Books › Keeping Faith
Keeping Faith
448 pages
A tense, emotionally charged exploration of a mother's desperate love colliding with inexplicable miracles and a skeptical world.
What it feels like
Reading this book feels like being caught in the eye of an emotional hurricane. It begins as an intimate, devastating portrait of a marriage collapsing, then steadily accelerates into a high-stakes, thought-provoking drama that blurs the lines between psychological thriller, courtroom suspense, and spiritual inquiry. The mood is tense and claustrophobic, mirroring the characters' experience of being trapped under the harsh glare of media scrutiny and medical skepticism. The prose is accessible and emotionally direct, pulling you deep into the messy, desperate reality of a mother trying to protect her child from a world demanding answers. It will deeply satisfy readers who crave issue-driven fiction that wrestles with big questions about faith, truth, and the fierce, protective nature of maternal love.
- Mood
- tense
- emotionally charged
- claustrophobic
- questioning
- Tone
- earnest
- empathetic
- inquisitive
- suspenseful
- Pace
- steady
- Themes
- the nature of belief · maternal desperation · fallout of betrayal · science versus faith · protecting the innocent
- The writing
- Accessible, emotionally direct, and structured with shifting perspectives that build narrative tension.
- The arc
- Moves from the shattering devastation of a broken home through a bewildering crisis of faith, culminating in a tense, hard-won clarity about love and belief.
- Who it's for
- Readers who love thought-provoking, issue-driven family dramas that blend emotional tearjerkers with courtroom suspense.
Content notes
- infidelity
- divorce
- child custody battles
- depression
- medical trauma
- media harassment
About the book
For the second time in her marriage, Mariah White catches her husband with another woman, and Faith, their seven-year-old daughter, witnesses every painful minute. In the aftermath of a sudden divorce, Mariah struggles with depression and Faith seeks solace in a new friend -- a friend who may or may not be imaginary. — Faith talks to her "Guard" constantly and begins to recite passages from the Bible -- a book she's never read. Fearful for her daughter's sanity, Mariah sends her to several psychiatrists. Yet when Faith develops stigmata and begins to perform miraculous healings, Mariah wonders if her daughter -- a girl with no religious background -- might indeed be seeing God. As word spreads and controversy heightens, Mariah and Faith are besieged by believers and disbelievers alike; they are caught in a media circus that threatens what little stability they have left.
What are you willing to believe? Is Faith a prophet or a troubled little girl? Is Mariah a good mother facing an impossible crisis...or a charlatan using her daughter to reclaim the attention her unfaithful husband withheld? As the story builds to a climactic battle for custody, Mariah must discover that spirit is not necessarily something that comes from religion but from inside oneself.
Fascinating, thoughtful, and suspenseful, Keeping Faith explores a family plagued by the media, the medical profession, and organized religion in a world where everyone has an opinion but no one knows the truth. At her controversial and compelling best, Jodi Picoult masterfully explores the moment when boundaries break down, when illusions become reality, and when the only step left to take is a leap of faith.
Description from Open Library.
Books like Keeping Faith
See why they match
Vanishing ActsJodi PicoultA gripping exploration of how the deepest betrayals often stem from the most desperate acts of love.
Handle with careJodi PicoultAn emotionally heavy, ethically complex exploration of the impossible choices parents make when love collides with the harsh realities of medical care.
Have a little faithMitch AlbomA gentle, soul-stirring meditation on the unexpected places we find grace, connection, and the courage to believe.
Then She Was GoneLisa JewellA chilling, emotionally heavy domestic thriller where the weight of a mother's grief collides with a deeply unsettling, claustrophobic mystery.
First phone call from heavenMitch AlbomA bittersweet, emotionally charged mystery that balances the heavy ache of grief with the breathless possibility of the miraculous.
The leftoversTom PerrottaA haunting, quietly devastating portrait of ordinary people trying to buy groceries and fall in love after the world has inexplicably broken.