Book Giveaway

After the Leaves Fall

By Nicole Baart

Posted on October 22, 2008 12:00 AM MST by Sara Richardson

Win a signed copy of After the Leaves Fall!

Nicole Baart will be giving away a signed copy of After the Leaves Fall and Summer Snow to a Momstories subscriber. All you have to do is click on "Read and Add Comments" below and tell us why you're interested in reading these books. The winner will be chosen in a random drawing on October 31, 2008.

The theme of Nicole Baart’s debut novel, After the Leaves Fall, is summarized in the first line of the book. “Waiting is a complicated longing.” I love this line. It describes what I’ve felt so many times, but could never find words to describe.

The story follows Julia DeSmitt, a girl in her late teens who is waiting for something wonderful to happen. After her mother left and her father died, this tenacious young girl sets out to reinvent herself, but it means she has to deal with the bitterness in her past and decide how she wants to define her future. 

The perfect opportunity comes when she goes away to college, but what begins as a chance to make a fresh start ends up being a disappointing experience that leaves her grasping for answers. What is she supposed to do with her life? Where can she find fulfillment? In the process of struggling to answer these questions, Julia searches outside herself and her borrowed faith and makes a mistake that will affect the course of her life. With nowhere else to turn, she leans on the one thing she could always count on—her grandmother’s faithful love and impartial support. By the end of the novel, Julia is asking a very different question: who does God want her to become?

After the Leaves Fall is a poignant account of a young girl struggling through a profound transformation. She knows she wants more out of life, she knows there’s more to hope for, more to believe in, but like all of us she has to wrestle with what that means in her own life. Because Julia is so real, so flawed, yet also so full of hope, she solicits empathy, grace and understanding. I was drawn to her the way I would be drawn to a little sister. Though our journeys have been very different, I saw some of myself in her and I related to her thoughts and feelings. 

The combination of a unique voice and artistic ability make Nicole Baart’s writing sensitive and profound. She goes beyond the surface to create a redemptive and memorable narrative that will deepen your understanding of divine hope and grace. This is a must read for grandmothers, mothers, and daughters.

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