Kate Madison's life is about to be turned upside down. Her husband is killed while fighting a fire, leaving Kate to raise their two daughters alone. It takes a while, but she's finally managing to get herself together. Then health reasons make it necessary for her to leave Oklahoma and take a job across the country in San Francisco.

Kate finds some bright pointsher new house and her new friend Mazi. But she finds it difficult to pray. Where is God in all of these trials?

Copeland has written an insightful and thought-provoking novel. But the depressing tone permeating the entire book overshadows any attempt at humor. Characterization falls a bit flat with the first-person narration.

One never gets a real sense of Kate's daughters and how they cope with the tragedy. Overall, the theme of finding hope in the midst of heartache binds the story together. (Mar., 288 pp., $12.95)
Reviewed by: 
Melissa Parcel