Sunday, December 31, 2006

Not a Sparrow Falls, by Linda Nichols

NOT A SPARROW FALLS
Linda Nichols
ISBN: 0-7942-2727-0
Book #06-169

As a teenager, Mary Bridget Washburn made a disastrous decision out of hurt and anger, and she's been on the wrong path ever since. Spiritually weary of the emptiness resulting from her bad choices, Mary resolves to go straight. She ends up in Alexandria, Virginia, living under her mother's name and trying to make a new life for herself. She is drawn to a church in her new hometown, where she encounters a young teen and discovers the girl's desperate prayer. An impulsive act lands Mary in trouble yet again, but is the impetus for her involvement with the girl's family, and may ultimately lead to new beginnings for everyone.

Linda Nichols has written a wonderfully poignant book that holds up well to repeated reading. Despite her tainted past, Mary is a heroine to admire, doing the best she can in the worst of circumstances. Alasdair, the minister hero and father of troubled teen Samantha, is a man tormented by guilt and sorrow, bound by family tradition and unable to heal his own hurts, let alone recognize his daughter's pain. Alasdair's sisters represent the gap between the way things have always been done and the possibilities that change can bring. Nichols's villains are realistic, multi-faceted characters with good points and bad. Readers will fall in love with Mary's grandmother and root for good to triumph over evil.

NOT A SPARROW FALLS is a vibrant, emotional read that will linger in readers' memories long after the cover has been closed.

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