CLAIRE CONSIDERS FINDING ANGELS by Rhett DeVane

“Finding Angels” (August 2025) by award-winning Florida author Rhett DeVane is a collection of short stories with a smattering of poetry that will lift readers’ spirits and perhaps even restore their faith in humankind. These days, that’s a tough task, but DeVane—long known and appreciated for her tender storytelling and witty, wise Southern sayings—is up to it. The stories in “Finding Angels” are impeccably written, kind, and compassionate. They brim with empathy and serve as a gentle roadmap for how we might all do better—with just a little more kindness.

While there are no spies, car chases, explosions, or grisly unsolved murders, that does not mean nothing happens in DeVane’s stories. Plenty happens. Much, in fact. These are gentle tales of everyday people facing conflicts, loneliness, and worries—the weary traveler seated beside a chatty stranger on a plane; the hard-working yet still poor woman feeding a ragged, hungry stranger at her door; the recent widow at a you-pick blueberry farm explaining why she’s gathering fewer berries this year; a dying man who meticulously bleaches his beard white to play Santa and is asked for a difficult gift; an orphaned kitten suddenly in a house with a big cat and a bigger dog—and many more. Yet, though faced with dilemmas and difficulties, the people and animals come through—with the help of each other and, maybe, angels.

In the collection, DeVane includes five poems and 45 short stories, some short enough to be akin to flash fiction. Her subtitle sums up the themes: “A Heartfelt Collection of Love, Laughter, and Hope.” In her introduction, she acknowledges: “Like so many saddened by the turmoil and division in our world, I wondered how to move forward with my writing.” In reviewing numerous pieces she had written, DeVane “spotted silken threads that knit them together. Joy. Sadness. Forgiveness. Kindness. Trust.” In light of that, and combined with a “series of mystical events,” she hopes that by “honoring these common human experiences, we grasp the ways we are the same instead of focusing on differences.”

Long a celebrated master of spinning Southern wisdom and colloquialisms into her fiction, DeVane shows that skill many times over in Finding Angels. For example, in “Bird Chimes,” a very pregnant woman befriends her elderly neighbor, who says of her wild hair: “I’d twist it into a bun, but that makes me look older than a ghost granny’s panties.” In “Lake Shares,” a particularly lovely tale of a woman in her final days, the woman resists her son’s determination to keep her from walking to the grocery store and a nearby lake. She observes: “When a woman’s universe is reduced to five city blocks, only the Grim Reaper himself can stop her with a well-planted foot.” And in “Paint-by-Numbers Club,” where a total misunderstanding by a lonely foreign man leads to a surprising connection, DeVane writes: “Hemmed between the two women, Lar’s face holds the bewildered expression of a homecoming queen at a hog-calling contest: out of place and off-kilter.”

In an especially poignant story titled “Similar Snakes,” DeVane again demonstrates her mastery of wise yet humorous sayings and, in many ways, sums up the unifying theme of her collection. After spoiling a naughty prank, a father tells his mischievous daughter: “Don’t let the devil sitting on your shoulder tell you what’s what. Listen to the angel on the other shoulder. Always.”

All in all, Finding Angels is a warmly homespun book—entertaining, uplifting, and genuine and sure to be a comforting read for turbulent times. DeVane’s characters remind us that hope often arrives in the smallest, most human moments. 

Fans of DeVane’s prior seven adult novels set in Chattahoochee, Florida, will find a few old friends like Piddie and Hattie among these short stories. And for readers who have not yet discovered this author, Finding Angels may be the perfect invitation into the community of dedicated Rhett DeVane fans. 

The author, originally from Chattahoochee, now lives nearby in Tallahassee, Florida. In addition to her adult Southern fiction novels, DeVane writes Middle Grade and Young Adult fantasy series. Her works have earned numerous awards from the Tallahassee Writers Association, Florida Authors and Publishers Association, and the Florida Writers Association.