cover image Who I Am with You

Who I Am with You

Robin Lee Hatcher. Thomas Nelson, $15.99 trade paper (320p) ISBN 978-0-7852-1926-2

Hatcher (You’re Gonna Love Me) sweetly explores the ways hardship and unfaithfulness can lead to love through the healing powers of forgiveness. In Hope Springs, Idaho, Jessica Mason is pregnant and grieving the death of her husband and six-year-old daughter in a car accident the previous winter. Harboring the secret of her late husband’s infidelity, Jessica shuts everyone out of her life and buries herself in the memories of her former life. When handsome political operative Ridley Chesterfield moves in to the empty house next door in order to lay low after falsely being accused of leaking information to an opposition campaign, Jessica begins to warm up to her new neighbor. Ridley, who spends his time painting and fixing up the house, cannot help but want to be around Jessica. As Ridley learns to have forgiveness for those who falsely accused him, Jessica begins forgiving her husband and growing closer to God by reading her great-grandfather’s Bible and the notes he left there. As Jessica and Ridley fall in love, they both learn that true healing can only be found in forgiveness. Hatcher’s moving novel is rich in healing and hope, and realistically portrays the tough introspection that sometimes comes with being hurt. (Dec.)