About the Book

Book: Faces of Courage
Author: Susan K. Beatty
Genre: Christian Woman’s Fiction
Release Date: May 11, 2021

Fear strangles even the faithful sometimes.

Despite every attempt to be brave, fear has defined Olivia Stanford’s life: with each new foster home, when her adopted parents died leaving her all alone again, trusting and marrying her husband, Frank, and coping with his football injuries and career loss.

Without faith, fear only grows in the face of adversity.

When Frank becomes abusive, Olivia enters a terror-filled life in her upscale Southern California home. Common sense demands she dig deep for the courage to confront him–to demand change. Fear and confusion push back.

And just as courage finally blooms within her comes the terrifying diagnosis: breast cancer.

Some say courage is found at the intersection of faith and grit. How will Olivia manage to summon either in the midst of this new battle?

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My Thoughts

This is a new to me author and wowza, she did an excellent job writing on some very difficult topics such as domestic abuse and cancer. She definitely does it with grace but you can feel the emotions throughout the story. This is definitely not your typical lighthearted read, in fact I had to stop reading it at a point and then pick it back up when I was in the right state of mind. You definitely need some tissues nearby when reading this one.

Right from the start you meet Olivia and can't help but to be drawn to her. She is a passionate woman of God who is dealing with an abusive husband. To top it all off she is diagnosed with breast cancer and I don't know that any reader can dismiss the emotional struggles happening at this point in the story. The author really does a sensational job at putting you in Olivia's place. If you are a Bible reader, you will immediately think of the story of Job, at least I did and the author does mention this book throughout the story. Despite all the hardships it was great to see the growth in God that Olivia goes through.

This story is definitely not sugar coated and I do appreciate being taken out of my reading comfort zone for this one. The author truly has written a beautiful relevant story of God's faith and His presence in any circumstance but especially in the hardest of times. Overall this was a great book and I definitely recommend it!

My Rating: 4 Stars ~ Really enjoyed it!

I received a copy of this book through Celebrate Lit. I was not required to post a positive review. All views expressed are only my honest opinion.

About the Author

”Courage: The intersection of faith and Grit”

Susan K. Beatty is passionate about finding courage through faith and grit, particularly through the trials of breast cancer. Her daughter is a metastatic breast cancer “thriver” and has been an inspiration for her writing. Susan retired from a full-time job in 2017 and is now pursuing a novel-writing career. Her first novel, “Faces of Courage,” is in revision. Susan is the author of “An Introduction to Home Education” (AKA “California Homeschool Manual”), was the assistant director of the SoCal Christian Writers’ Conference and is the president of her local ACFW-OC Chapter. She is a professional writer/journalist. Susan is proof you can begin a fiction writing career after age seventy.

More from Susan

The words “You have breast cancer” can drop you to your knees. What’s worse is when those words are spoken to your thirty-one-year-old daughter. And worse yet when they are spoken to her more than once. My daughter Melanie has had three bouts with breast cancer, the second time classified her with stage IV metastatic breast cancer of which there is no cure. Over an eleven-year period, Melanie has undergone twelve surgeries, one removing two-thirds of her sternum to be replaced by a donor bone with titanium clamps.

Melanie’s courage during these battles inspired me to write about courage at the intersection of faith and grit. True-to-life stories follow characters through cancer and other issues confronting women today.

In Faces of Courage, I wanted to tell a story like Melanie’s but not exactly Melanie’s, a story nevertheless filled with growing courage. Melanie’s journey doesn’t include an abusive husband (Praise God!), but our terrorized heroine Olivia suffers from her husband’s mistreatment, confused by her misunderstanding of how God views her, and challenged by her lack of strong faith. Just as her courage matures and strengthen through these problems, she’s thrown by those knee-buckling words, “You have breast cancer.”

It is necessarily a gritty look at domestic abuse and the realities of dealing with cancer and its various treatments. I wanted to show Olivia’s growth as a wife, how she experienced the cancer, and how, with the help of faith and grit, her courage flourished.

In many ways, this novel is a tribute to women who fight these battles with bravery, even if that valor takes time to develop. I pray the reader, by witnessing another’s journey, is strengthened in her own battles.