This profound, character-driven novel is one of few recent titles from evangelical houses that can compete on the same playing field with more literary fiction. The novel is set in a Kansas hole-in-the-wall during a summer of terrible drought--a drought which also symbolizes the local folks' spiritual thirst.

Their troubles are not one-dimensional, as in so many Christian novels. A pastor's wife is hemmed in by despair and old, unacknowledged wounds; a teenage boy is saved from suicide at the last moment by a firm, understanding grandfather--and then again by an entire community of people who are praying for him; an elderly woman battles demons of the past as well as present-day irritations, such as the neighborhood dog who keeps eliminating in her yard.

The novel offers no easy answers for Christians, but teaches a great deal about receiving simple grace.