I should never have requested this book. I didn't realize it was Christian fiction. I am definitely not the intended audience, so I don't think my opinion about the book as a whole really matters.

A good man dies in the plane crash - a man rushing home for his new wife´s birthday. A woman who offered her seat in the same plane - both from compassion and to have one night more with her lover. A young newlywed, who has left the sect just before her marriage and who does not know how to live in the unknown world without the protection of her husband. A son from good family, whose mom is suddenly unknown to him.
A waiting on God. A waiting on God whose ways are mysterious (at the least).

Mixed feelings. I honrestly think that Ms Parrish is an absolutely gifted writer - her work with the words is breathtaking, her sentences are beautiful and her observations on life are so revealing in their simplicity. She is also sensitive to pain in all of its forms and faces and she obviously loves the outcasts - the hurting ones, the forgotten ones, the silently or not silently suffering amongst us. And she obviously did her works on grief and non/understanding and even the anger on God personally (which is a treat to know, as I think we all struggle with God from time to time and we should not be ashamed to admit it. There is a faith that comes through fire and after that fire, fragile yet strong).
But...in all the beauty and love and faith, there is something missing. I can not exactly pit my finger on it, but it comes with the question "why". Why should we connect with these characters? Where is a reason for this novel? What is the mesage here? I feel that there probably is a message of "not having a message, just the understanding" - but it truly is not enough here for me. I know there is no placement and no simple cure for pain. But what WAS/IS the personal take of Ms Parrish on pain? What has she learned and what she wants to give out within these pages? I mean no offense here, but I simply have these questions.

This Christian fiction novel alternates between two women, Ada and Katherine. Katherine had given up her plane seat on a full flight to Julian Goetz, a Nobel Prize winning photographer because he wanted to get home for his wife, Ada's birthday, and Katherine wanted to stay another night with the man she was having an affair with. Then, the plane wrecked and eventually the two women meet. We see the events in their lives leading up to and after the plane wreck. Ada had lived in a backwoods Christian cult until Julian photographed her and then came back for her because God told her to marry her. The book is heavily Christian and fans of Christian fiction should enjoy it.

This book was an interesting and thought provoking with an engaging cast and some really hard hitting situations.
At times it dragged a bit but overall it was a good read.