Even Now by Karen Kingsbury

This book was this month's selection for Book Club. It is the first Kingsbury book I have ever read, though she is a very popular checkout at the library. Time magazine has called her the Queen of Christian fiction and she is currently America's best selling inspirational author. There is no doubting the popularity of Christian fiction, from Christian fantasy (Chronicles of Narnia), to Christian suspense (The Left Behind series, as well as the more recent Ted Dekker and Frank Peretti books) to Christian romance novels (Janette Oke and Dee Henderson), as well as the Amish faction represented by Beverly Lewis and Wanda Brunstetter.

This book is #1 in Kingsbury's "Lost Love" series. This is a book that deals with teenage pregnancy, and even involves the war in Afghanistan later in its narrative, and is full of Kingsbury's trademark sentimentality. It is a book that explores young love and the ramifications of poor choices.

The story involves a young couple, Shane Galanter and Lauren Anderson. Lauren becomes pregnant at the young age of 17. Both Shane's parents and Lauren's are against them keeping the baby and try to talk her into putting the baby up for adoption, having the kids finish high school and go on to college, and basically just going on with their lives. Lauren wants to keep the baby from the start and try to make a life with Shane, despite their extreme youth. The book then follows a series of choices that the couple and their family make and how these choices lead to tragic ramifications in their lives. There are several implausible occurrences that happen over the course of the story and Kingsbury is somewhat simplistic in some of her portrayals, but the basic story has plenty of sentiment to keep the reader involved and it's a heartwarming story about forgiveness and the power of love.