Hold the Light by April McGowan

About the book: (from the publisher) To an artist, the light is everything. So what is Amber supposed to do when facing blindness?

Amber spent her life adapting first to being abandoned by her birth mother as a toddler, and then to the death of her adoptive father in her teen years. Now she s moved past all that, loving life as an independent woman: she has a job as an art instructor and the perfect apartment.

But when a routine eye appointment reveals she s losing her sight, life comes to a halt. Pressures come at her from all sides. Her mother, her boss, her boyfriend and her closest friend, Shannon, all have ideas about what s best for her.

Even after her blindness counselor, Ethan, befriends her and opens her eyes to new opportunities and the possibility of a deeper relationship, one haunting question remains: How could the God she loved all her life turn everything upside down again?

About the author: April McGowan loves to write inspirational fiction. She, her husband, and two teens live in the beautiful Pacific Northwest. April is an award-winning author and member of Oregon Christian Writers and American Christian Fiction Writers. When she’s not writing, reading down her book list, homeschooling her son, chasing her kitten, Saoirse, or playing board games, you might find her at her drum kit, imagining she’s on a world tour. Hey, it could happen.

Connect with the author: Website | Facebook | Twitter | Google+

Genre: Fiction/Women’s Fiction/Christian/Contemporary

If this book were a movie, I’d rate it: PG

My take: One of the reasons I gravitate to fiction is because I like learning about issues and exploring the what-ifs within a well-imagined story world. This is what compelled me to pick up April McGowan’s latest novel, Hold the Light. An artist losing her sight? That’s a story to spark my curiosity. How might that play out?

I liked how the author took an almost unimaginable situation and made it real. To me, the most compelling women’s fiction begins with a problem almost too big to comprehend. As this is a work of inspirational fiction, I appreciated the inclusion of Christian characters who don’t fit the stereotypical norm: one, a lapsed (but reforming) church-goer, another who has psychological issues of an entirely different sort. Not to mention a mother who is — well, let’s just say she’s complicated.

Amber’s angst isn’t always easy to read through, but then, going blind wouldn’t be easy to live through. Woven through with threads of faith, hope, and redemption, Hold the Light is inspirational contemporary fiction for those who like their fiction to mirror real-life in all its broken beauty.

Thanks to the author for providing me this book free of charge. All opinions are mine.

Buy it here. 

After words: What compels you to pick up a work of fiction?