Abbie Torrington believes she has a good life. With her daughters-Becca and Bailey-headed to college, an animated best friend named Shawlie to spend time with, and her husband, Trey, a successful businessman to fill her life, she concentrates on shoe shopping and home making. Yet, this idyllic life is gone in 60 seconds-or close to it-when she learns Trey won't be returning from his latest business trip due to his death. As Abbie struggles to deal with a dose of fresh grief, she learns of a betrayal that cuts even deeper than her grief.
Lying on Sunday is a poetically written detailed account of a life shattered and struggling on the heels of death and deception. How Abbie deals with grief and betrayal is often criticized by those closest to her, leading to an even more secluded personal journey to healing.
Thanks to a college literature class she decides to take-and the professor that teaches the class-Abbie haphazardly (or was it Gods divine plan?) stumbles upon the answers needed to finally put to rest the inner turmoil she's ineffectively lived with since Trey's death. You may think the key to her healing would come through some act of vindication. You would concede finding closure would be in seeing the one who betrayed you in as much pain as they've caused you. Isn't that a natural fantasy? Closure isn't always neatly sewn up in a lace-lined package, though. Sometimes we choose closure-aka forgiveness-though there is no exact resolution or ending.
Author Sharon K. Souza gives a unique gift in allowing us to vicariously experience the way truth and forgiveness bring healing to even seemingly hopeless situations. Souza doesn't preach that Gods principles work-she demonstrates how they work, leaving the reader a vivid example to grasp for future reference.
As I finished the last chapter, I mentally did a fist pump in the air while smiling. I liked Abbie. Souza made her-as with all of the characters-real and personable. In the end, Abbie got what she deserved, and what that is, well, you're just going to have to read the book yourself to find out.
The twists and turns the plot takes leaves nothing obvious except that Souza has written a classic. "Deep calls to deep" and in Lying on Sunday, it calls with a healing voice.
Paperback: 427 pages
NavPress Publishing Group
Relased September 15, 2008
