A time to dance / by Karen Kingsbury.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

They celebrated their love with a dance. But will it end in divorce?

John and Abby Reynolds were the perfect couple, sharing a love born of childhood friendship and deep family ties. They are envied by their friends, cherished by their children, admired by their peers. But John and Abbey are about to lose it all. On the verge of having an affair, John is no more the man Abby married than she is the long-ago girl of his dreams. They are strangers whose days of dancing seem gone forever.

They gather their three children to announce their plans, but before they can speak, their daughter makes an announcement of her own; she's getting married in the summer.

Abby and John determine not to ruin their daughter's season of happiness, but as the wedding nears they are haunted by questions. Is the decision they've made irreversible? Are there times when marriage--even the marriage between two people of faith--is truly beyond repair? And is it possible, alone in the moonlight on an old wooden pier, to once more find...a time to dance?

Discover the resiliency of boundless love, the power of commitment, and the amazing faithfulness of God in A Time to Dance.

Excerpt provided by Syndetics

CHAPTER ONE O n Saturday morning, Salt Gribbon looked across the expanse of his small home in the lighthouse and thanked God, not for the first time, that the busybody at the yard sale in Wells had insisted on selling the wooden table with its four matching chairs. At the time he'd groused plenty because he only had one bottom and therefore needed only one chair, but the woman wouldn't budge. Even after she agreed to toss in the other three chairs without charge, he had half a mind to leave the excess furniture on the shore, until his Yankee thriftiness rebelled against such waste. So he'd turned the table upside down in his dory, lashed the chairs into position between the legs, and rowed the entire load back to the northernmost point of Heavenly Daze. Now three of his four chairs were occupied, one by his own weathered behind, and the others by the slender rear ends of his grandchildren, seven-year-old Bobby and six-year-old Brittany. The children, tousle-headed and heavy-eyed with sleep, were munching on molasses cookies, one of their favorite breakfasts. "Grandfather," Brittany said, breaking one of the cookies with a deft snap, "don't you have Froot Loops? We always had Froot Loops for breakfast when we lived with Daddy." "We never had Froot Loops." Bobby cast his sister a reproving look. "Sometimes we had cold pizza, but most times we had nothing." Biting his tongue, Salt scratched his beard and watched his granddaughter. The little girl had a tendency to embroider the truth, especially when the subject had to do with her father, Salt's only son. Holding her pinkie finger aloft-how'd she learn to do that?-Brittany dunked the end of her cookie into her glass of milk. "I like these cookies better than anything we had at Daddy's 'partment. The pizza was always cold. And we never had milk, only soda pop." Salt's heart squeezed so tight he could barely draw breath to speak, but he forced words out: "The Good Book teaches us to be grateful for whatever we have. So eat up and get dressed, kids. We have work to do today." Actually, he had work to do, but he believed young ones should keep themselves busy as well. These two stood in a particular need of structure and discipline. Their father had done almost nothing to teach his children. He'd led a life of waste and drunkenness, leaving these kids to grow up on a diet of television, table scraps, and neglect. Bobby reached for another cookie at the same moment Brittany extended her hand. Both sets of fingers met on the edges of the last one on the plate. Bobby spoke first. "I want it." "It's mine!" "But I grabbed it before you did." "Did not!" "Did too!" In the ensuing tug of war, their tiny hands knocked over Bobby's glass. As the milk spread over the varnished tabletop, both children dropped the cookie and averted their eyes until Salt stood to reach for a dishcloth. After tossing it into the worst of the puddle, he crossed his arms and stood at the end of the table, waiting. Two pairs of guilty eyes eventually lifted to meet his. "You see what happens when you mess around?" he asked, hoping they'd attribute the gruffness in his voice to anger instead of heartbreak. "You waste good milk that you need. You're both too scrawny, and now I'll have to go into town to get more to replace what you spilt." He lifted his arm, intending to reach for the dishcloth, and winced inwardly when he saw the boy flinch. What sort of monster had his son been? "Finish your cookies." He lowered his gaze lest they see the shimmer of wetness in his eyes. "Then go pick a book out of the stack. I want you both to read a good bit today." Without taking another bite, both children slipped silently from the table and moved toward the small TV stand by the fireplace. Bobby plucked Curious George from the pile of books on a shelf under the TV; Brittany picked up Betsy-Tacy and Tib. Moving like quiet little robots, they sat cross-legged in the vinyl beanbag chairs and opened their books. Salt shook his head as he wiped up the spilled milk. 'Twas un-natural, the way they responded to rebuke. Though the bruises had faded from their young bodies, the scars on their hearts would take longer to heal. By the time Salt had washed the dishes, changed out of the long-handled underwear that served as his pajamas, and pulled the quilts over the mattress on his rope bed, the children had finished their reading. Still they sat in the beanbag chairs, apparently waiting permission to move. "All right, then." Salt sank to the edge of the bed as he regarded them. "You've done a good job of obeyin' and readin'. Now I must ask you to do a good job of something else." The children watched him, their eyes wide. Salt pointed toward the lighthouse door. "Alst I ask is that you don't go outside while I'm gone. Stay here in the house. If anybody tries to come inside, you scoot under this bed and lay as quiet as statues until the stranger leaves." He looked from Brittany to Bobby. "Understand?" As one, the children nodded. "All right, then." Salt pressed his hands to his knees, then stood. He hated leaving them alone-he thought the loneliness would remind them too much of the place where they'd lived with their dad. They'd been alone in that filthy apartment when Salt found them, as they'd been left alone countless other days and nights while their father went out drinking. "Grandfather?" Salt looked to the girl. "Ayuh?" Her voice trembled. "Will you bring us some more cookies?" He would have brought her the world if she'd asked for it. But what he said was, "If Miss Birdie has molasses cookies, I'll bring 'em." Excerpted from A Time to Dance by Karen Kingsbury All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

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Booklist Review

Veteran romance writer Kingsbury also takes a thoughtful turn in A Time to Dance, a morality tale about the staying power of love in marriage. Abby Reynolds, wife of a high-school football coach in a small Illinois town, suspects her husband, John, of having an affair. But the true reason their marriage is about to crash is simply the strain of years: arguments unresolved, dreams deferred, and never enough money. Abby's own daughter and, of course, a renewed faith, make Abby (and John) think twice about divorcing in what amounts to Kingsbury's tribute to married love.

Author notes provided by Syndetics

Karen Kingsbury was born in Fairfax, Virginia on June 8, 1963. She received a B.A. in journalism from California State University, Northridge in 1986. After graduation, she became a full-time reporter for the Los Angeles Times. Her first book, Missy's Murder, was published in 1992. She wrote three more true crime novels and four collections of answered prayers and miracle stories before transitioning to inspirational fiction in 1998. Her first inspirational fiction novel was Where Yesterday Lives. Popular series she has penned include the Redemption, Firstborn, Sunrise, and Angels Walking series, and she has also written the nonfiction Miracle Books collection, gift books, and children's books.

She has won several Retailer's Choice Awards, plus 2005 and 2007 Gold Medallions for Oceans Apart and Ever After, respectively. Her other books include Longing, Coming Home - The Baxter Family: A Story of Undying Hope, Fiteen Minutes, The Family of Jesus, The Friends of Jesus, In This Moment, and To The Moon and Back.

(Bowker Author Biography)