Waiting for Morning by Karen Kingsbury

Waiting for Morning by Karen Kingsbury is her first book in the Forever Faithful series.  This one tells the hard story of drunk driving.  In this book she tells both sides of this issue.  She doesn't sugarcoat much of anything in this true to life novel.  She tells the story of life for Hannah Ryan after her husband of many years and the love of her life since her elementary school years and her oldest teenage daughter are killed in their SUV while coming home from their yearly camping trip.  Younger daughter Jenny also in the car is seriously injured but survives.  This is not your usual Christian woman faces death with faith and determination and comes out unscathed.  Hannah rejects God and her faith in anger.  Hannah throws herself into the prosecution of the drunk driver, Brian Wesley, and her work on MADD.  She so throws herself into hate for Brian and all drunks that she for the year it takes to bring Brian to justice in the court system ignores her surviving daughter Jenny.  The lawyer for the state wants to make this case be the first case in California which successfully charges a drunk driver with 1st degree murder.  Even with all this which would be a complete novel, the author goes the additional mile and tells the story through the eyes of the drunk driver.  This difficult task is done most excellently.  Brian has grown up in difficult circumstances but has had a few times when someone offered help along the way which he rejected.  Ms. Kingsbury doesn't sugarcoat this story either which no one would expect but she does tell this story with some honest emotion which allows the reader to empathize with the driver if not sympathize.  This book also deals with the legal system and the difficulties of trying to navigate it with success. 

Karen Kingsbury is an author which I love to read but this one is decidedly by far my favorite.  I don't know how she did this but she has written this Christian novel as if she has had history with both the survivors of drunk driving and the drivers.  This book is an excellent read and should be read by anyone but it needs to be in high school and middle school libraries as well as youth church libraries.  Teens in my generation drove drunk and teens today still do.  Teens don't think that this can happen to them or anyone they know.  Teens however need to know and this is a book which is easy to read though emotionally difficult.  I really cannot say enough good about this book.
I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review.