cover image The Reason

The Reason

William Sirls. Thomas Nelson, $12.99 trade paper (416p) ISBN 978-1-40168-736-6

Sirls conceived this, his first novel, before he was imprisoned for wire fraud and money laundering. After his release, he attempted to self-publish a much altered version, and an advance copy landed on a desk at Thomas Nelson, who signed the author to a multibook contract. The novel has a strong spiritual element. When a lightning bolt shatters a decorative cross in the yard of a church in a small town in Michigan, a carpenter shows up to repair it. But the carpenter is no ordinary man, as the church pastor, his odd family, and local medical staff treating his adoptive grandchild for leukemia find out in a series of miraculous events that change them dramatically. Sirls relates a parable about characters who discover where God is when they suffer and when people die. This is a skillfully written first novel with the narrative voice, knack for dialogue, and plot movement of a veteran author. (Sept.)