The Bishop's Wife/Mette Ivie Harrison/345 pages

Linda Walheim is the title character. She's used to her life being interrupted by the demands of the ward. When a distraught father comes to their house in the middle of a cold Utah night with his young daughter, she does what is expected of her and cares for the child while the man consults with her husband privately. Did the wife and mother merely walk away from her life with her family or is there something more sinister happening? Additionally, another ward member is facing death, and secrets from his past start to come to the surface. Did his first wife die in an accident or did she have a disease? No one really knows or remembers.


Harrison gives the reader some insight into the Mormon church but don't expect a hard-hitting expose on the church and its teachings. The stories and the mysteries in the book have great promise but don't completely deliver on the build up. I was hoping for something more, but it is entertaining and worth reading. At the very least, I learned more about the Mormon church.

Attack the Lusitania: a World War I novel / Jerry Borrowman / 221 pages

I will begin by admitting that the St. Charles City-County Library District does not own this book. So, if you are interested in this book, you will need to visit a bookseller or try to get it through Interlibrary Loan.

About the genre- Attack the Lusitania is Mormon fiction centered around the events leading up to and including the sinking of the steamship Lusitania during World War I. For those unfamiliar with Mormon fiction, it is very similar to Christian fiction in that the heroic characters are usually unfailingly true to their religion and the writing style is usually more mainstream than literary. This book is a quick read without a lot of depth but does provide some brief historical facts about the sinking of the Lusitania with which I was not very aware.

Synopsis - A Wyoming coal mine operator, who happens to be Mormon, chooses to take the Lusitania on a round trip business excursion to England. During the trip, he discovers that his room steward is also a Latter-day Saint, as well as the steward's brother, who works shoveling coal for the steam ship engines. The miner protects his steward from discrimination at the hands of a supervisor, after which a German submarine torpedoes the ship and we see the crew, passengers, and  main characters' struggles to survive the horrific event.

Analysis/Recommendation- There are some historical facts about early World War I and the events leading up to the Lusitania's sinking that will interest those not familiar with them. There is also some detail about the operations of a luxury steam liner. But, for the most part, the storyline comes across as a Titanic wannabe. The Mormon storyline is rather predictable but not overbearing. Non-Mormon reader will not feel that they have been proselyted by this book. Overall, it's a decent read, but recommended mostly for fans of Mormon fiction and those who didn't know much about the sinking of the Lusitania.