True Light: A Restoration Novel

Blackstock's third novel in the Restoration series is slow-moving in the first half, but the pace picks up considerably in the second. The Branning family and their neighbors are now eight months into a worldwide blackout, trying to make ends meet and survive one crisis after another as violence rips their community apart. With the sheriff and his deputies desperately overworked and earning only a tiny fraction of their former pay, they can no longer keep their overcrowded, disease-ridden county jail under control. That means that it's up to Deni Branning to help clear the name of boy-next-door love interest Mark Green when he's wrongly accused of attempted murder. The novel reveals a heavy hand with religion, but Blackstock's overt sermonizing does offer some strong and wise thoughts on forgiveness: "Forgiveness was not an emotion," one character reflects. "You didn't have to feel it. You just had to do it." (July)