Walking On Broken Glass

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIkpU_AptOc[/youtube]

Since Exemplify launched I’ve received countless books to review. Not all of them make it onto the site or into the magazine because I can’t possibly read everything that comes across my desk!

I promise you this: had I not already known Christa Allan, a staff writer here, was releasing her book Walking on Broken Glass it still would have caught my eye when it arrived at my doorstep.

The cover is beautiful and instantly calls for notice. I’m a big book-cover-judger (I know, I know!) and fell in love with her story before I even cracked open the spine.

Walking on Broken Glass is the story of Leah Thornton.

Borrowing from the back of the book, “Leah Thornton’s life, like her Southern Living home, has great curb appeal. But a paralyzing encounter with a can of frozen apple juice in the supermarket shatters the facade, forcing her to admit that all is not as it appears.

When her best friend gets in Leah’s face about her refusal to deal with her life, Leah is forced to make an agonizing decision.

Can she sacrifice what she wants to get what she needs? Joy, sadness, and pain converge, testing Leah’s commitment to her marriage, her motherhood and her faith.”

When I opened this book to read, “If I had known children break on the inside and the cracks don’t surface until years later, I would have been more careful with my words…” I was instantly captured.

I continued to read, soaking in Christa’s words shared through Leah, stopping to read them aloud to my husband. And then calling my friends to read them aloud again. It was Leah’s journal entries throughout the book that often jarred me out of my comfort zone, making me cringe with empathy as this character blossomed into more.

It is rare you read a book with a healthy tension of modernity, wit and authenticity. Three ingredients that, for me, make a novel worth reading and revisiting.

In Walking on Broken Glass, Christa Allan weaves a story that not only connects deeply with the reader on an emotional level but on a spiritual level as well.

This is a novel that goes much deeper than your average book. It breaks the mold, pushes some boundaries, sings the song of redemption and begs for a sequel.

Christa Allan is a writer to watch.

If I were you, I’d clear a space on your favorite bookshelf for more of her work. I already have.

Get to Know Kristen

You can find Kristen at Exemplify Ministries where she loves to help others uncover organic faith. She’s thrilled to have just launched 2:21 – an offshoot of Exemplify – for teenage girls. Through video driven bible studies and regular spotlight shows that focus on the call of the Church, it is Kristen’s hope to equip & inspire women and teen girls to live a life that does. As well as serving at Exemplify Ministries, Kristen is Director of Outreach for A Woman Inspired. When she’s not sitting at Starbuck’s with an extra foam latte in hand, daydreaming up a new idea, she’s hiking in the mountains with her husband, Eric, and dog, Humphrey. Loves: late night latte adventures, all types of music, long weekends, nail polish in every.single.color!, the Doctor, summers spent with her sister, and the family she gets to call her own. She tweets random things @kmschiffman.

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