Sunday, December 5, 2010

Waiting for Daybreak by Kathryn Cushman



book cover

Waiting for Daybreak
by Kathryn Cushman


ISBN-13: 978-0-7642-0381-7
Trade Paperback: 320 pages
Publisher: Bethany House
Released: October 2008


Source: Bought through Half.com.

Book Description, my take:
Paige Woodward loves working as a pharmacist, but she was blamed and fired for a medication mistake at her last job. Now few people are willing to hire her. Paige's mother's last chance is an experimental cancer treatment, and Paige is determined to earn the money to pay for it.

She takes the job when a man, impressed by her work at a charity clinic, offers her a well-paying job at a small, new pharmacy that his granddaughter runs. Since he doesn't ask about her past, she decides it's safer not to tell him.

Clarissa Richardson, her new boss, fears that adding a new employee will prevent her from meeting her goal. If she can get the pharmacy in the black by a certain date, her grandfather will build her a dream pharmacy in the city.

Clarissa has been cutting corners and breaking rules to run the pharmacy with only two employees. Habits don't change when Paige arrives, so Paige urges her boss to follow the rules. Paige knows what can happen when you don't, but she can't tell her boss why she's being "so picky" about it. When trouble hits, Clarissa realizes how she can save her dream and get rid of her busybody employee at the same time...

Can Paige hold on through the darkness until daybreak?


My Review:
Waiting for Daybreak is Christian general fiction. The characters were complex and dealt with realistic issues. I understood why they acted as they did--even the characters that weren't as likable. The details of the store and job were superbly done, which makes sense since the author was a pharmacist in the past.

I could hardly put the book down. The suspense was created by wanting Paige to succeed and her mother to survive her cancer treatment, yet things kept getting worse. But, strangely, it was by things continuing to get worse that Paige finally found peace.

Paige was a Christian struggling to understand why it seemed like God wasn't there for her when she was unjustly blamed and her godly mother was so sick with cancer. She looked up several verses dealing with that, and she also got a few off-the-wall Scripture references from a quirky new friend. Though definitely there, the Christian message didn't feel "lecture-y" to me.

There was no bad language. There was no sex. Overall, I'd highly recommend this suspenseful, insightful novel.


If you've read this book, what do you think about it? I'd be honored if you wrote your own opinion of the book in the comments.


Excerpt from Chapter One
Paige Woodward contemplated the reinforced back door of Nashville's Free Clinic and the patchwork of blue covering the exterior. Each shade of navy, indigo, or azure covered another level of graffiti. The defacing spray paint wasn't gone, simply hidden beneath a layer of color that didn't quite match the original. Patch jobs. They didn't change the truth; they only covered it up.

She shook off the thought and put her key in the door. The musty odor never seemed to fade here, in spite of the janitorial crew's best efforts. This dingy lobby would soon be packed to capacity with illness, hunger, and hopeless faces looking to Paige for help--but she could only do so much. Some pain went beyond the bounds of medicine. She had been living that truth for the last few months.

Rufus Toskins emerged from a back hallway, wearing his usual overburdened expression, baggy suit, and bow tie. Paige stopped and waited for him. Today, at least, would bring good news, and now would be a perfect time for him to walk over and deliver it.

Rufus did not acknowledge her presence. In fact, he jerked his head around and blitzed through a door to the opposite hall--like a medical resident rushing toward a code blue.

Strange. Her stomach tightened, just a little. You're imagining things. Get busy.

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