Maizy Grace Stewart has bills to pay and her part-time job at a big newspaper is not covering it all.  Neither is waiting for her big break to scoop a big news story.  She decides to apply for a job at Steeple Side Christian Resources.  In order for anyone to land a job there one has to be a Christian.  Maizy has not attended church or actually had a relationship with God since she was a teenager.  She decides to fake it with the help of various accessories including a bumper sticker.

When Maizy, she uses her middle name, Grace at Steeple Side, she meets Jack Prentiss, the managing editor of Steeple Side, she will have to keep her wits about her.  It seems to her he knows she is not really what she is.  Maizy starts to learn while working at Steeple Side, people who practice being a Christian are as imperfect as her, but they learn from their mistakes and try to do better.  She has a hard time getting in touch with her feelings and her relationship with God.

Maizy is leading two lives hoping they don’t meet one another until she can figure out who she is.  When her boss at the newspaper decides her big story will be to dig up the dirt at Steeple Side and expose all the secrets, Maizy has to decide which fork in the road she is willing to take, advance her career by exposing the dirty little secrets, and hope Jack and the others will give her grace or walk away from her big break and change the course of her life.

Maizy was a wonderful character to read about.  She struggles with her faith like everyone else.  Just because you say you are a Christian does not mean necessarily you are one, unless you practice what you preach.  The laugh out loud moments are an added bonus to a well rounded out novel.

October 8, 2008