A stand-alone novel by Terri Blackstock, Covenant Child has been repackaged with a new chapter, author note and interview, and reading group guide. It is available in paperback, eBook, and audio formats.
One
There’s a question that haunts me in
the blackest hours of night, when wasted moments crowd my dreams and
mock the life I know. The question is this: How could a child born of
privilege and promise grow up with nothing?
I was Somebody when I was born.
Lizzie, my twin, says we were heiresses all along. “Our grandfather
was a billionaire,” she says. “Just think of it, Kara!”
There were newspaper articles about us when we were three. They
called us the “Billion Dollar Babies.”
But these Billion Dollar Babies wore
Goodwill hand-me-downs. We ate dry cereal most nights for supper,
right out of the box, picking out the raisins to save for our school
lunches the next day. In my memory, we never observed a birthday,
because no one around us considered that day
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Covenant Child
worthy of celebration. We were
worthless no accounts to most of the people in town.
But all along we had an inheritance
that no one told us was ours.
I sometimes try to remember back to
the days before we were three, but my memories are tainted with the
lies I’ve been taught and the pictures I’ve seen. I can’t quite
sift out real recollections from my faulty assumptions, but I do know
that the things I’ve laid out here are true. Not because I remember
them, but because I’ve studied all the sides, heard all the tales,
read all the reports … and a few things have emerged with absolute
clarity.
The first thing is that my father,
Jack Holbrooke, was the son of the Paul Holbrooke, who did
something with microchips and processors, things I can’t begin to
understand, and amassed a fortune before he was thirty. My father,
Jack, got religion in his teens and decided he didn’t want to play
the part of the rich son. He became a pilot instead, bought a plane,
and began flying charter flights and giving lessons. He disowned
himself from the Holbrooke money and told his father that, instead of
leaving any of it to him in his will, he preferred that he donate it
to several evangelical organizations who provided relief and shared
the gospel to people all over the world.
My grandfather tolerated his zeal and
noted his requests, then promptly ignored them.
My mother, Sherry, was a teen
runaway, who left Barton, Mississippi, at fifteen to strike out on her
own. She wound up living with a kind family in Jackson, and she got
religion, too.
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Terri Blackstock
She met my father in Jackson, when he
put an ad in the paper for some office help at his hangar, and they
fell in love around the time she was nineteen or so. They got married
and had Lizzie and me less than a year later.
She was killed in a car wreck when we
were just weeks old. Our father raised us himself for the next three
years. I’ve seen pictures of him, and he looks like a kind, gentle
man who laughed a lot. There are snapshots of him kissing us, dunking
us like basketballs in his father’s pool, chasing us across the
lawn of the little house we lived in, reading us books, tucking us
in. There are three birthday photos of our father lying on the floor
with two cake-smeared redheads tearing into boxes of Barbies and
Cabbage Patch dolls.
Sometimes I close my eyes and think
hard, trying to bring back those moments, and for a while I convince
myself that they are not just images frozen on paper, but they’re
live events in my head somewhere. I even think I can smell that cake
and feel my father’s stubbled face against mine. I can hear his
laughter shaking through me and feel his arms holding me close.
But in truth, my memories don’t
reach that far back.
I don’t even think I remember
Amanda. Lizzie says she has more impressions of her than
memories, that the snapshots just bring those impressions into
clearer focus. I guess that’s true with me, too.
But I wish I could remember when she
met our father and us, how she wound up being his wife, how she was
widowed and robbed of her children, and how she spent her life trying
to keep a promise she had made to him … and to us.
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Covenant Child
But, according to Lizzie, truth is
truth, whether it lies in your memory banks or not. So I’ll start
with Amanda’s story, the way it was told to me, because it is very
much the beginning of mine.
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******
Back Cover:
Amanda's heart broke as she watched them drive her beloved twins away. She resolved to hope ... and to fight for them to her last breath.
Kara and Lizzie are heiresses to one of the largest fortunes in the country. But when their father dies suddenly, the toddlers are taken from the arms of Amanda, their loving stepmother, and given to relatives who only want the children's fortune for themselves.
Kara and Lizzie grow up questioning their worth ... until the day when they learn 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.
My Review:
Covenant Child is a page-turner. It is a journey. A journey from despair to hope. From neglect to life. Covenant Child is a story for all to discover we are not alone. We have a Rescuer.
Reissued in May 2012, Covenant Child is copyrighted ten years ago, 2002. It is a story for all times. It will never lose its appeal, its discovery. No matter the generation, this story will live. For it is our story. Each one of us. A choice to receive the Love offered to us. We are each worthy. Nothing can separate us for we will not be refused. Read Covenant Child and find the destiny of our heart. Our cry for wholeness. "There is more, so much much more and I don't know what it is," was the cry of my heart. I rejoice that there is still more! Come and join me and others who have become fully a Covenant Child.
This story is told in first person, recounting to the best of her memory and the aid of her sister, their 15-year travel to emancipation. Can you truly be freed from lies, free to trust again? To have the truth revealed and recognize it, or remain in "comfort" regardless of the pain? Kara and Lizzie have had to live in survival mode for so long, when they become of age they must remove the filter that has hampered their lives. The struggle is related as they each must decide. Separating from each other will they find a story of promises kept?
As Kara tells the story, she can only know her side. She observes Lizzie and tries to keep it all together the best way she knows. Will it be enough to draw her to love? She has some harrowing experiences. Author Terri Blackstock has written a very connected, fast-paced story. I read it very quickly as the story was very smooth flowing without distractions. Not predetermined how it will end.
I received this book from BookSneeze for free in exchange for an honest review on my blog.
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