Title: Where There’s Smoke
Author: Sarahbeth Caplin
Release Date: June 10, 2014
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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.
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