The Builder’s Reluctant Bride

Weeks’s debut novel is filled with reflections on faith, love, and—most of all—the hardships to be found in a life away from God. Jenna and William were good friends during high school until William’s youthful prank went horribly awry, leaving Jenna publicly disgraced and deeply hurt. Almost two decades later Jenna, now a widow and DIY home design columnist, leaves the big city and returns home to Bayview, Mich., to participate in a church renovation project and write a column about the experience that could make or break her career. To her surprise, her new partner on the project is the man her heart never forgot or forgave. William is just as tentative about partnering with Jenna, but his own construction career and his family are depending on him. The pair must find a way to work together, despite their differing views on the divine and forgiveness. Weeks’s strong focus on faith occasionally overpowers the plot, turning something delicate and intimate into a lengthy sermon. The dynamics of Jenna reentering the community of her initial shame and the sweet unfurling of the romance overlap in interesting ways, but Weeks’s message of forgiveness is never quite enough to balance the more polemical sections. (July)