This HaBO is from JoJo, who is looking for a book they read ages ago:
I read this book a million years ago…but it has stuck with me because
it was so off the beaten path!
The main character is a woman who writes Christian music, and I think plays the organ. She’s really good, but she’s not really a believer.
It was so funny and irreverent that I would love to read it again.
Sorry…that’s all I got.
I’m assuming this is a contemporary?
Darn, I don’t know what book it could be, but now I want to know too!
Yes, it was a contemporary story.
Oh another tidbit — she write CHOIR music for churches.
Oh I want to read this
I want to read this (unless she finds the light or whatever, then it’s a pass)
She doesn’t find the light at the end! And I want to read it again too. Now if we can just figure out the title of the damn book! 🙂
Not helpful, but googling “church organist heroine” took me on a journey. The first result is Geena Davis’s Wikipedia page, but further down there’s this times headline from 2004, “Heroin dealer my organist, says sheriff”.
I also went down a rabbit hole learning about soap opera organist Rosa Rio, who was a bad ass. Would read the crap out of a historical modeled on her career. https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5559593
Not sure this is the book, or even close, it came up in a search….
The Happy Hour Choir published in 2015.
(Ellery #1)
by Sally Kilpatrick (Goodreads Author)
From debut author Sally Kilpatrick comes a hopeful tale of love and redemption in a quiet Southern town where a lost soul finds her way with the help of an unlikely circle of friends…
Life has dealt Beulah Land a tough hand to play, least of all being named after a hymn. A teenage pregnancy estranged her from her family, and a tragedy caused her to lose what little faith remained. The wayward daughter of a Baptist deacon, she spends her nights playing the piano at The Fountain, a honky-tonk located just across the road from County Line Methodist. But when she learns that a dear friend’s dying wish is for her to take over as the church’s piano player, she realizes it may be time to face the music…. Beulah assembles a ragtag group of patrons from The Fountain to form the Happy Hour Choir.
Some reviewers mentioned sad background for characters in the book. TWs.