The Biltmore and nearby neighborhood of Biltmore Village are the primary settings for this history story with a modern day twist. We meet a great granddaughter of the main character in present time and she is looking for the deed to the family bookstore. From the 1916-1920 time period, the main character was the library maid at the Biltmore. In that role she was able to enjoy library resources. One of her jobs was to anticipate the reading preferences of the Biltmore guests and make those books “appear” in the second floor, guest living room. She was fantastic at that task. One visitor, though, looked past her job as the maid and drew her into conversations about the books. You will read about them as the “goblin” and the “fairy”. Of course there’s a love story with such a fairy tale beginning.

Recently a Biltmore visitor, I was excited for the setting. The library was my personal, favorite room of the mansion and I was tickled to know exactly the spaces to which they refer in the story.

I found the story interesting, well told, and I loved the setting. I will look for more from Basham and also the Doors to the Past series.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for a chance to read and review this book. The dual timeline tale works well, skipping between the story of Sadie at the Biltmore Estate in 1915, to Asheville in the present with Clara’s quest to find the deed to Blackwell Bookshop. This book was fabulous! Probably the best I’ve read all year.

I love Pepper Basham’s writing! I will definitely be reading more books from her.
While split/duel timelines are NOT my favorite, I enjoyed this story. I enjoyed Clara’s scavenger hunt into the past and especially the historical story and the interactions between Sadie and Oliver. Again, Pepper’s storytelling drew me in and made me actually enjoy the split timeline, despite my usual dislike.

Thank you to Netgalley for a copy of this story to read and review. I was not asked to write a positive one.

As is normal for Pepper Basham, this story is wonderfully written! I love dual time lines. They are my current favorite type of story and a well written one is hard to beat! I loved the romance and the way the two stories tied together. Another great story from Pepper Basham!

I received a complimentary copy of this book. All opinions are my own.

Clara Blackwell helps her mother manage a 100 year old family bookshop in Asheville, North Carolina. The bookshop is struggling to survive and it takes everything she has to keep it going. But when Clara discovers an old letter tucked away in a book, that has never been opened, she can’t wait to open the seal and read it. The letter takes her on an adventure of a lifetime. As Clara follows her heart and unwrap the mystery of the past, she is transported from the estates of the Vaderbilts to Derbyshire, England. As she uncovers the love story of her great-great grandmother and the only name in the letter, Oliver. The truth of her family’s past is revealed as well as the hope of her future. This captivating story of hope, past, present and future made this book unputdownable. I really enjoyed the plot twist and the detailed description of England made it a wonderful and much needed escape. I love the writing style of this author, it is both intriguing and entertaining and keeps your attention while rapidly turning the pages.

Thank you Pepper Basham for such a wonderful and amazing read. This entertaining and exciting story, definitely pulls at your heartstrings. This compelling story of love and secrets is amazing. The flow of the story reads as if it is a poem, a love letter. It is an absolute must read and I highly recommend this book.

Wonderful read. This is my first time reading this author. Enjoyable story for a first time reader.

What I think you should know:
Hope Between the Pages by Pepper Basham is a Christian Historical Fiction. Part of the Doors to the Past series it is a time slip novel set in Asheville North Carolina. The historical portion starts at the Biltmore Estate in 1915. The contemporary portion of the novel centers around a bookstore in Biltmore Village.

What you might need to know:
Be prepared with Kleenex , lots of Kleenex

What I think you should know:
This is a beautifully haunting story of love and loss. Growing up relatively close to Biltmore I am always intrigued by the magic surrounding the estate, so I was super excited to read this story. Basham weaves together the timelines seamlessly allowing the stories to meld perfectly together. Clara has been surrounded by love and books all of her life, with stories taking her a million places. I loved how she found her stepped out of her comfort zone to save her family legacy. Max was also a fascinating character. The Library Fairy and the Book Goblin, OH My Heart, their story gave me so many feelings. Oliver looked past the expectations of a person and saw what they really were. Sadie’s strength and love is beautiful, the lengths that she went to protect those she loved is inspiring. This book had me grinning, laughing and sobbing. I look forward to reading more books in the series and I will always choose to read more books by Basham.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from Celebrate Lit, this in no way influenced my review. All opinions are my own.

Hope Between the Pages
by Pepper Basham
Pub Date 01 Apr 2021 |
Barbour Publishing, Inc., Barbour Fiction
Christian | Historical Fiction | Romance


I am reviewing a copy of Hope Between the Pages through Barbour Publishing Inc, and Netgalley:



Clara Blackwell helps her ailing Mother manage a struggling one-hundred-year old family bookshop in Asheville, North Carolina, but the discovery of a forgotten letter opens a mystery of a long-lost romance and undiscovered inheritance which could save its future.



Clara finds herself having to step outside of her predictable world in order to embark on a journey that starts with only a name Oliver, the name she found in her great grandmothers letter. From the nearby grand estate of the Vanderbilts, to a hamlet in Derbyshire, England, Clara seeks to uncover truth about family and love that may lead to her own unexpected romance.



I give Hope Between the Pages five out of five stars!



Happy Reading!

Hope Between the Pages by Pepper Basham is the second book in the Doors to the Past series, but it can be read as a stand-alone dual-time novel. Blackwell's independent small bookstore is struggling to survive, and it is now threatened by a legal dispute over ownership of the property on which the bookstore sits. Determined to find evidence of ownership by her grandmother Sadie, Clara finds a long-lost letter that starts her journey to discovering her grandmother's past. Sadie Blackwell worked as a librarian for the Vanderbilts at the Biltmore House. A male houseguest in need of a book starts leads t0 a friendship that develops into a romance that holds the key to finding the deed to the bookstore.

This split time frame book, is spectacular. It's not just the Blue Ridge Mountains, or the bookshop, it's everything. This book is indeed, filled with hope. It didn't waver on faith. It didn't fall short of romance, or characters to love. I have been to Biltmore, so having the library there as a setting in 1915, was such perfect thing for me. The 100 year old mystery, just wonderful! Sadie and Oliver, they are just amazing and Clara and Max were nice too.

This book is steeped in romance, but not the kind that I don't like. It's clean, and it's endearing. It has a pull that tugs on you past the last pages. I don't think my review can do this book justice, you just have to read it. I think a hardcopy might have to grace my bookshelves soon.

I have read so many rave reviews of this book and expected to love it, but I just really didn't at all. I absolutely hate spoilers, and I felt like the historical story of this book was completely spoiled from the first chapter of the contemporary story and continued to be spoiled as the book went on. Things were given away that kept me from allowing myself to really care about some of the characters in the historical story. I have no doubt that I would have absolutely loved the historical story if I could have read it on its own first, despite the fact that some of the characters are too good to be true, but the split-time format ruined it for me. I think maybe split-time stories just aren't my thing.

As for the contemporary story, I didn't enjoy it nearly as much. In my opinion, it moved much too slowly (and then much too fast), and I didn't really care about it until well past the halfway mark of the book. All it did was annoy me by interrupting and spoiling the story I was actually interested in. When the love interest is finally introduced, again well past the halfway point of the book, there wasn't nearly enough character development for me to care much about him and the few days they spent together weren't enough for me to believe there was really much to their relationship. Everything came together and resolved far too quickly to be believable for me, especially after it took so long for that story to get moving in the beginning.

Obviously, lots of people love this book, and there are a lot of great quotes, beautiful moments of faith and romance, and a lot of different elements that I have loved in other stories, but for me, those things didn't come together well in this book and the split-time format especially didn't work well for me. I commented to my husband at one point that I felt like I was being forced to read the first and last book in a series simultaneously and it was miserable.

I received a complimentary electronic copy of this book from NetGalley.

Uncover the Story Behind a One-Hundred-Year-Old Love Letter

Visit historic American landmarks through the Doors to the Past series. History and today collide in stories full of mystery, intrigue, faith, and romance.

Clara Blackwell helps her mother manage a struggling one-hundred-year old family bookshop in Asheville, North Carolina, but the discovery of a forgotten letter opens a mystery of a long-lost romance and undiscovered inheritance which could save its future. Forced to step outside of her predictable world, Clara embarks on an adventure with only the name Oliver as a hint of the man’s identity in her great-great-grandmother’s letter. From the nearby grand estate of the Vanderbilts, to a hamlet in Derbyshire, England, Clara seeks to uncover truth about family and love that may lead to her own unexpected romance.

My Thoughts: Ths was an amazing read; one that draws the reader in from the very start. This is a story for those who love a mystery and also believe that fairy tales can come true. A story that takes the reader on a course back in time. This is a story about accepting people for who they are, not social status, not money. There are lessons to be learned. One thing that I enjoyed was the way the book was written, some in the present, and then to Sadies past. Can fairy tales come true? A truly enjoyable and must-read book.

In this book, we have two stories separated by hundred years, In the first story( 1915) we can clearly see the elements we find in the Cinderella story. An orphan, the difficulties she and her family had to face due to lack of resources. A handsome and rich young man, this love story develops unexpectedly during Oliver's visit to the Biltmore state in Asheville North Carolina. What starts like simple and funny notes, suddenly changes the course of a lifetime. In this particular story, we have two young people from different classes, what seems an impossible love, we have a glimpse of hope and opportunity to love. However, although I understand the historical moment and also the precision Oliver to join the fight and serve his country. I would have like that the author would have given them more time together.

In the second story, we have Clara Balckwell, granddaughter of Sadie and we learn that her father was a fantasy writer and she has been taking care of her parents and for years and also their library, now she has to face a big thread, it seems that deed it’s not found and they can lose it after hundred years of ownership. I must say that this part of the story I honestly couldn’t find plausible, how is possible a document so important be lost for long and none saw it before the troubles start to happen.

In order to save her family’s business, she goes to England with the hope of finding the deed, there she meets Maxwell Weston the son of the owner of the Inn where was the Camden state. In this story, maybe I’m wrong; but for me was like Beauty and the beast. We have a woman who has put her life on hold for the love of her parent and a man how has physical and emotional wounds that have made him careful on how to let him in his life.

This story has many good elements, we can see that the author clearly loves her home state and did her research, and try to add many historical elements to the story, we have two fairy tales in the modern age with a twist and faith as glue. I’ll confess I will also have like to found the addition of Oliver and Maxwell's voices in the story, I think it will have made it richer. Overall, if you like good historical fiction, this book is a good choice.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a free digital copy for review, all opinions are my own.

Admittedly when I decided to request this, I was not aware it was a Christian Romance.

As a lapsed Christian, I found it difficult to connect with the amount of faith the characters had. I also found the romance a little lackluster nor did I genuinely believe in the relationships between the main characters. It could largely be just a mis-match between the book and myself but I found myself forcing myself to finish the book.

That being said, it was a unique historical novel with a focus on books that I may have loved in a different setting.

3/5 stars - but this could largely be due to personal reasons rather than the quality of the book itself.

A masterpiece by Pepper Basham. Beautifully written. Engaging characters. Dual time novel. Seamlessly blending the past w/ the present. Five stars.

Hope Between the Pages
By Pepper Basham
4 stars

*Book Blurb: Uncover the Story Behind a One-Hundred-Year-Old Love Letter. Clara Blackwell helps her mother manage a struggling one-hundred-year old family bookshop in Asheville, North Carolina, but the discovery of a forgotten letter opens a mystery of a long-lost romance and undiscovered inheritance which could save its future. Forced to step outside of her predictable world, Clara embarks on an adventure with only the name Oliver as a hint of the man’s identity in her great-great-grandmother’s letter. From the nearby grand estate of the Vanderbilts, to a hamlet in Derbyshire, England, Clara seeks to uncover truth about family and love that may lead to her own unexpected romance.*

It's a reader's delight to have characters that adore books as much as you do. And bookshop stories are just like a warm hug.
I loved the historical aspect of this split time novel the best but that's just because I love history. The romance was sigh worthy and happy tear worthy. The theme of hope in adversity was inspiring.

Hope Between the Pages is Pepper D Basham’s wonderful addition to the Doors to the Past series. I thought this was a great read. I enjoy reading dual time line stories and this one will be among my favorites I have read to date. I loved it! I have always wanted to travel to the Biltmore and I want to even more now. The details of the book really made me feel as though I was right there with the characters.

Hope Between the Pages will be getting a very well deserved five plus stars from me. I recommend it for readers who enjoy reading clean historical fiction. As always, I look forward to reading more by Pepper D. Basham in the future. This one should not be missed.

This book was just ok for me. I was entertained enough that I finished it, but it took me a long time to get through.
I wish there had been less mention of all the classic books and more information on the characters themselves- why did no one know anything about the grandma until long after her death??
It was well written and I enjoyed the dual timeline. I also appreciated that it was clean and had plenty of historical details.

*Warnings*
#1 This is a long review, so pull up a chair and grab a bowl of popcorn. You’ll be here awhile. #2 When I read a review, I want substantial information. So I will not skimp on the details. Which may mean some spoilers, so watch out.


Stars: 3.5

Synopsis: Clara Blackwell is on the verge of losing her great-grandmother’s bookshop—and a hundred years earlier, Sadie Blackwell is on the verge of establishing it. Love letters and missing deeds unite the two women in a story of love, hope, and following your dreams.

Favorite Quotes: “It’s always the right time for the right romance, my girl.”

“Love is powerful. It has the strength to change hearts, restore broken lives, bring healing from grief, and provide courage to push us beyond our self-defined limits. Love makes us brave. And hope inspires our imaginations.”


I’m honestly struggling with my star rating right now. Seriously. This is, like, a five-star book, and yet I’ve only given it 3.5. As per usual, most of my reasons are personal—and since the greater portion of all my personal reasons are, well, personal and kind of dumb, I’ll only focus on the most important PR (#personalreason) and the technical, objective reasons.

So here we go.

I’ve never actually read anything by Pepper Basham, but I’ve been wanting to for a while now, so I requested this book on the basis of the author—meaning I knew next to nothing about the premise of the novel going into it, only that (1) everyone’s enjoyed it from what I’ve seen and (2) Basham is a popular writer and (3), um, apparently it’s a time-slip. Actually, I may not have known that fact before requesting Hope Between the Pages…

Anyway, this is a difficult book to write a review for, since I still don’t know if I enjoyed it or not. For the first half, I wasn’t very invested in the story or the characters and I pretty much spent most of my time being pessimistic. (I mean, c’mon, someone had to be the realist amongst all the idealists in this novel.)

So one of my personal reasons was that I was seriously concerned for nearly half the book that Sadie was a fool who fell for a man who left her pregnant and unwed. Of course, I could have come up with a hundred different ways for her to be married but still go by her maiden name...but I felt too much like being, as I said, pessimistic. Probably because I wasn’t too invested in painting for myself a happy ending…

But that’s beside the point. I didn’t really get interested until the second half (particularly once Max entered the scene), so I’ll focus on what I gleaned from that and how I felt after finishing. Sound good? Good.

Technically, Hope Between the Pages had a lot going for it:

• An interesting, unique setting full of historical value;
• A Hallmark-style aesthetic complete with a quaint bookstore and a vintage-wearing heroine;
• Two well-paced and carefully arranged timelines that flowed smoothly;
• And a smidge of mystery.


But for me, something was off.

Basham’s writing was good enough—nothing eye-catching or memorable about her voice or style—but I didn’t really like having one point-of-view in first-person and the other in third. She’s not the only author who does that, but when both characters are of equal import, I’d like to have their POVs written in the same way, you know? Makes things smoother. If it’s just the perspective of a minor character as opposed to one of the main characters, I get it, but in this case it was a little jarring.

As for her characters themselves? Ayyyyy…

Right off the bat, Oliver was literally too good to be true. I love a good, kind, handsome, book-loving hero, don’t get me wrong, but one who’s as all-around perfect as Oliver and for some reason completely oblivious to class differences is just a little unrealistic. So, yeah, maybe I didn’t trust him, and maybe I didn’t really connect with him like I wanted to.

The same went for Sadie. She was…okay. Tolerable, I suppose, but not handsome enough to tempt me. (Bah-dum-chi…) Pride and Prejudice quotes aside, Sadie lacked that oomph I was looking for. And I don’t mean that rule-breaking, feminist oomph. I mean just the strong personality that I immediately pick up on and connect with from page one. You know how some characters just feel so real? Yeah, Sadie wasn’t one of them. I feel like her older self that Clara would think back on seemed more real, and she was dead by that point.

That’s probably because this is a split-time novel—you’ve got to balance two timelines, two romances, and two to four characters in one book. That’s a lot of work...but that doesn’t mean you should have to sacrifice proper character development because of it. All I’m asking is that authors pick at least three personalities traits for each character and do their best to make them obvious to the reader. Surely that’s not too hard.

Ach, enough whining. Let’s move on to what I thought of Clara.

I’ll put it like this: I liked Sadie more. Clara seemed to teeter between an independent woman with a plan and a flighty girl with no idea what she was doing. Can that be possible? It shouldn’t be, but apparently it is. I should’ve liked her—for gosh’s sake, she wore vintage and ran a bookstore! But she really fell flat and lack a great deal of characterization.

You know, maybe that was it. Both Sadie and Clara didn’t have much of an arc, so that’s probably why I felt like something was missing—it was change. For a first-person romance, it was more mystery/suspense-oriented in some ways...and while I liked that, it made the characters very two-dimensional.

But then there was Max. I actually started to like the story when Max showed up, halfway through the book. Seriously, though, he’s British, also wears vintage, and is yet another emotionally wounded and physically scarred hero. What’s not to love?

Nothing. Exactly. Therefore, he was my only favorite character and simply the best part of this book. He actually had some semblance of an arc...and just him showing up for Clara when she needed it was adorable.

Suffice it to say that, as per usual, I didn’t like the girl characters, I loved Max, and nothing about Basham’s writing stood out to me.

I have to say, Basham did spectacularly at making this story mysterious, puzzling, and suspenseful—so kudos for that. The general plot—at least from Clara’s side of it—was pretty engaging.

But as interesting as it was, there was just one thing that quite honestly ticked me off. It it weren’t for that, I might would’ve let the lack of character development slide and give this book four stars.

Except it was there—or, rather, He wasn’t.

I wanted more Jesus. I just did. I needed Clara to go to Him in pray, for Sadie to seek His guidance before making certain decisions, for scripture to be included, for something to speak to me in this book!

But there was nothing. Zip. Zilch. Nada. I mean, Basham may have mentioned God, church, and praying a few times, but she was much more accustomed to talking about fairies and magic. Personally, I’m not a fairy/magic person. At all. But it might not have bothered me so much had Basham simply included God.

As much as I’d like to start ranting about this, I’ve already stated my views in my unofficial review of Hooked On You by Kathleen Fuller on Goodreads, so I’ll just leave it at that. Pretty sure I’ve made my point.

I need Christian writers to start writing Christian fiction—not inspirational, not secular, not clean, not religious. Christian. As in, full of God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. Full of scripture and powerful messages. That’s our purpose as Christians—to glorify God in all we do.

Long story short, a lot was missing from this story—which is why one and a half stars are missing as well. It’s decent and enjoyable, but I had way too many pet peeves and found myself too disconnected from the characters to fully appreciate it.


Disclaimer: A complimentary copy of this book was provided by the publisher, publicist, or author, including NetGalley. All opinions expressed are my own.

The description got me on this one. A one hundred year old love letter! Which then leads to a quest to figure out her great great grandmother’s life and secrets. What a glorious look between the past and the present! I enjoyed this book very much. Will definitely be on my recommendations to readers.

I voluntarily reviewed a copy of this book provided by NetGalley