FIRST: A Maze of Grace by Trish Ryan

I agreed to read and/or post about this book, and I tried I really did. But unfortunately, a few chapters in and I knew this wasn't the right book for me right now. It's a memoir about the first few years of marriage and how to make them work and be happy so you don't end up in the camp of people struggling to survive through marriage. I am single and unlike Ryan's assertion that all women are either married or desperately wishing to be so, I'm actually okay being single. I've been unmarried for thirty years now. And I'm kind of used to it.

This is not to say I wouldn't enjoy getting married some day, but I absolutely RESENT the idea perpetuated throughout Christianity that being unmarried is a lesser way to live, and that, oh yeah, there must be something wrong with me if I'm not married and I must also be drowning in desperation to get married. Yes, there are some things wrong with me but I've noticed that my married friends don't exactly have it all together either. :)

Now lest you misunderstand, I would totally get married in a flash if things change and I meet someone I think would make a good life partner. I'm not against marriage by any stretch, I'm just also not unhappy with life as is--there are times I feel unbelievably happy. :)

All this to say, the book is just not very applicable to me right now.

Today's Wild Card author is:

Trish Ryan

and the book:

A Maze of Grace

FaithWords (June 22, 2010)

***Special thanks to Valerie M. Russo of Hachette Book Group for sending me a review copy.***

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

My dream, ever since I was a little girl, was to be a super hero. Specifically, I wanted to be one of the Wonder Twins, meeting with Superman and Wonder Woman at the Hall of Justice on Saturday mornings to fight evil and save the world. Lacking a twin, I got a law degree instead, thinking it would give me evil-fighting super hero powers. As it turns out, I was wrong.

Shortly after realizing that I hated billable hours, I ended (read: fled) my career in law, and spent the next few years trying to make sense of the world. I couldn't shake the belief that things could/should/would be different - better, somehow - if only I could figure out what really mattered. I wanted to know how things like spirituality and luck and intuition worked, and how I could make them work for me. So I embarked on a quest to find the right God, but spent much of my time trying to find the right guy. At a certain point, after accumulating a heaping pile of mistakes on both counts, I came to see that the two might be intertwined.

The good news is, after much trial and error, I finally found them both: the God, and the guy.

Now I live in Cambridge, Massachusetts with my super hero-husband Steve, and our genetically-improbable mixed-breed dog. I wrote a book about my search, "He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not: A Memoir of Finding Faith, Hope, and Happily Ever After," published by Hachette Book Group in 2008. The follow up, "A Maze of Grace: A Memoir of Second Chances" will be in stores in June 2010. And while I sit at my laptop typing each day, the Wonder Twin dream lives on...

Visit the author's website.
Visit the author's blog.

Product Details:

List Price: $19.99
Hardcover: 256 pages
Publisher: FaithWords (June 22, 2010)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0446545813
ISBN-13: 978-0446545815

PLEASE PRESS THE 'BROWSE INSIDE THIS BOOK' BUTTON TO READ THE FIRST CHAPTER: