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Lauren Phillips's life comes crashing down around her in the first four chapters of Robin Gunn's new adult fiction, Echoes. It starts when Lauren gets the grandmother of bad perms and culminates with breaking off her engagement. But just when things look bleakest, her beloved brother Brad shows up with a second-hand computer and links her up to the Internet.
Soon, she is regularly e-mailing K.C. They share a love of the Lord, and of the Brownings' poetry. Lauren starts reading My Utmost for His Highest and drinking Irish Breakfast tea because of K.C.'s recommendations. They open up to one another -- and fall in love. "She held the other half of my heart in her hand" is the way K.C. eventually describes their relationship.
Romance via the Internet -- what could be more 90s? Yet when K.C. suggests, after a year of electronic communication, that they meet face to face, Lauren must deal with her fear of abandonment. She makes an error in judgment which nearly costs her the relationship.
After Lauren betrays K.C., she goes to the Lord in prayer and asks for an opportunity to make things right. A climactic chain of events and coincidences (with God there are no coincidences) leads to a most satisfying conclusion, showing us God's grace.
Woven through the story is author Robin Jones Gunn's wry sense of humor. Lauren is disaster prone; nothing goes smoothly for her. "Things always seem to happen to you" is the way her ex-fiance put it. She accidentally e-mails messages to K.C. that were meant for Brad. She dumps taco salad all over herself at a picnic. Late for a flight to Burbank to attend her old college roommate's wedding, she boards at the last possible moment and ends up in -- Fairbanks!
Gunn blesses her readers with examples of Christian brotherhood in Echoes. Lauren's brother Brad, her best friend, Mindy, and K.C. continually remind her that God is in control and is working out His perfect will for her in His perfect time. We all would do well to encourage our own friends with reminders of God's faithfulness.
Andrea R. Huelsenbeck is a freelance writer in Tempe, AZ.
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