Stand by Me

Title: STAND BY ME
Author: Neta Jackson
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
March 2012
ISBN: 978-1-59554-864-1
Genre: Inspirational/womens fiction

Kathryn Davies is a premed student in Arizona. She goes to Chicago with some friends and ends up accepting Christ, and then her whole life changes. Against her parents’ wishes, she enrolls in a university in Chicago, ditches her premed studies and takes up teaching. Her family all but disowns her.

Avis Douglass is a principle in a inner-city school, and she’s struggling with her daughter, Rochelle’s choices. Rochelle has a young son, and she has disappeared from Avis’ life after a pair of Avis’ valuable earrings goes missing. Avis is desperate to find her daughter, but she’s also praying about the possibility of going overseas to serve as missionaries with some friends.

Kat discovers SouledOut Community Church, where Avis attends, and wants to worship there. But a lot of the members, Avis especially, think that Kat is full of herself and she gets on their nerves fast. But is it possible that God has planned for Kat and Avis to meet and that the two women need each other?

STAND BY ME is the first book in Ms. Jackson’s newest series A SouledOut Sisters. I couldn’t wait to read this book and was so glad when I got it to review. Avis is a character I’m very familiar with from Ms. Jackson’s first series—and actually, the second one too. Kat is a sweetheart, and someone I could relate greatly too, especially some of her more outrageous activities which were controversial, but needed to be addressed.

I loved STAND BY ME and am looking forward to reading more books in this third series by Ms. Jackson. Highly recommended. Discussion questions are included at the end of the book. $15.99. 394 pages.