Author Janette Oke has been hailed as "the Laura Ingalls Wilder of the Bible set." The description seems apt, for Oke, like Wilder, is known for her homespun romance and historical novels with swift-moving plots and wholesome, old-fashioned family values. However, any comparison of Oke and the creator of the Little House on the Prairie saga must end there. Unlike Wilder, whose writing were secular in nature, the Canadian-born Oke unabashedly places strong conservative Christian values front and center in her books, which she has described to Calgary Herald religion editor Gordon Legge as her "paper missionaries."

Oke's 1979 debut novel Love Comes Softly came out of nowhere to set the publishing world on its ear; that book sold more than a million copies and blazed the trail in what freelance journalist Carol Toller, writing in the Toronto-based Financial Post, has described as the $3-billion-per-year Christian publishing industry. Despite...