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I just finished a 4-part series by Jenny B. Jones called Katie Parker Series. I read all four books in a week in between painting my house and packing up boxes. We’re getting our house ready to sell. We are going to live in our travel trailer for awhile until we figure out where we want our new permanent home to be. Anyway, off the rabbit trail and back to the book.
I discovered the first book in the series through Bookbub, a free daily email that notifies you about discounts on ebooks, a couple of years ago. I bought it through Kindle and filed it in my ‘To Read’ file. It’s actually a Young adult book, but I enjoy books listed in that genre as much as books written for “adults”, sometimes more.
The story is about a 16-year old girl, Katie Parker who ends up in a state home for girls because of her mom’s incarceration due to drug trafficking. The book begins with her being driven by her case officer to her new foster family, the Scotts, an empty nester couple who pastor a church in a small rural Texas community called In Between. She gains not only a foster mom, dad, and dog, but also a feisty, cooky foster grandma whose antics kept me in stitches throughout the whole series. Katie learns what a real family is like in all of it lovely, crazy, messy glory.
She makes a best friend with the school’s geeky poster child and an enemy of the school’s goth-y, criminals most wanted poster child. She has to deal with a PE teacher, whose first career choice was a drill seargent, finds her passion for theatre thru the caring encouragement of the drama teacher, whose life is far from perfect, faints her way through biology, and catches up on her beauty sleep in history. Through all of her interaction with the community she learns about who God is.
Ms. Jones is an amazing storyteller, her characters came alive and I felt like I was watching a really great movie. I laughed so hard I couldn’t catch my breath, I cried tears of heartbreak and sadness. I was angry at the unjustness of our system. I was thrilled at reunions and second chances and redemptions. This woman knows how to get inside the minds of her characters and through them I got a glimpse of how God sees us when we are struggling. How, as believers, we just need to be patient with people and allow them their questions and the time to think about this crazy wonderful thing called relationship with the Almighty, One True God of the Universe. Many times all He needs us to do is just love people. That’s it, nothing else. Love them where they are at right now!
So, I guess you get, by now, that I highly recommend this series of books. Let me know what you think if you try them.
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