Novelist Sheri Reynolds weaves lyrical prose and folksy dialogue into her spellbinding tales. The Rapture of Canaan, a New York Times best-seller, is the moving story of a teenaged girl clashing with her harshly controlled world. Growing up in a closed religious community deep in the rural South, 15-year-old Ninah Huff painstakingly and obediently follows her church’s many rules-she knows that public humiliation follows the smallest transgression. But lately she can’t stop thinking about how handsome James is, even when she should be praying. Ashamed and confused, she hides her feelings. However, when the elders assign James as her prayer partner, she takes her first steps down a path away from the security and blind belief of her upbringing. With warmth and compassion, Sheri Reynolds embeds rich wisdom throughout this compelling novel. Narrator Alyssa Bresnahan skillfully brings out Ninah’s joy, uncertainty, and despair as she searches for a truth that brings freedom.

At the Church of Fire and Brimstone and Gods Almighty Baptizing Wind, Grandpa Herman makes the rules for everyone, and everyone obeys, or else. Try as she might, Ninah hasn’t succeeded in resisting temptation her prayer partner, James and finds herself pregnant. She fears the wrath of Grandpa Herman, the congregation and of God Himself. But the events that follow show Ninah that Gods ways are more mysterious than even Grandpa Herman understands.