Love overcomes distance

and heartbreak in the latest

Kingsbury novel.

This Side of

Heaven

>>> Karen Kingsbury’s newest novel, This Side of Heaven

(Center Street, p, $14.99, ISBN: 9781599956787), is a story of family secrets, broken relationships, and love’s strength.

Annie Warren’s son, Josh, has removed himself from his mother and family through years of poor choices and failures, culminating to and growing worse by an accident where Josh is struck by a drunk driver. Injured and on medical disability, Josh puts his life on hold as we waits for an insurance settlement that never seems to come. In addition, a scheming woman claims she and Josh have a 7-year-old daughter together named Savannah, which Josh believes despite a lack of evidence. Dreaming of being a father, he becomes determined to claim the child.

With details of Josh’s accident unknown to his family, or the fact that he’s turning his life around, Annie sets out to defend Josh when his settlement’s threatened. But what will she see in little Savannah’s eyes? And what’s the greatest gift her suffering son can give her?

Bestselling author Karen Kingsbury has nearly seven million copies of her award-winning books in print, including more than two million copies sold last year alone. Be on the lookout, retailers: Kingsbury’s 2002 novella, Gideon’s Gift (Faith Words), is being made into a major motion picture that will premier this Easter, starring Christian Slater and Elle Fanning. To celebrate, Faith Words plans to release the book in trade paperback with cover artwork tied to the film.

Karen Kingsbury

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Reviews

Kiss
Ted Dekker & Erin Healy /
Thomas Nelson
Subject: Fiction
c $24.99 ISBN: 9781595544704

Shauna McAllister, the troubled 28-year-old daughter of Senator Landon McAllister, who’s in the final weeks of his campaign to become president of the United

States, is nearly killed in a car accident that sends her car off a bridge and into the water. Shauna’s driving, and her beloved brother, Rudy, a top aide to the senator, is a passenger. Rudy suffers incapacitating injuries, and Shauna ends up in a coma for six weeks.

When Shauna returns to a state of awareness, the last several months of her memory have been wiped away. She can’t remember the accident, but everyone, including her father and her malicious stepmother, Patrice, are blaming her for it. To make matters worse, illegal drugs

were discovered in her car and her apartment. She has been indicted for possession and for reckless endangerment.

Before long, however, clues begin to emerge that the truth may be more complicated than what Shauna has been told. Was the accident really an accident? Was there another passenger besides Rudy in the car? Even stranger… what really caused her coma?

Shauna discovers she has the bizarre ability to steal the memories of someone she kisses under certain conditions. This disturbing gift

may help piece together what’s really going on— or it may get her killed.

This novel, coauthored by best-selling suspense author Ted Dekker and first-time novelist Erin Healy, keeps the reader guessing. While it doesn’t have much depth in themes or characters, it’s a well-paced, enjoyable read.

—Joseph Bentz

Fireflies in
December
Jennifer Erin Valent / Tyndale
Subject: Fiction
p $12.99 ISBN:
In Jennifer Erin Valent’s
debut novel, which won
her the Christian Writers

Guild’s 2007 Operation First Novel contest, Jessilyn Lassiter doesn’t like southern summers. The months drag in the sticky heat, and everything bad seems to come during summer. In 1932, trouble haunts her again, ripping away the teen’s carefree childhood. When her best

friend Gemma’s parents die during a storm, Jessilyn’s father takes the black girl in. White and black people try to dissuade him, but he insists. She has nowhere else to go, and his family wants her.

But the Lassiters’ decision meets resistance. At first, business declines, and invitations dwindle, then threats incite fear. When prejudice pounds at their door wearing white robes and burning crosses in their yard, Jessilyn’s youthful innocence fades. She doesn’t understand why the color of a person’s skin stirs up such hatred.

34 CBA Retailers+Resources | 01.09

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