Mary-Margaret has always planned to join the church as a religious sister, but falls in love with her childhood friend, Jude Keller, a ne'er-do-well with a soul needing saving.

Born in 1930 on a beautiful island off Chesapeake Bay, Mary-Margaret Fischer knows exactly what she wants to be: a religious sister. Despite the violent circumstances of her conception and birth, she simply wants to be in love with Jesus and serve Him the rest of her life.

When Mary-Margaret met Jude Keller, the lighthouse keeper's son, she was studying at a convent school on a small island off Chesapeake Bay. Destined for a life where she could never marry, she nevertheless felt a pull toward Jude—gorgeous, rebellious, promiscuous Jude. But Jude, driven by demons no one really understood, disappeared into Baltimore's seamy red-light district to a life working the streets. Mary-Margaret moved on with her life, preparing to serve God with her sisters as a teacher and artist.

Then Jude comes home—but now he's bitter, dissolute, and diseased. And Mary-Margaret receives a divine call that shakes her to the core, a call to give up her dreams and marry the troubled man who befriended her so long ago. For Jesus' sake, can she forsake the only life she ever wanted for a love that could literally cost her life?

Highlights

• A beautiful novel of God's grace in impossible circumstances
• Book length: approximately 90,000 words
• Includes discussion questions for book clubs
• Also by Lisa Samson: Quaker Summer, Embrace Me, Bella, and The Sky Beneath My Feet