Book Review of Waiting for Morning by Karen Kingsbury

Waiting for Morning is the first book in the Forever Faithful series by Karen Kingsbury. The story is about a family that had it all. The Ryan family consisted of Hannah, and her husband Tom, a successful doctor, and their 2 girls, Alicia the oldest, and Jenny. Tom and the girls were having so much fun at summer camp, and it was the perfect way to end their vacation before the girls returned to school. In the beginning of the book, Hanna was anxiously awaiting their return when they still hadn't come home yet, and this gave her an anxious feeling.

Brian Wesley with a wife and new son had a drinking problem for sure. He had had prior convictions for drinking and driving, would go to AA for awhile and stop, but then he always went back on the bottle with the least little amount of stress in his life. He was pretty sober in the beginning of this book here, but he was having a hard time keeping his head together from not drinking. Every day away from the bottle was a terrible effort, so when he loses his job, he cracked. He tried to get himself together without going to the bar on his way home to relieve the stress of his job loss, but he thought, "Why not just one?" So Brian mistakenly turns in the direction of the bar, and he has not one, but 14 drinks.

Tom and the girls were happily headed home from camp in their Ford Explorer truck when on Ventura Boulevard, Brian, very stone drunk, crashes his car into the Ryan's. It was a terrible collision, and Alicia the older girl, dies on the spot, and Tom doesn't last much longer. Jenny is still alive but with a possible head injury. They are taken to the hospital nearby not far from home, and Hanna is notified. Hanna doesn't accept the news and in her denial, knows this is a terrible mistake. She goes to the hospital to see for herself, and can hardly stand when she finds out the truth. What kind of a God would allow this to happen to her family?

Jenny recovers, but Hanna is phasing her out, and is focused on seeking revenge on the drunk driver Brian Wesley for killing her family. Hanna also turns to unbelief in God, feeling very angry, and unbelieving that God would ever allow this to happen. In the meantime, Jenny is suffering, and if Hanna isn't careful, Jenny is thinking about suicide, but she refuses to address this issue.

Hanna wants Brian Wesley to receive a first degree murder charge, and she fights for it all the way. Brian Wesley is despicable, and there is no possible way she will forgive him. So attorney Matt Bronson is working toward a first degree murder charge since Hanna thinks this will give her peace. But what she finds is something entirely different than expected.