Providence

by Faye Roberts

“It’s your mother. I’ve had a bit of an accident. Call when you can.” When Annie Duncan arrives at the old family farm house in the middle of a peach orchard that had been her childhood home thirty years earlier, she’s forced into the hardest decision of her life. Katie McKenzie’s injuries from a fall off a ladder were minor, but the cancer prognosis was not. Is Annie willing to quit her job, the only source of income since the divorce, and in doing so, lose her house, the only security she has left? Moreover, does she have the fortitude to watch her mom die a little day by day as she walks that final journey of life? Isn’t that what Hospice is for? When an orchard biologist named Joe knocks at the kitchen door, his business card clarifies Annie’s decision as she reads the quotation on the back by Robert Louis Stevenson – Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds you plant. “Do you believe in providence?” Joe asked. “I’m not sure what it means.” “Providence is like the seed inside a peach. The essence, that golden kernel of life, is tucked safely inside the armor of a protective outer pit. Providence is simply the shielding care of God, like a mother’s protection of her child in the womb—the seed that will someday bear its own fruit. With eternal spring on the wind, Katie has one final commitment to keep before she’s ready to reap her harvest—one final seed to plant after the hard winter—that seed of providence called hope.

125 pages, Paperback

Published February 18, 2021

About the author

I started my writing career after winning a contest through Guideposts Magazine. I wrote for various inspirational magazines and published a book of devotionals for working women. My first novel, Fragile Treaties, was a finalist for a Willa Award. Since then, I worked on a four-book historical family saga, The Silver Cross Ranch Legacy Series, about the mothers and daughters that run the Silver Cross Ranch in southwest Colorado over a span of one hundred years. Written in diary format, well-researched historical events are woven into the journals of the women, depicting the sweeping changes world events make in their lives: two world wars, gaining the right to vote, own property and ask for birth control, the Roaring Twenties, Prohibition, the Great Depression, moving from rural lifestyles into the industrial and space ages, and the changes, for better or worse, made in American culture.

My most recent book, "On the Trail Beyond" is a fictional account of the life of Louisa Cody, wife of the infamous William F. Cody, better known as Buffalo Bill. Theirs was a tumultuous relationship that included a media frenzy during a trial when he attempted to divorce her for nagging. In the end, their marriage lasted over fifty years. Was Louisa a shrew, or a saint?

My current work in progress, The Dream Book takes place in my hometown of Steamboat Springs and is the story of a young woman's first experience as a teacher at the one-room Moon Hill school.

As a writer, I bring the lessons of history to the modern world searching for heroes. It's said that the more things change, the more they remain the same. We all have the same desires, hopes and dreams of those who came before us. We want a better life for ourselves and our children. We want to belong, to matter, and to make a difference. No matter the era or the circumstances we are born in, we want strength, acceptance and peace. The intention of my books is to bring that kind of hope to my readers.

Reviews

[Lucinda Stein · Rating 5 out of 5]

Roberts writes an engaging story of a woman's difficult road of disappointment and emptiness after her divorce and her ailing mother's final attempt to bring the breaking light of hope back into her daughter's life. A warm and satisfying story.