Review of The Baker’s Wife by Erin Healy

About the book:

To save her husband and son, Audrey Bofinger must rescue her enemy.The Bofinger family has lost their church ministry in a scandal exposed by Officer Jack Mansfield. Hoping to heal and to restore their reputation, Audrey, Geoff, and their son Ed take over a failing bakery in the small community.Driving to the bakery one morning, blinded by fog, Audrey hits a motor scooter owned by Jack’s wife, Julie. The mangled scooter is crushed and bloody. But Julie is nowhere to be found. Her disappearance coincides with a sudden illness that nearly cripples Audrey. Jack believes the Bofingers have hurt Julie to take revenge on him, but the evidence dries up and her trail goes cold. At a breaking point, Jack takes thetiny bakery and its patrons hostage, issuing only one demand: Audrey has six hours to return Julie to him, or lose Geoff and Ed forever. With only an excruciating and intuitive gift, an ex-con, and Julie’s estranged daughter to help search for clues, Audrey starts the search of her life for a woman who has vanished like the fog.

Read an excerpt here.

About Erin:

Well-known to critics and reviewers, Erin Healy has established herself as an award-winning editor and a best-selling co-author with Ted Dekker. Healy received wide acclaim for her two debut novels Never Let You Go and The Promises She Keeps. Her work focuses on the psychological and spiritual, driven by high moral stakes. She lives and writes in Colorado with her family.

For more information please visit www.erinhealy.com. 

Link to buy the book:

http://www.thomasnelson.com/consumer/product_detail.asp?sku=1595547525&title=The_Baker’s_Wife&author=Erin_Healy

Is My Heroine Psychic?

Today a reader wrote to me about my new novel, The Baker’s Wife: “I wanted to ask about the ‘gift’ that Audrey has. I’m having a hard time understanding it, to be honest. Is it a psychic gift or a gift of discernment? I know that God does not give a gift of being psychic so I’m a little surprised this is in a Christian book. In many ways I know she feels she’s being led by God to those who need help, but does He really work this way?”

This is such a great question. I’m grateful this reader stopped to ask it. I’m sorry that my answer must include some plot spoilers, but for some, the answer is more important than the suspense.

In all of my stories I use supernatural elements to explore the ways God works in us and through us. I intend for my stories to be read metaphorically rather than literally, though they are not true allegories. I realize not all readers are comfortable approaching a book this way.

Audrey’s gift is not psychic. It is, rather, a look at empathy and compassion taken to extremes. We Christians often speak of “sharing one another’s burdens,” and sometimes we say this glibly without examining what we really mean. This has been true in my own life. We might help another person to the extent that we feel relieved of our Christian duty. It is more rare for us to share another person’s pain to the point that we have the capacity to feel it ourselves. Audrey’s tangible experience of Julie’s pain is merely a metaphor for what real, deep, honest Christian empathy MIGHT look like. I think God sometimes asks us to go farther than we are comfortable going, to share a burden of pain by taking it upon ourselves, the way Christ took up the pain of the cross on our behalf, because he loved us so much, while we were yet sinners.

To read in full, please go to http://erinhealyblog.blogspot.com/2011/09/is-my-heroine-psychic.html

http://litfusegroup.com/blogtours/text/13434589)

DISCLOSURE: I received a copy of this book for free from LitFuse Publicity Group for purposes of review. I was not required to give a positive review, only a fair and honest one. My opinions are my own.