An Absence so Great

by Jane Kirkpatrick Book 2 in the Portraits of the Heart series.

First published 2010

Amazon

3.8(594)

At eighteen Jessie Gaebele leaves Minnesota for Milwaukee and other Midwestern towns, taking charge of studios whose owners have been disabled by mercury poisoning. Professional success brings her closer to the independent business she wants, yet distance cannot erase her forbidden attachment to F. J. Bauer or the harm already surrounding it.

As Jessie learns to frame other people’s lives, she must confront what she has excluded from her own moral picture. The series ends through confession, consequence and grace, presenting Christian redemption as a truth-telling process rather than a convenient release from responsibility.