Need You Now

Title: NEED YOU NOW
Author: Beth Wiseman
Publsiher: Thomas Nelson
April 2012
ISBN: 978-1-59554-887-0
Genre: Inspirational/contemporary women’s fiction

Darlene Henderson’s life is practically perfect. She has an adoring husband who is soon to be named partner at an accounting firm in Houston, and the family has bought out the farm that used to belong to her grandparents. Her three children are all wonderful behaved. The only child to give her any trouble had been Chad, but he had seemed to be better since they moved away from the city.

But small town life isn’t all Heaven on Earth. The teens are having trouble adjusting—especially sixteen year old Grace who’d begun coping in a dangerous way. And seems get worse when Darlene decides she isn’t needed any more at home, so she takes on a full time job working with educationally challenged children.

When the widowed father of one of Darlene’s students begins to take an interest in her, Darlene feels someone hears her for the first time. Will her marriage survive her working outside the home? What about her children?

NEED YOU NOW is Ms. Wiseman’s first non-Amish book and I could feel the passion flowing through the pages of this book—something I could never feel in her Amish books. This is a genre that literally sings for Ms. Wiseman and I hope she plans more of this type book in the future.

The book has multiple points of views in it – from each of the children, the neighbor lady, the widowed father, Darlene, and her husband, just to mention a few. Each of the characters are very well developed, and one felt for them even though one didn’t understand or agree with the choices that are made.

As a warning for more conservative readers, this book deals with some troubling issues that they might want to keep more their teen girls from reading about, and there is some social drinking included.

I did enjoy the book, and give it 4.5 stars. Discussion questions are included at the end of the book. $15.99. 308 pages.