Secrets, Danger, Refuge
Written by Lisa Prysock
Release Date: 09.08.26
Genre: Christian Mystery & Suspense Romance,
5 Stars!
Sadie’s grief was tangled with questions about God. Danger was tangled with trust. Her past was tangled with everything unfolding around her. Even in a story filled with elegant rooms, hidden corners, and the beauty of the atrium, Sadie’s heart was still trying to make sense of what God was doing.
Her parents had been missionaries. They had given their lives to serving Him, and Sadie had spent years living with the question she could not quite silence. Why had God not protected them? Sadie knew Christian truth. She knew God was good. She knew what she had been taught about His love. Grief had reached deeply into the way she understood Him.
Then there is Tucker. His faith is steady. He trusts the Lord. He speaks about God’s faithfulness because he absolutely believes it. When Sadie is struggling, he does not hand her a tidy answer and expect the pain to disappear. He keeps pointing her toward the One he trusts. “The Lord is a refuge for all who trust in Him. He is always faithful.” I loved his steadiness.
I loved his courage too. Tucker can step into danger when he needs to, but what made him so appealing to me was the way his faith affected the man he already was. He relies on God. He treats Sadie with respect. He sees her courage and intelligence. He becomes someone she can depend on while allowing her to remain completely herself.
The two of them together made this story beautiful. Sadie is curious enough to get herself into situations that made me want to reach through the page and say, “Perhaps we reconsider this one?” Tucker is often right there trying to keep up with whatever she has managed to uncover.
Their trust grows naturally. So does the affection. Somewhere in all of that danger and mystery, Sadie’s spiritual questions begin moving too. She thinks about Job. She wrestles with God’s sovereignty and goodness. She thinks about the faith of her parents. Eventually, she has to look at her own heart. “I’ve been blind to my own heart.” That reached deeper than I expected. Sadie had spent so much time asking what God had allowed that she had not fully seen what years of grief had done inside her.
One of my favorite thoughts in the book comes when she is reminded that when life seems tangled to us, God may be creating an intricate pattern we cannot yet see. There was that word again. Tangled.
Sadie could see pieces: loss, fear, and questions. God could see the whole pattern. That is where The Girl in the Atrium became more than an intriguing Gilded Age mystery for me. Jesus is named. The precious Gospel is present. Sadie thinks seriously about God’s character and what it means to trust Him. Prayer, missions, biblical truth, the Trinity, and suffering in the life of a believer all have a place in this story.
I especially appreciated that Sadie was allowed to ask hard questions and keep bringing them to God.
The Girl in the Atrium gave me mystery, danger, a heroine I wanted to shake and hug in equal measure, and one wonderfully steady man of faith.
It reminded me that the knots I want explained, untangled, or removed are never outside God’s sovereign hand. He is weaving His plan and fulfilling His purpose. “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.” Romans 8:28 NASB1995
I’m part of the author’s ARC team and received an eARC for review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
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