Just Shy of Harmony Book

I couldn't find the first book of the Harmony Series, so I was advised to just pick this one up and get started, that this series isn't really written to be read in a certain order. This part is true.

I loved this. I read it in about two days. It's quite a different writing style than I'm used to, it's very concise and neat. It reads more like a good newspaper column than a novel. And each chapter has the feel of its own short story. So it's a very easy put-down book (not for me, though).

Philip Gulley is an excellent storyteller. As I understand it, he's a Quaker minister in Indiana, so he sets his story around a Quaker congregation, presumably in Indiana. Gulley's fictional preacher, Sam Gardner, is the main man of the stories, but the entire congregation really carries the stories.

Sam is a quiet, observant preacher who has grown up in Harmony and ministers to the Friends church. We meet some of the members of that church, the Peacocks, the Hinshaws, the Hodges, just some people of Harmony who shape small-town life into what it is...and only a small-townee could capture Harmony so sweetly.

And only a preacher's eye could capture the telling of People like this.

I laugh and (want to) cry at the same time. Because while my favorite stories feature Highlanders, boy wizards, games of thrones, teenagers in dystopian war games, fallen angels and vampires and werewolves...I've never MET any of those. They are entirely up to my imagination.

The churchfolk in Harmony...I KNOW them. I don't know Fictional Fern Hampton...but I KNOW her. I know Dale Hinshaw. I know good, quiet, salt-of-the-earth folk like the Peacocks and the Gardners and the Hodges. I know what it's like to sit in a church planning meeting and want to bang my head on the table. I know what it's like to answer a church telephone and have people "fishing" for information.

I already know, after this first book, that I will be grabbing up and devouring every other Harmony book I can find.

Recommended for anyone who wants a quick, funny read, a regular churchgoer who needs a laugh, or people who enjoy small-town America stories with a nostalgic feel.