholic faith is conveyed favorably in an Ursuline (Get it? Ursula?) Academy, it seems highly unlikely that Muriel’s Irish immigrant Texas family would be Protestant. It’s a curious choice.
I picked up The Heart of Splendid Lake by Amy Clipston as a library reward at some point. It was an enjoyable clean romance (not Christian as you might expect from Thomas Nelson Publishers) with a very Hallmark-esque plot. You know, the one with the big city realtor that is going to buy the beloved family business/property. I’d hoped the main character, Brianna, would drop her obviously incompatible fiancé earlier in the novel, but good ol’ Taylor hung on until almost the very end.
A Different Kind of Camouflage is Book 8 in Corrina Turner’s unSPARKed (dystopian dinosaur) series. I can’t read as quickly as the author writes, and I think I missed a couple of books immediately preceding this one. Even so, I was able to follow along quite nicely in a somewhat different story for the series set in the city with the only dinosaur peril seen in flashbacks. This installment is more about Darryl and Harry’s perseverance as their lives are upended by being forced to live in-city in a group home and foster home, respectively.
My adult son has been leaning into the United States’ sesquicentennial celebration with his reading. Founding Fathers: Brief Lives of the Framers of the United States Constitution by M.E. Bradford earned five stars. In his review, he wrote, “Bradford examines the individual life, occupation, religious beliefs, and political thought of each framer of the Constitution, and the result is a magnificent tribute to the American political thought of the 18th century.”
Moving to the Civil War, he enjoyed Why the North Won the Civil War by David Herbert Donald. In it, Donald provides what my son called “some compelling, thought-provoking, and balanced assessments of why the North won.” The book includes six essays, including one by Donald, examining the reasons for the Union’s eventual defeat of the Confederacy.
I Rode with Stonewall: Being Chiefly the War Experiences of The Youngest Member of Jackson’s Staff from John Brown’s Raid to the Hanging of Mrs. Surrat by Henry Kyd Douglas. How is that for a subtitle? This first-person account by the “young, dashing, handsome” Kyd reveals his simple, intimate, and anecdotal interactions with the legendary Confederate general and is often cited in books about the Civil War.
Traveling back several centuries, he also listened to The Medieval World I: Kingdoms, Empires, and War by Thomas F. Madden. This first part of a two-part lecture covers the papacy, the Crusades, and the fall of Constantinople. It addresses reforms, schisms, and the rise of Islam.
My daughters have both been reading the Molly Chase trilogy by Rhonda Ortiz, including In Pieces, Adrift, and the new and final installment, Keeper of Keys, set in Boston in 1793. I hope to re-read books 1 and 2 this summer to refresh my mind before reading book 3. I don’t want to spoil anything for those who haven’t read the first two books, so I’ll just share this from the description of book 3, which makes me very eager to read it: “In this poignant conclusion to the Molly Chase series, Keeper of Keys explores the joys and sorrows of marriage, the weight of sin, the power of mercy, and the true meaning of homecoming.”
My oldest daughter also began reading This Is My Body: A Call to Eucharistic Revival by Bishop Robert Barron, which was a gift to her. The book was designed to accompany the Eucharistic Revival (2022-2024) created by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops to counter to the widespread disbelief in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist among Catholics. In it, Barron offers “a threefold analysis of the Eucharist as sacred meal, sacrifice, and Real Presence.”
My younger daughter is already racking up all the points in the library’s summer reading program. In addition to reading a couple of books recommended by her brothers that were reviewed in An Open Book over the last eighteen months, she read There You’ll Find Me by Jenny B. Jones, after which, we watched the movie adaption, Finding You. Highly recommend both! Finley Sinclair takes a study abroad opportunity in Ireland, where her late brother studied, to help prepare for an audition at the Manhattan music conservatory. There she meets movie star Beckett Rush, and despite butting heads, the two develop a relationship.
She also read Bright Candles by Nathaniel Benchley, which is apparently now a little tricky to find. It’s the story of a 16-year-old Copenhagen boy who is part of the Danish Resistance during the Nazi occupation of Denmark.
Because she can’t get enough of Agatha Christie, my daughter also read The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, a Hercule Poirot mystery considered Christie’s masterpiece. She highly enjoyed it and its plot twists. She also read Taken at the Flood, another Poirot mystery. In it, a twice-widowed woman inherits a fortune. However, her sister-in-law claims the woman’s first husband is alive. Poirot must unravel the truth.
My youngest son completed the book for his summer reading assignment, The Sign of the Beaver by Elizabeth George Speare, which his sister read last year at this time. The novel, set in colonial Maine, is a Newbery Honor book. Thirteen-year-old Matthew is left to guard his family’s cabin in the wilderness and meets a Native boy, Attean, who teaches him about his culture.
Because he also wants to rack up summer reading program points, my son was finally persuaded by his siblings to read a book they thought he’d like, Raymond Arroyo’s Will Wilder #1: The Relic of Perilous Falls. His sisters were right, he liked it, giving it five stars because “it was exciting and left you wondering what a lot of things were.” The only complaint my kids have had with this series about this adventurous tale of good versus evil is that it was left unfinished at three books
We visit a local bookstore each Father’s Day, when the men in our family can pick a free used book. (The ladies usually buy some books, too). My son discovered Michael Vey: The Prisoner of Cell 25 by Richard Paul Evans by browsing the shelves, and he absolutely loved it! He kept raving about how good it was. (Meanwhile, his older brother had read this and recommended it previously.) He then convinced one of his sisters to read it as well. Michael Vey is a young teen with Tourette’s syndrome and electric powers. He meets a cheerleader with the same powers and with a friend, they become embroiled in danger.
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