Grace: A Novel

Evans, Richard Paul

ISBN 10: 0743574834 ISBN 13: 9780743574839

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio, 2008

Synopsis

Originally titled Grace, this award-winning novel gets a brand-new look in this beautiful repackage.

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Christmas Box and The Mistletoe Promise comes a novel filled with hope and redemption about two teens who turn to each other to find trust and love.

If only I could stay with you forever. I would.

Eric is having a hard time adjusting to his family’s move from California to Utah. Then he meets Grace—his classmate and a runaway—dumpster diving behind the burger joint where he works. Eric decides the only thing to do is to hide Grace in the clubhouse in his backyard.

With the adults concerned about the looming Cuban Missile Crisis and his father recovering from an immune disorder, Eric grows closer to Grace but can their new relationship survive the harsh realities of life?

In this poignant, sensitive, and realistic narrative, Richard Paul Evans shares Grace’s heartbreaking predicament and Eric’s realization that everything is not as simple as it might appear.

About this title

About the Author:

Richard Paul Evans is the #1 bestselling author of The Christmas Box. Each of his more than thirty-five novels has been a New York Times bestseller. There are more than thirty-five million copies of his books in print worldwide, translated into more than twenty-four languages. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including the American Mothers Book Award, the Romantic Times Best Women’s Novel of the Year Award, the German Audience Gold Award for Romance, five Religion Communicators Council Wilbur Awards, the Washington Times Humanitarian of the Century Award and the Volunteers of America National Empathy Award. He lives in Salt Lake City, Utah, with his wife, Keri, and their five children. You can learn more about Richard on Facebook at Facebook.com/RPEFans, or visit his website RichardPaulEvans.com.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

chapter

One

My memory of her has grown on my soul

like ivy climbing a home until it begins to tear and

tug at the very brick and mortar itself.

ERIC WELCH'S DIARY

DECEMBER 25, 2006

It's Christmas day. There is Christmas music playing from the radio in the other room. Mitch Miller's "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town." It's a little late, I think; Santa's come and gone, as have our children and grandchildren. They've left an impressive mess in their wake, but I don't care. As I get older I've come to treasure any evidence of family. Snow is falling outside and all is peaceful and still. In such moments it is possible to believe that the world could still be good.

Something profound happened to me today. It started innocently enough -- as most life-changing experiences do -- with a request from my grandchildren to read them a Christ-mas story, "The Little Match Girl." I've never been a fan of the tale, but, like most grandparents, I'm not one to deny my grandchildren. As I read to them, something happened to me; by the end of the story I was crying. Four-year-old Ebony Brooke tried to console me. "It's okay, Grandpa," she said. "It's just a story."

It's not just a story, there really was a little match girl and she changed my life in ways I'm still trying to understand. Even the grandchildren sitting before me wouldn't be here if it wasn't for her. As important as she is to me, I've never shared her story. It's finally time that I did.

My memory, like my eyesight, has waned with age and I pray I can get the story right. Still, there are things that become clearer to me as I grow older. This much I know: too many things were kept secret in those days. Things that never should have been hidden. And things that should have.

Who was she? She was my first love. My first kiss. She was a little match girl who could see the future in the flame of a candle. She was a runaway who taught me more about life than anyone has before or since. And when she was gone my innocence left with her.

There is pain in bringing out these memories. I suppose I don't really know why I feel compelled to write at this time, only that I am. Maybe I want those closest to me to finally know what has driven me for all these years. Why, every Christmas, I occasionally slip away into my thoughts to someplace else. Or maybe it's just that I still love her and wonder, after all this time, if I can still find grace.

Copyright © 2008 by Richard Paul Evans

About this edition

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0743574834
• ISBN 13: 9780743574839
• Binding: Audio CD