CrossReads Short Takes
When Heaven Sighs
by Susan Guinn
Beneath layers of glamourous country music stars and professional athletes, deceit and brutality stalk the city sidewalks of Nashville, Tennessee in the form of assassins sent by a secret society to find and destroy a missing Dead Sea Scroll. On a steamy day in August, a young man dies from the Ebola virus on a downtown sidewalk. Close to midnight on the same day, tires screech and a young girl screams as the body of Father Tom McClarin smacks against the hard, cold asphalt in front of the cathedral where he serves. Both men’s destinies have been bound together by their mutual belief in the ancient scroll which possibly contains a unique message for today’s churches. Detective Hayden Douglan and Samual Thomas, a local pastor, follow the clues piling up and conclude both deaths are homicides. Faith and courage will be tested as the investigation leads from corruption in the highest levels of the religious community and police department to a powerful mystic cloistered behind the walls of beautiful Saint Alaric Monastery near Vienna, Austria. After Samual is also attacked and shot in the chest, he is healed by angels sent to enlist his help in convincing the religious community to believe the message of the scroll. Despite death threats and the struggle to contain an Ebola outbreak, Douglan and Samual work alongside and against powerful forces at work in Nashville: forces seeking to destroy the scroll and opposing forces strong enough to save anyone connected with bringing the scroll to the attention of the city’s spiritual leaders.
The Time for Healing
by Ramona K. Cecil
Ginny Red Fawn McLain, a Shawnee medicine woman, is thrust back into the world of her birth family twelve years after her abduction. While she eschews the Christianity preached by her birth uncle who found her, Ginny’s heart refuses to shun his friend and fellow Christian minister, Jeremiah Dunbar.
Jeremiah Dunbar is immediately smitten with his friend’s long lost niece. But unless Ginny Red Fawn joins Christ’s fold–something she adamantly resists–any future with the woman he loves is impossible.
Amid an atmosphere of contempt and distrust, dreams and cultures clash. Ginny and Jeremiah are left to wonder whether their burgeoning love has any place in God’s plan.