The Defining Decision (The Father Tom Mysteries)

Father Tom Greer and Detective Helen Parr are deeply in love. Unwilling to break his vows of celibacy and chastity, they've been determined to forge a relationship based on friendship and affection only, never giving in to their physical attraction to each other.

But God, it seems, has another plan . . .

After receiving news that the Church has decided to allow priests in certain circumstances to request a dispensation to marry and remain in the priesthood, Father Tom and Helen are patiently waiting to hear if he's been given permission by the Pope. Aided by Anna, they begin to date secretly and discuss what their life together might look like.

But when Chad Hudson, Chief of Staff to Myer College President Richard Davenport, is struck and killed by a van driven by Gladys Finklestein, Father Tom and Helen are soon pulled into a murder investigation--with Gladys as the prime suspect.

As they investigate, they learn more about Gladys' past as Richard Davenport's teenage lover. About what happened that led her to end their relationship. And why Gladys had a public argument with Chad days before his death.

Then, Father Tom finds a connection between this accident and another accident sixteen years earlier . . . the one that cost Gladys her parents and the ability to walk.

As Helen helps her learn the truth about her parent's death, Tom helps Gladys come to terms with her past choices--and to understand what her future could be.

Enjoy a story of mystery, love, sin, and redemption in this, the fifth book in The Father Tom Mysteries.

Includes a sneak peak of The Silent Shooter, the sixth book in The Father Tom Mysteries, coming in April!

Susan Mathis was born in and grew up in an extremely small town in Alachua County, Florida where her family has lived for more than 100 years. When Susan was still very young, James (J.R) Mathis was born in a somewhat bigger small town about 100 miles south of where she lived. Within a decade, James' small town would become part of Orlando, the biggest tourist destination in the United States. He was not amused. That is how, while Susan was running barefoot, swimming in lakes full of alligators and feeding chickens, James was sitting in his bedroom reading books faster than his father could bring them home from the library.

Were James and Susan to write their love story, it would definitely be an enemies-to-lovers trope. They met in the library where he was working. He found her demands for books that he had to pull and bring to her so unreasonable that he actually turned her into the head librarian. She in turn was so anxious to drive him away that when some friends secretly set them up she laid out an entire speech about how miserable her life was (she is typically very upbeat). Little did she suspect that he had a passionate attraction to misery and they were married just over a year later.

Fast forward 26 years, three children, four grandchildren and 20 years of James working for the Federal government. He was diagnosed with a highly treatable but still very scary form of cancer. As so often happens, this brush with mortality inspired him to do something he’d always wanted to do, write a novel. After the publication of the second Father Tom Mystery, Susan joined him as coauthor. As far as the Mathises are concerned, writing together is the most fun a couple can have sitting at a computer.