Stepping Into Sunlight

Title: STEPPING INTO SUNLIGHT
Author: Sharon Hinck
Publisher: Bethany House
2008
ISBN: 978-0-7642-0283-4
Genre: Inspirational/women’s fiction

Penny Sullivan thought she was up to the challenge of a cross-country move to a naval base when her husband goes on his first deployment as a Navy chaplain. But after she witnesses a violent crime, her world caves in, leaving her barely able to function, much less care for her energetic seven-year-old son.

As much as Penny wants to hide in the closet, the world marches on, and she struggles with such tasks as buying groceries, filling the car with gas, and even returning phone calls.

When Penny is encouraged to join a victim support group, she reluctantly agrees to go one time. But what good is a “support group” full of misfits? A goth-wanna-be, a man who collects gum wrappers, and a woman who can’t decide whether or not to go back to her abusive husband…

STEPPING INTO SUNLIGHT is a poignant story about a woman who struggles to go on as usual when everything is no longer normal. Penny wants to be supportive of her husband in his new career, and to be the energetic, into everything mom that her young son deserves, but what is she to do when fate has dealt her a horrible blow.

The faith message is expertly woven in and I couldn’t help but fall in love with the missionaries who run the mission that Penny stumbles into. They are so totally developed they could have walked out of the book. The setting is an important essence of the book, and while parts of the story could have happened anywhere, the scenes are so well set into the story that it would be a totally different book if that were the case. Don’t miss STEPPING INTO SUNLIGHT. It will help you embrace normalcy in a whole new and wonderful way. And if you suffered a trauma, it might even help you through that too. $13.99. 320 pages.