A Four-Book Christian Romance Series
Four love stories about grief, grace, and the families God assembles out of the pieces we never would have chosen.
Start Here — Book One
Jonathan Duncan buried his wife and most of his faith in the same year.
Since then he's lived inside blueprints and eighty-hour work weeks, because work never asks how he's holding up. Then one night his sister-in-law pounds on his door at three o'clock in the morning. She's frightened, she's running, and she has her two-year-old asleep on her shoulder.
By sunrise, Shawna is gone.
Rose isn't.
Jonathan can design a building for anyone in Spokane. He has no idea how to raise a little girl.
Kylie Hawthorne knows exactly what that costs. A single mother waitressing nights and finishing her degree between shifts, she was abandoned once herself, and she's learned to keep her heart on a short leash. She takes the nanny job because she needs the money. She doesn't plan on loving a child who isn't hers, or the quiet wounded man who hired her.
But Kylie made God a promise, and she means to keep it: she will not build a family with a man who can't lead one. Not for her son. Not for anyone.
And Jonathan is still furious at a God who stood by and watched his wife die.
Before Marie was gone, she pressed her wedding ring into his hand and told him he'd know when it was time to love again. Two years later, he's certain she was wrong.
He has no idea what God is about to do with the wreckage.
A closed-door Christian romance about grief, grace, and the family God assembles out of the pieces we never would have chosen. Guaranteed happily ever after. No cliffhanger.
Read A Reason To Live on Amazon
What You'll Find Inside
These are not gentle stories about tidy people. They're about grief that doesn't lift on schedule, forgiveness that takes decades, and a God who keeps showing up anyway.
Characters who argue with God, walk away from Him, and find their way back. The spiritual arc is the story, not a note tacked onto the end of it.
Instant families, second families, and marriages worth fighting for. The people who end up around your table are rarely the ones you planned on.
Before she died, Marie pressed her wedding ring into his hand and told him he'd know when it was time. These are stories about what comes after the worst thing.
The Complete Series
Each book follows a different couple and stands on its own. Read them in order and you'll watch a whole world come together.
A widower. An abandoned two-year-old. The nanny who won't settle for a man without faith.
Jonathan Duncan lost his wife and his faith in the same year. When his niece is left on his doorstep at three in the morning, he hires Kylie Hawthorne to help him raise her. Neither of them plans on falling in love. Neither of them plans on God.
She learned young that everyone is out for themselves. Then she met a man who wasn't.
A broken marriage and an unplanned pregnancy send Olivia Montgomery back to the one place she swore she'd never return. Fighting for her freedom, she meets Tyler — a man who honors God in everything he does, and whose love is unlike anything she has known. What she doesn't know yet is that Someone loves her even more than he does.
Twenty-six years of marriage. One unforgivable thing. A weekend that could undo all of it.
Cindy Carlton has been married more than two decades to a man who grew cold years ago. When David agrees to a marriage retreat at Diamond Lake, she lets herself hope. David never stopped loving his wife — he just stopped showing it, and built walls so she couldn't reach him again. Neither of them expects what God does with that weekend.
He has everything he ever wanted. He's never been emptier in his life.
Ethan Hawkins plays for the Spokane Sounders and is engaged to a runway model. By every measure he should be happy, and he isn't. When tragedy strikes the Kansas town he left ten years ago, Ethan finally goes back — and finds the answers his heart has been holding onto the whole time.
Before You Start
Questions Readers Ask
No. Each book follows a different couple and stands entirely on its own. That said, characters and places carry across the series, so starting with A Reason To Live gives you the fullest experience.
Closed door throughout. No explicit scenes, no profanity, nothing you'd be uncomfortable recommending at church. Some books deal with hard subjects — grief, abuse, infidelity, loss — but always with care.
A great deal, and it's honest. Characters get angry at God, stop praying, and question whether He was ever there. The spiritual arc is the engine of these stories, not an afterthought.
Formats vary by title. The quickest way to see current availability is to open any book on Amazon using the links on this page.
T.K. Chapin has written more than sixty Christian fiction titles. The Diamond Lake series is a natural next stop, and you can browse everything at tkchapin.com.
One widower. One little girl who has nowhere else to go. And one woman who refuses to settle for less than a man of faith.