Searching for Grace

First it’s a rumor. Then it’s a fact. And then it’s on.

Camp is over and Jonathan Cooper returns home. To life with his mother whose silence is worse than anything she could say…to his varsity soccer teammates at East Bay Christian Academy…to the growing rumors about what he did with a boy last summer at Bible camp.

All the important lines blur. Between truth and lies. Between friends and enemies. Between reality and illusion.

Just when Jonathan feels the most alone, help arrives from the unlikeliest of sources: Frances “Sketch” Mallory, the weird girl from his art class, and her equally eccentric friend, Mason. For a short while, thanks to Sketch and Mason, life is almost survivable. Then Ian McGuire comes to town on the night of the Homecoming dance and tensions explode. Fists fly, blood flows, and Jonathan—powerless to stop it—does the only thing he believes might save them all. He prays for God’s grace.

Praise for Searching for Grace:

“A very powerful read that will likely resonate with not only Gay teens but anyone who has ever wondered about what they must go through. Juliann Rich has created an amazing character in Jonathan.”

~ A Life Through Books

“I can say, I was stunned reading this book. It’s not a blow-you-away-with-plot-twists story. Instead it relates what I believe is an achingly real experience for many LGBTQ teens out there.”

~ V’s Read

“Full of sarcastic humor, the author captures the tone of Jonathan, Sketch, and Mason perfectly. Searching for Grace contains a number of parallels with The Scarlet Letter, which Jonathan and his fellow students are studying in their American literature class; this adds an extra dimension to the story. Once again, the writing is very good and the editing near-flawless. I eagerly anticipate the final volume of this trilogy.”

~ Books Direct

“This is the story of a person finding the strength, courage and bravery to not let the naysayers bring him down. This is a story that everyone needs to read. It really opens one’s eyes to the hate that is being flung at people for choosing to love a person of the same gender. Sexual orientation does not define a person, a person is defined by their actions and reactions.”

~ Word to Dreams

Excerpt:

It’s all a blur.

A blur of lights blinding me as I fly down the long hallway, feet-first like I’m a kid again, shooting off the end of a slide. Is anyone going to catch me? The bed I’m lying on jerks to a stop, and I look for my mother in the blur of bodies that surround me like a white canvas. Even their expressions are stretched thin. A bit of teal seeps into view. Leans over me and flashes a light in my eyes. It burns all the way through my skull. HEY, THAT HURTS! I tell the bit of teal and she stops, but a blotch of blue hovers in the background. Breaking the line of horizon.

Sketch, make him go away.

I can’t focus.

I slip into the darkness.

Sounds blur too. I discover this as I float to the surface.

Beeping and humming, the sounds of machines. Whispers and footsteps, the sounds of people. Head laceration approximately four inches long. Pupils dilated and uneven. Page neurology and psych for consult.

The words and noises blur into a song I don’t recognize or like. The tempo is too quick. I can’t dance to this, I tell Ian, but he isn’t here. Read more…

Published by Bold Strokes Books

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