I'm having a fabulous time reading Brian C. Hales' recent volumes titled Joseph Smith's Polygamy. My initial reaction was despair when my husband told me there was yet another book (nay, three volumes totaling 1562 pages) about Joseph Smith and polygamy. I thought "Will I never have a chance to write my necessarily fictional account about John C. Bennett, Joseph Smith, Elvira Annie Cowles, Jonathan Harriman Holmes, and Eliza Roxcy Snow ... Continue reading »

Mormons care about family.

It's not just the cuddly kids and parents stuff either (though that is very important). It's tying families together across time and space, in hopes that someday all mankind will have the choice to be linked together.

That's what temples are for.

But for my grandmother and her siblings, that was an impossible dream. Their father, Mormon apostle John Whitaker Taylor, was famously ... Continue reading »

The other night I had the chance to attend one of three lectures about family issues, with the promise of ice cream and cookies afterwards. How could I lose?   The first two rooms I passed were discussing 1) aging parents and 2) how to discipline children. Since my parents are crazy healthy and my remaining children at home are girls, these classes were only of passing interest.   The ... Continue reading »

I couldn't help but be glad that Jaime Ford's Japanese Keiko and Chinese Henry fail to find married love in the 1940s.

As a half-white child of the 1960s (back when such things were illegal in many states), I recall the hatred and torment I received from my peers (though my peers never physically beat me). The pain a Chinese-Japanese child would have endured during the 1940s is mind ... Continue reading »

The local ladies book club had assigned Kate Atkinson's "Case Histories: A Novel." And I gamely volunteered to lead the discussion.

Alas. We are a group of Mormon ladies. And Kate Atkinson's engaging tale involved quite a bit of sordid gore and guilty sex.

So I suggested a last minute selection switch, recommending Jamie Ford's bestselling "Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet."

"Hotel" is the ... Continue reading »