Beautiful cover. Beautiful voice. A debut novel that reads like a seasoned author. I’d love to read books by this author in the future. This story will stay with you.

Maddie is diagnosed with breast cancer. She once had a boyfriend who had a reputation as some sort of healer. Maddie’s husband Frank is determined to track Vincent down just in case he really does have some sort of power even though Maddie insists that he doesn’t. It’s an ambitious novel, with some serious themes – cancer, illness, marriage, faith – but it’s far too discursive with much extraneous material and would have been a more powerful novel if it had concentrated on the main story rather than recounting endless back stories. It jumps about in time and place, and feels very disjointed. On top of this, the faith elements were very heavy-handed, and I couldn’t relate to them. A Christian reader might enjoy the novel more, but it didn’t work for me, and I remained unengaged throughout.