In A Slender Thread by Tracie Peterson, five sisters return home to Council Grove, Kansas, for the funeral of the mother who had abandoned them to pursue an acting career. They gather at the farmhouse of their grandmother, Mattie, who raised them and tried to instill in them a hope and faith in God. But each of the women has been affected in different ways by their mother’s desertion which causes conflict between them.

Ashley is married to a doctor, has two young boys, and is vying for Supermom status, trying to be everything her mother was not to her. Brook is a model who can’t let herself open her heart to the possibility of love. Connie feels alone because her two older and two younger sisters are close, and she has a different father, so she feels the odd woman out on many fronts. But she makes it worse by putting up walls that none of them can break through and making choices that she knows Mattie would be heartbroken over if she knew. Deirdre was the only planned child of her mother, conceived to try to heal her marriage. She’s the peacemaker but hides a secret obsession. Erica was the youngest, born barely 9 months after Deirdre, a gifted musician who puts her potential career above her love interest.

As the girls gather for the first time in years, tensions rise to the surface and harsh words break out on all sides. Mattie tries to point them to the love the have for each other, the “slender thread” that ties them together, and to God’s help and grace, but each one is too immersed in her own issues.

There’s a lot of bickering in this book. A lot. It’s meant to show that their issues go beyond the usual sibling rivalry, but they seem extraordinarily touchy and too willing to get offended by innocent remarks. Some of the same issues keep coming up over and over – which does happen when people are fixated on their past hurts without attempts to come to peace with them. But it did get old. The story seemed very slow in the first section when the girls were all together but the action picked up quite a bit when they all went back to their own lives and we saw them in their own setting. Their characters were developed quite a bit more then.

But I did appreciate the emphasis that we don’t have to be bound by a bad past or a parent who has failed us. We’ll forever be affected by them, but with grace and forgiveness and God’s help, we can put the past in perspective and forge new trails for ourselves and our families.

In Not In the Heart by Chris Fabry, Truman Wiley was once a promising reporter. However, downsizing cost him his job and a gambling addiction has resulted in estrangement from his family, the loss of his home, and some shady characters coming after him for a debt he owes. On top of everything else, his son is in the hospital and needs a new heart.

But an unexpected opportunity arises: a death row inmate wants him to write his story before his execution. The inmate’s wife is in the same Bible study as Truman’s wife, who has known about and prayed for Truman’s son’s condition for years. In return, the inmate wants to give Truman’s son his heart. He wants something good to come from his death. The public has mixed emotions and the governor needs some persuasion, but it looks like the heart donation will be approved.

As Truman begins to write the story, however, it begins to look like the inmate’s claims of innocence might actually be true. If he didn’t kill the murdered girl, who did? And if he’s innocent, what happens to Truman’s son?

I’ve never read a book by Fabry before and got this one on a Kindle sale because the story sounded interesting. His writing grabbed me from the start and the story kept up at a rapid pace all the way through. Some surprising twists and turns near the end led to quite an unexpected ending. In short, Fabry has a new fan. I loved some of his phrasing:

The trouble with my wife began when she needed Jesus and I needed a cat.

The woman of my dreams. The woman of my nightmares. Everything good and bad about my life. The “I do” that “I didn’t.”

Someone said, “Hey, Wanda,” and I deduced that this was Wanda. This is why I am such a good reporter.

I pulled out my phone as I hurried along and texted Abby, U OK? I had to stop while I texted because I am not a teenager.

A black pit bull barreled against the fence, jaws dripping with saliva, viciously barking like Old Yeller after the hydrophobia kicked in.

Ron pointed Helen’s gun at me. What kind of name is Ron for such a menacing figure?

Throughout most of the book, Truman’s view of faith is outside-looking-in. He doesn’t share his wife’s faith and pretty much disdains it. He doesn’t believe the inmate’s (Terrelle) profession of faith and dreads writing that part of the book, but he wants to handle it in a way that doesn’t offend “the faithful.” In my one minor criticism of the book, Truman’s own faith journey seemed a little rushed at the end – but then, everything was happening pretty fast at the end.

The point of view was unusual in this book. Most of the time it was from Truman’s point of view, written in the first person. But other chapters from the point of view of other characters are written in the third person.

One area I am somewhat on the fence about concerns his descriptions, mainly in a seedy club owned by one of the potential bad guys. Fabry is careful not to get overly descriptive, but some readers might feel he pushed the envelope a bit more than they’re comfortable with there.

But overall I loved the book and have already started on another by Fabry.

Searching for Eternity by Elizabeth Musser grabbed me right away, kept me engaged throughout the book, and made me not want it to end while at the same time eager to know what finally happened with the characters.

The story begins in the 1960s with nearly fourteen year old Emile de Bonnery finding that he and his mother have to suddenly leave France, where they have been staying with his grandmother in her 13th century chateau. Though Emile’s French father has been away “on business” often, this time it’s different. His American mother tells him that his father has found someone else and they must leave France immediately to go back to her native Atlanta. Emile protests, to no avail, and barely keeps control over his anger.

Emile feels that his father is a spy, that he’s merely on a mission, and may even be in trouble. Emile’s father, Jean-Baptiste, had been in the French resistance as a teenager during WWII, along with his parents. On each of Emile’s birthdays since he was five, his father has given him a gift of something he used in his resistance days – a book with pages cut away in which to store a switchblade, a thumbtack tin that once held a radio, etc., and told him the story behind that particular item as well as stories of his experiences. Emile knew that his father particularly hated Klaus Barbie, the “butcher of Lyon,” who was responsible for killing multitudes, including national hero Jean Moulin and Emile’s father’s father. Barbie had been condemned to death in absentia, and it was Emile’s theory that his father was hunting for Barbie. But no one agreed with him.

Meanwhile, he has to get used to life in America, especially to starting a new school. Being small for his age, new, and having an accent all seem to make him a target for the class bullies and friendless. Finally at lunch he sits near a girl named Eternity Jones, who, though somewhat aloof, at least doesn’t rebuff him. Gradually they become friends, and Emile eventually learns that Eternity comes from a broken home with a drunken, abusive mother. Eternity acts as protector for her two younger siblings. Wanting to extend help as well as friendship, Emile invites Eternity and her brother and sister to his grandmother’s home.

His grandmother and mother had been estranged for the 15 years his mother had been in France, and she and Emile showed up on her doorstep with no advance warning when they first left France. His mother had told him that her mother was controlling and they didn’t get along, but she welcomed them both with kindness, and her home radiated peace. His mother notes that her mother has changed in many ways. His mother and grandmother both try to make their home a safe haven for Eternity and her siblings.

There is so much in this book, it’s hard to know what to share. The rest of the book covers the next 23 years of Emile’s life and touches on racism, abuse, bullying, being a victim, faith, second chances, as well as what happens to Eternity and her family, Emile’s father, and even Klaus Barbie. It ended just as I hoped it would, but the author kept me guessing until nearly the last few pages.

Here are a few quotes from the book:

The wrong kind of love grabs and holds and chokes and demands and expects.

It’s a lot harder to hate a whole race of people, like the Negroes, or a type of person, like alcoholics, when you start getting to know individuals. Prejudice likes to make generalizations and stay far away. I wanted to get to know [Eternity’s mother] before I judged her too harshly.

Grandma had always said that suffering etched character into God’s people, making them stronger, better, holier, more useful to God and man. I had believed her for many years, but I did not see it on this night.

“I know it seems wrong and cruel. But this is what you must do. Let go. Give up the control, Emile. Be mad, grieve, accept that you cannot figure it out. Give up.”
“Giving up is weakness!”
“This time it will be strength.”
“How?”
“You must give up, not out of resignation, but out of trust. Trust that God knows and cares and will let you in on all the secrets you need to know in His time.”

There is more to life than looking for answers. Some answers you will never find–some you will. As long as the most important question is answered, the ‘not knowing’ of the others doesn’t seem so unbearable.

“The good thing about following Jesus is that His Word eventually seeps way down into your heart. And then, when you need to respond as He would, somehow that love blooms, watered by years of tears and tended by His Spirit. It blooms. Maybe not all at once, Emile. But eventually. He doesn’t waste your obedience. It counts. It works.” I said nothing, but I was listening, begging God to let her words–His words–penetrate my heart.

Victims could move on, but deep down they were still victims. Maybe there were parts of us that would never recover from the injuries of the past. And maybe that was all right, because we could still be useful in our maimed and injured state. ‘For when I am weak, then am I strong.’ I grabbed on to those words of the apostle Paul.

Elizabeth Musser’s being from Atlanta, being a missionary in France, and her teen boys being “third culture kids” all contribute to the realism in the book. The occasional mentions of eating at the Varsity in Atlanta have me questioning why I never went there the few years we lived in the area!

I don’t feel I have done this book justice at all, but I don’t want to say more about it and give too much away. So I’ll just say, it’s good. You should read it. It comes up occasionally on sale for the Kindle app. So far I have enjoyed all of Elizabeth Musser’s books, and I am eager to read more. And I am going to miss these characters!

(Sharing at Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books)