Raw Edges by Sandra D. Bricker - REVIEWED

This week, the Christian Fiction Blog Alliance is introducing Raw Edge Abingdon Press (September 17, 2013) by Sandra D. Bricker

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

For more than a decade, Sandra D. Bricker lived in Los Angeles. While honing her chosen craft of screenwriting in every spare moment, she worked as a personal assistant and publicist to some of daytime television's hottest stars. When her mother became ill in Florida, she walked away from that segment of her life and moved across the country to take on a new role: Caregiver.

The Big 5-OH! was released by Abingdon Press in the Spring of 2010, and the novel was very well-received, garnering a couple of nibbles from Hollywood.

Always the Baker, Never the Bride was released by Abingdon Press in September 2010. With its phenomenal reviews, the novel spawned a series of three more books based on the popular cast of characters at The Tanglewood Inn, a wedding destination hotel in historic Roswell, Georgia. The series cemented Sandie's spot in publishing as a flagship author of Laugh-Out-Loud romantic comedy for the inspirational market.

"Being allowed to combine my faith and my humor with my writing dream," says Bricker, "well, that's the best of all worlds, as far as I'm concerned!"

ABOUT THE BOOK

Grayson McDonough has no use for teal ribbons, 5k runs, or ovarian cancer support groups now that his beautiful wife Jenna is gone. But their nine-year-old daughter Sadie seems to need the connection. When Annabelle Curtis, the beautiful cancer survivor organizing the memory quilt project for the Ovacome support group, begins to bring out the silly and fun side of his precious daughter again, Gray must set aside his own grief to support the healing of Sadie’s young heart. But is there hope for Gray’s heart too along the way?





My Thoughts:

“…;kind of like drinking a cocktail mix of joy and regret, with a splash of wonder for added flavor.”

(p. 60)

This is a beautiful expression of the heart of Sandra D. Bricker’s book, Raw Edges.  This story told on the pages of this book actually mirror the story of my own family – how loss opened a door for something far different than what was planned on an earthly plane, but how, almost five decades later, we are able to see God’s handprint over everything.  Raw Edges deals with the ravages of cancer on the lives of all that is touched by its unseen and unexpected hand.  Grayson McDonough and his daughter Sadie have lost a wife and mother, and Annabelle Curtis is a cancer survivor who has lost a fiancé and the hope of having her own family.  These two, along with a precious group of survivors – survivors of many kinds – come together to raise money for cancer research.  What they find as they work on the project, a memorial quilt, is far more than they ever dreamed or expected.

Bricker uses journal entries to tie this story together with threads of love so incredibly personal and precious that your heart will feel its impact long after you reach the final page.  I related to this story on a very personal level, because my own dad was Grayson McDonough in the past.  And I have been blessed to live in the grace God poured into his life many years ago when he faced the loss of his wife and mother to his children.  My family was born out of a very similar situation that Grayson finds himself in, and my own mother was an Annabelle-type character in my dad’s life.  Oh, how I understand the precious, tender raw edges of this story!!  I KNOW God is GOOD no matter what, and that HE is faithful even when we pull away in hurt and doubt. 

Raw Edges is a book that I HIGHLY recommend for EVERYONE!!  It is beautiful and life changing!! Thank you Sandra Bricker for faithfully writing this story.

If you would like to read the first chapter of Raw Edge, go HERE.

Watch the book trailer: