Arise Beloved Arise Beloved, tells an unforgettable story—filled with heroism, adventure, and love—of daring young pilots during World War II. This gripping story focuses on a young woman, Becky Bright, and her lover, Troy “Wingnut” McNutt.  Troy, an amateur pilot, convinces Becky to go flying with him although at first she is afraid to do so. Once aloft however Becky falls in love with flying. She pursues aviation with a passion and quickly develops into a skilled aviator, competing in races during a time before women were thought capable of being competent aviators. Troy falls in love with Becky, but she is indifferent to him except as a friend. She wants to marry into a close-knit family, while Troy is alienated from his.  After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the two split up and go their separate ways.

During the war, Becky becomes a WASP in the famed Women Air-Force Service Pilots of WW2. While a WASP, she meets and marries a B-17 navigator who deploys to England where  he falls in love with an English woman, gets her pregnant, and writes Becky asking for a divorce. While on a bombing mission, he is shot down and captured by the Germans at the same time Becky receives his letter..

After being expelled from the WASPs for making a daring but illegal flight into a war zone, Becky plans another equally risky mission—this one to secure the safety of her faithless husband in exchange for a German POW, the favorite of a wealthy German aristocrat who himself must escape Germany because of his involvement with a plot to depose Hitler.
 
Meanwhile, Troy becomes a commissioned officer in the Navy flying PBY seaplanes in the South Pacific. He is a spectacular success on his first combat mission, but he is later shot down by the Japanese and presumed dead. Actually he survives, and is marooned until the end of the war on a remote Pacific island, where he meets a native woman, who bears him a daughter and who then abandons him and their child. At the end of the war he returns with his child to surprising  reunion with Becky.

Harper has created a complex and intricate story with the skill of an accomplished writer. His characters have all the shading and complexity of real people and he manages to resolve all the twists and turns of the story in a successful and satisfying conclusion. The theme was inspired by a passage from the "Song of Songs 2:10" in the Bible as interpreted by the words of an anonymous hymn:

"Come away to the skies, my beloved arise, and rejoice in the day thou wast born.

On this festival day, exulting away, with singing, to Zion return."

The book is in three parts: "Away to the Skies," "Exulting Away," and "To Zion Return."

While not explicitly "religious", Arise Beloved is very much a religious story. It employs erotic situations and earthy language (as does the Song of Songs in the Bible) to convey and affirm the eternal truth and the relatedness of faith, religion, and love. It is contemporary in addressing women's issues, gay issues in general and, in particular, gays in the military. It also illuminates much of the hypocrisy and falseness of "christianists," the contemporary pseudo-Christian posturing. It will "kick the hive" of conservative Christians (both Catholic and Evangelical.)

Here is what New York Times bestselling author Ellen Tanner Marsch says about Arise Beloved:

Author and Episcopal priest Glynn Compton Harper has taken the World War II story  and transformed it into something startling, new and downright revolutionary. Arise Beloved tells the controversial story of beautiful feminist aviatrix Becky Bright and her thwarted love for handsome sailor Troy McNutt. But it isn't just the story of two war-separated lovers who find their way back to each other. It's also an astute social and historical commentary on the times.

In rich, luminous prose, Harper brilliantly explores the beginnings of  feminism as Becky  becomes a pilot for the WASPs. The issue of gays in the military is sensitively explored in the character of German POW Gunther Hammer, the man Becky exchanges for the freedom of her faithless husband. Earthy and erotic, Arise Beloved is also a deeply spiritual tale that explores how human love can be seen as an allegory of God's love for humankind. Faith, religion, and love are all interconnected, Harper suggests, and not even the hypocrisy and ignorance of the conservative church can quash this idea.

You can  download sample chapers of Arise Beloved by clicking below.

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Arise Beloved is Harper's second novel. He is also the author of A Perfect Peace.