St Brelade resident Daphne Mills Hope with her book

A BOOK written by an Islander is proving a hit among Christians and non-believers alike.

Love is… by Daphne Mills Hope from St Brelade is currently rated fifth in the Keith Jones Christian Bookshop best-sellers list.

The bookshop, which compiles the list from its sales, has been supplying Christian products for over 50 years and has over 45,000 titles in stock.

The book is about Mrs Mills Hope’s life married to a minister and how that relationship broke down after 26 years, and her full-time Christian work throughout her life.

It also includes frank details about her ten-year battle with the condition ME and how she was miraculously cured.

Originally written for her grandchildren, the book explores a variety of emotions and details light-hearted and funny scenes, including the time the young Mrs Mills Hope secretly christened her baby brother in the bath.

But it also describes serious and sometimes upsetting scenes, for example when Mrs Mills Hope sat at people’s bedsides as they lay dying. ‘I have had some wonderful letters and emails about the book and the usual comment is that once people start to read it they can’t put it down,’ said Mrs Mills Hope.

‘It seems popular with Christians and non-believers. I wrote the book for my grandchildren, but when people heard that I was writing my story lots of them asked for a copy.

‘I was brought up on Enid Blyton and she used short, simple sentences that always made you want to read on and find out what happens next and that is what I tried to do.’

It is not the first book Mrs Mills Hope has written. Her comprehensive Bible study, called Road to Emmaus, was sold around the world and she has also written a book of readings which has been published on the internet.

Love is… is currently on sale in the Christian Bookshop in the Central Market and at Keith Jones Christian Bookshops in Bournemouth and Yeovil.

Mrs Mills Hope has lived in Jersey for ten years and is a member of the Jersey Society of Artists and Jersey’s Southampton Football Club Supporters Club. Her father, John Barber, was a former chairman of Southampton Football Club.