Kingsbury is a great Christian writer.

Sometimes hope for the future is found in the ashes of yesterday.

EVEN NOW A young woman seeking answers to her heart's deepest questions. A man and woman driven apart by lies and years of separation...who have never forgotten each other. With hallmark tenderness and power, Karen Kingsbury weaves a tapestry of lives, losses, love, and faith---and the miracle of resurrection.

EVER AFTER 2007 Christian Book of the Year Two couples torn apart -- one by war between countries, and one by a war within. In this moving sequel to Even Now, Emily Anderson, now twenty, meets the man who changes everything for her: Army reservist Justin Baker. Their tender relationship, founded on a mutual faith in God and nurtured by their trust and love for each other, proves to be a shining inspiration to everyone they know, especially Emily's reunited birth parents. But Lauren and Shane still struggle to move past their opposing beliefs about war, politics, and faith. When tragedy strikes, can they set aside their opposing views so that love---God's love---might win, no matter how great the odds? ( )

Rating this double novel book was tricky because I'd give the first one four stars but the second three. Even Now was a good story of two young people in love who are kept apart for many years. As usual Karen Kingsbury raises real life and deep issues and issues and handles the Christian perspective sensitively but clearly; a great challenge re the power of prayer. The story has lots of twists and turns and creates great anticipation and involvement with the characters. I did find the time gap between the loss and reconciliation a little improbable, and very sad, so it's a hard won happy ending but satisfying. That's not a spoiler as these stories always have a happy ending, and happy endings aren't always just what a reader might expect. The second novel, Ever After, is the sequel, and I found it less engaging, and too predictable. This has a very strong bias about American involvement in war in the Middle East, one I thought was pushed too hard. The story became repetitive for me, even in the love relationships, I felt it went over and over the same ground too much. Nevertheless, Karen is a good writer and romance lovers will no doubt find both these stories satisfying. ( )

. It is quite a story of loss and renewal and contrasting ideas. Young love that went too far was the beginning. Parental concern and control and opposition to the pregnancy compounded and separated the families. When the mother took her new baby and tried to leave home, only to have the baby get sick and need to go back home tension grew. Then when the mother got the wrong impression from the nurse at the hospital and thought her baby was dead, she left again and this time stayed away for 18 years. The abandoned baby became an adult and was intent on finding her parents. She did a lot of praying and was led in ways her parents had not thought of, bringing them all back together just as her father was dying with cancer. It is a gripping story and has many opportunities to express the Christian faith of the participants, but there is a wide attitude gap between the two people whose love started all this story.

Ever After was a well written tear-jerker and explored the differing attitudes toward war very well. It also explored the reality of love, even love that has to wait.

Tears from beginning to end, but you can't put them down.
In Even Now, Emily Anderson tries to find her mother and then her father, Lauren and Shane. The story of the parents fills most of the book. In Ever After, Emily is 20 and meets Justin Baker, a young man who is called to the War in Iraq. Not a happy ending of the usual type, but certainly stirring, patriotic, and an ending that satisfies.

The second was better than the first and all I have to say about it is keep the tissues handy! ( )