Barbara Ann Burns was interested in the history of her town, Riverside, California, so she took a class to be a docent at its famous hotel, the Mission Inn. She was such a good docent, they hired her, and she trained their new docents for many years. That was when she discovered a historian’s fantasy: the story of Alice Miller Richardson, the amazingly successful, lovable, lifetime manager of the Mission Inn. Burns’ intent to write about the lady who worked at her brother’s hotel turned out to be a book about the lady who really ran the hotel (with the help of her brother). It’s an inspiring story and Burns shows her enthusiasm for it from beginning to end.