Covenant Child (Women of Faith Fiction) [Mass Market Paperback]

Terri Blackstock (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 17, 2007

Beautiful, three-year-old twins Kara and Lizzie Holbrooke live a charmed life with their widowed but doting father, Jack. When Jack finds love and marries again, it seems all their lives will finally be "happy ever after." That new life shatters when Jack and his wealthy parents are killed in a plane crash. Jack's new wife, Amanda, inherits the family's estate but fails to gain custody of the twins.

Devastated but bound by her covenant to care for the girls, Amanda manages the estate, hopeful she'll be able to return it to Kara and Lizzie one day. Meanwhile, the twins grow up in an abysmal home environment with distant family members and become hard-drinking, shoplifting, promiscuous teenagers.

After years of trying to reach them, Amanda is finally able to offer them love, comfort, wealth--the life they have always wanted. But when all you've known is deprivation, how can you believe a gift of grace? When you've been lied to for so long, how can you ever know the truth?

Intensely involving, emotionally charged, and infused with hope, Covenant Child is an inspiring story that challenges us to embrace the life God holds out to us.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In a contemporary spin on the concept of biblical "covenant" that also functions as a parable of accepting and rejecting faith, Blackstock offers a smooth though somewhat improbable tale of one woman's promise to her husband to care for her stepchildren. Kara Holbrooke and her twin sister, Lizzie, lived a middle-class existence with their doting father, Jack, who nixed a life of moneyed pleasure despite his father's wealth. Shortly after their birth, the twins' mother, Sherry, died in a car accident. When the girls were three, Jack married Amanda, but six months after the wedding, he and his parents were killed in a plane crash. The twins are easy prey maybe too easy for Sherry's redneck parents, Eloise and Deke Krebbs, who smell money and go to court to claim the girls as their own. Amanda is the beneficiary of her in-laws' billion-dollar-plus estate, but she loses custody of the twins. Bound by her promise to Jack, she manages the estate with an eye to returning it to the girls. But brought up in the ghastly home environment of the Krebbs, the twins grow into hard-drinking, shoplifting, promiscuous teenagers who are taught to hate Amanda. At age 18, the girls must decide if they will accept or reject an offer from Amanda that could change the course of their lives. Blackstock's characters are fairly one-dimensional, and it's a rather far-fetched plot, but her writing is engaging. Inspirational fiction fans will likely suspend their disbelief and enjoy the story.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Thomas Nelson (July 17, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1595543287
• ISBN-13: 978-1595543288
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 4.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (30 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #906,448 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Terri Blackstock is a New York Times best-seller, with over six million copies sold worldwide. She has had over twenty-five years of success as a novelist. Terri spent the first twelve years of her life traveling in an Air Force family. She lived in nine states and attended the first four years of school in The Netherlands. Because she was a perpetual "new kid," her imagination became her closest friend. That, she believes, was the biggest factor in her becoming a novelist. She sold her first novel at the age of twenty-five, and has had a successful career ever since.

In 1994 Terri was writing for publishers such as HarperCollins, Harlequin, Dell and Silhouette, when a spiritual awakening drew her into the Christian market. As she was praying about her transition, she went on a cruise and noticed that almost everyone on the boat (including her) had a John Grisham novel. It occurred to her that some of Grisham's readers were Christians, and that if she wrote a fast-paced thriller with an added faith element, she might just find her niche. As God would have it, Christian publishers were showing interest in the suspense genre, so she quickly sold a four-book series to Zondervan. Since that time, she's written over thirty Christian titles, most of them suspense novels.

Besides entertaining her readers, Terri tackles issues that she hopes will change lives. Her recent book, Predator, was inspired by her experiences on Facebook and Twitter, and her concern that people posted too much personal information about themselves. The book deals with an online predator who uses social networks as his playground. She hopes the book will change readers' online habits. Her New York Times best-seller, Intervention, was inspired by her own personal struggles with a daughter on drugs. In the book, a mother hires an interventionist for her drug-addicted daughter. But on the way to treatment, the interventionist is murdered, and the daughter disappears. Barbara, the mother, sets out to search for her daughter. Terri modeled Barbara after herself, and poured many of her own emotions and experiences into that character. As a result, many families experiencing drug addiction have written to thank her for telling their story and giving them hope.

Other recent books include her stand-alone novel Shadow in Serenity, and Vicious Cycle (Book 2 in her Intervention Series). She's also known for popular series such as the Restoration Series, the Cape Refuge Series, the Newpointe 911 Series, and the SunCoast Chronicles series.

Terri has appeared on national television programs such as "The 700 Club" and "Home Life," and has been a guest on numerous radio programs across the country. The story of her personal journey appears in books such as Touched By the Savior by Mike Yorkey, True Stories of Answered Prayer by Mike Nappa, Faces of Faith by John Hanna, and I Saw Him In Your Eyes by Ace Collins.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A modern day parable, August 23, 2002

By 

S. Wood (TX) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Covenant Child (Women of Faith Fiction) (Library Binding)

I was not certain what to expect when I purchased this book recently, having read several of Terri Blackstock's Christian Fiction romance novels. I was not prepared for the emotions this book evoked. Although saddened by the turn of events that brought the twins into a life of poverty, I was spellbound by the descriptions of the life that was being offered to them. It was truly a modern day parable about the Kingdom of God and His amazing love. It warmed my heart to see His love being so accurately displayed in the character of Amanda and the choices that we as humans can and do make were brought to life in the characters of Kara and Lizzie.

I sometimes feel that Christian fiction is not as well written or edited as secular fiction; however this is a truly amazing piece of literature.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Blackstock Does it Again!, December 10, 2002

By 

"tmeshgin" (Frankfort, KY United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Covenant Child (Women of Faith Fiction) (Library Binding)

In the realm of Christian fiction, there are few writers that combine irony and symbolism with character and plot development well. Most can develop plots but not characters, while others develop characters but not plots.

Terri Blackstock does all the above exceptionally well.

Covenant Child is a stunning, modern-day portrait of Christ's relationship to us. Blackstock does an outstanding job of bringing the characters to life. Their struggles are real; the questions they raise are real; their responses are also real.

This is one of Blackstock's finest.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Billionaire Babies grow up like paupers, July 21, 2002

By 

Bonnie McKinzie (Garden Grove, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Covenant Child (Women of Faith Fiction) (Library Binding)

When three year old twins lose their mother and then their father, the result is all about money. The love of Amanda is so great but her frustrations are so many. Legal entanglements prevent her from fulfilling her promise to her husband. Evil grandparents neglect and abuse the twins while living off their money. Even though the twins suffer the same fate, they part ways over a very difficult decision. It costs both of them dearly.

Written to take place in the south, about people and places which literally come alive, Blackstock did a great job of keeping the reader totally spellbound until the very end.