“A woman wrestles with her faith while trying to move on from a complicated relationship in Miller’s elegant, penetrating debut. Shade Doe’s life is turned upside down when her husband, Stan, dies suddenly from a heart attack. Shade, who met and married Stan when she was a pregnant teenager, idolized her husband for the entirety of their 20-year marriage. Now 36, she is shocked when she discovers that the man she married was a monster who had been abusing her daughter, Addy. Moving to the coast of Michigan, Shade attempts to repair the broken relationship between herself and Addy, who struggles with substance abuse and who also became a mother as a teen, to two-year-old Tyler. Shade fears that her daughter’s addicion has created a home unfit for Tyler, and when she is suddenly left with the responsibility of taking care of him, she must double her efforts at the bakery where she works. As Tyler grows up, she meets Brent, Tyler’s baseball coach, and she feels herself opening up to romance for the first time in years. Only a renewed faith in God’s love is able to bring Shade out of her self-loathing. Fans of Karen Kingsbury will love this effecting tale of redemption.” – Copyright (c) 2019 Publishers Weekly PWxyz LLC. Used by permission.

“All the more impressive when considering that “The Essence of Shade” is author Deborah Jean Miller’s debut as a novelist, this deftly crafted story showcases her distinctive and entertaining narrative style that will hold her reader’s fully engaged attention from first page to last.” – Midwest Book Review, October 2019.