Title:
Where There’s Smoke
Author:
Sarahbeth Caplin
Release
Date: June 10, 2014
Pastor Henry Collins is hailed as a hero after rescuing a
teenage girl from a burning church. But the real reason he was at the right
place at the right time is known only to him and Hannah Mercer, the teenage
girl he rescued: a girl whose faith has more to do with keeping up appearances
than anything to do with God.
Lia Anders is a classmate of Hannah’s: a girl whose coming
out as a lesbian resulted in immediate expulsion from the church. As an
unlikely friendship develops between the two, Hannah begins to realize the
error of her hypocritical ways, and encourages Henry to make a decision that
will forever alter the course of their lives. But for Henry, the price of
living a lie is easier than owning up to the truth.
Where There’s Smoke is a story that asks: who are we really?
Are we the sum of all our actions? And is the note we finish our lives on the
most defining of them all?
As wisps of smoke curled under Hannah’s nose, she wondered if
it had finally happened: she’d woken up to find herself in hell.
I had it
coming, she thought, defeated and unwilling to move from the
darkness of the church basement. She felt no fear; apathy did not allow for
much feeling of anything. It’s all a
dream anyway.
Until alarm bells starting screeching, and then it became
reality.
Suddenly alert, Hannah felt panic settle in as the air
thickened and her eyes watered.
Hannah never considered hell to be a place of
literal fire. She placed more faith in Dante’s idea of it than the Bible’s. But
this–this literal choking agony–it couldn’t be what she deserved, could it? She
was sorry–desperately sorry. For everything.
As a wall of smoke started to close in on the last she’d know
of the world, fighting back seemed like a futile option. She’d been running too
long. This ending was inevitable. It was deserved.
She closed her eyes, ready to meet whoever or whatever might
be waiting. A sturdy pair of arms lifted her from the searing floor, but she
didn’t bother opening her eyes, realizing there was nothing she could do now
that the devil had caught up with her.
Beth holds a bachelor's degree in English Literature from
Kent State University. It was during college that she first saw her name in
print as a columnist for her campus newspaper, The Daily Kent Stater. Now
living in Denver, Colorado, she can be found in various microbreweries when not
chained to her laptop working on future books.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.