Julie Cave credits her parents for introducing her to books at a young age, which fostered an enduring passion for reading and writing. As a child, her favorite authors were Enid Blyton and C.S. Lewis and it wasn’t long before she began copying them, writing short stories for anyone who would read them. At fifteen, two things happened which would shape her future: she heard a creation science speaker at her church which cemented her faith in God; and she finished her second novel-length story and realized she had fallen in love with writing novels.

After school, she completed a health science degree, got married, and worked in banking and finance. All the while she wondered how she could combine her love of writing and her strong passion for Christian apologetics and evangelism. One weekend at a church camp, a friend asked, ’What if the guy in charge of the Smithsonian Institution went missing?’ The result – and the answer to that question – is Julie’s maiden published novel, Deadly Disclosures. This book is first in the Dinah Harris trilogy authored by Julie; the other two books are titled The Shadowed Mind and Pieces of Light.

Julie has two daughters and lives in Brisbane, Australia with her family. She divides her time between being a wife, a mother, and an author.

Bombed churches, an alcoholic ex-FBI agent turned consultant, an abused family, a senator bribed into leading an attack on Christianity, and a prisoner trapped in rage are the five strands that Julie Cave weaves together in Pieces of Light. The third in the Dinah Harris Mystery series, Pieces of Light explores the hatred of Christianity and where it leads.

The story begins in the mind of the church bomber while in prison a year after the main story occurs. This person's anger and emptiness recurs throughout the book.

After a bomber targets a church in Washington, D.C., Dinah Harris's former FBI partner, Ferguson, hires Dinah as a consultant on the case. Dinah, a widow and a new Christian, finds herself working with the shockingly handsome Special Agent Aaron Sinclair.

During this time, the McMahon family faces the challenge of recovering from the death of their abusive husband and father, Reginald McMahon. The deceased had excelled at appearing as a wonderful Christian to the world outside their home. Though his wife Rosa honestly grieves for him, their adult children, Isabelle and Michael, are still angry and glad he is gone. For their mother's sake, Isabelle is trying to hold her family together while struggling to appease her controlling husband, Scott.

U.S. Senator David Winters, an antagonist of Dinah's from previous books and an egotistical White-House hopeful, agrees to influence a Supreme Court justice on a religious freedom case in exchange for a half million dollars. The organization that bribes him wants religious groups that meet social needs, such as drug counseling or halfway houses, to be refused taxpayer funds that secular groups would receive for the same function.

As each of these subplots unfolds, Ferguson, Dinah, and Aaron Sinclair close in on the bomber. When the takedown comes, Dinah puts her life on the line to save others.

Cave writes well. She uses the subplot with Senator Winters and the legal attack on religion not only to tie the plots together, but also as an apologetic on why Christian organizations should not be excluded from the public square. Andy, a friend of Dinah's uses Joshua 4 and Matthew 5:13, the Constitution, history, and court precedent to examine the question. Although the dialogue is a little stiff, especially in the discussion on religious freedom, Cave does an admirable job of showing how the church engenders hatred and anger when it closes its eyes to sin, injustice, and evil.

Cave also clearly explains scripturally through admirable characters who help Dinah understand why she should not date Aaron Sinclair. She portrays Dinah's struggle and Sinclair's response realistically. In fact, her characterization is one of her strengths.

The greatest weakness in the book is that the villain's identity is too predictable. In spite of this, I look forward to reading other books by Cave. I appreciate her examination of important themes and questions, her characterization, and a twist at the end in one of the subplots that totally caught me by surprise. – Debbie W. Wilson, www.ChristianBookPreviews.com