Love Story by Karen Kingsbury

"From #1 New York Times bestselling author Karen Kingsbury comes a new book featuring everyone's favorite family--the Baxters. Decades ago, John and Elizabeth Baxter lived a love story that is still playing out in the lives of their adult children and grandchildren. But few of them know the exact details of that story or the heartbreak that brought the two together. Now in high school, Ashley Baxter Blake's oldest son, Cole, must write a family history paper for a freshman English class. He decides to interview his grandfather about that long ago love story. John is hesitant, not sure if he can take the sorrow of reliving his love story with Elizabeth--especially now that he is remarried. But he agrees and allows his heart to go places it hasn't gone in decades. At the same time, Baxter family friend Cody Coleman is working through the breakup of his complicated relationship with Andi Ellison. He is determined to move on when a chance sighting changes his plans--and heart. Can Cody convince Andi to give their love another try or is it time for them to say goodbye, for good? As school ends, Cole presents his report on the love story between his grandparents John and Elizabeth Baxter. It is a tale that touches the hearts of the entire family, and one that causes Cole to better understand his own beginning. Whether you're meeting the Baxter family for the first time or finding them all over again, Love Story will stir your heart and remind you of the generational impact of love and the eternal bond of family"--

What a story! It's tough and uncomfortable at times, but then, that's what living in sin will do to a person—in this case, characters. Yet, the journey toward salvation is clearly expressed and beautifully exhibited in this novel. Every person's love story with God is special and unique, and His love conquers all sin. I especially liked that Mrs. Kingsbury never once okayed the sin the characters chose. She always made the wrongness of sin and the guilt of conscience that follows such actions very clear.

She also gave these characters a spectacular finale... which you'll have to read in order to experience for yourself! (Just a little tease there for you.)

The profoundness of faith in Jesus grew deeper the more I read. That made for some pretty incredible final chapters. This book definitely got me thinking about the impact each of our lives can make for the Kingdom of Heaven, if we choose to do the will of God.

I particularly enjoyed this line: “Not all people who say they're a Christian actually are.” I have always believed this truth, based on Matthew 7:21, which states: “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,' shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven.” This is one of the rare times that I've heard a Christian leader say this same truth. That moment was quite beautiful in the story, because it was about more than faith but also about our actions proving our faith. Faith is an action, after all!

The hardback was a nice weight with easy-to-read text, and the audio book (I read both versions, by the way) was also lovely. The narrators did a fantastic job throughout. It was neat how they would switch off for the male/female POV characters. This was my first experience with that style of narration, and I rather enjoyed it.

The one thing that did somewhat bother me was that I felt I had missed so much character history by not having read the previous 20 or so books in the Baxter/Flannigan series. So I'm planning on rereading Love Story after I eventually catch up on all the various series that precede it.

Content: alcohol, premarital sex and pregnancy (lifestyle choices by non-Christian characters; never portrayed as correct choices), war violence, marital affair

Note: See my review on the hardback version for a full list of tags.