Baker Vaughan

In November 1985, Baker Vaughan lost everything in a single night. His wife Wendy and their unborn child died in childbirth during his second year at Yale seminary, and the future he had imagined-ordination, expanded family, a life of shared purpose-vanished with them. Unable to process the magnitude of his loss, Baker ran. He abandoned seminary, abandoned his faith, and disappeared into the controlled anonymity of Madison Avenue, building a successful corporate career that demanded nothing of his heart.

Twenty-five years later, the dissociation that allowed him to survive has hollowed him out. The son of western Virginia's Episcopal tradition has become a man who no longer recognizes himself-haunted by hotel rooms where he reaches for comfort he can't name, by churches he passes with inexplicable longing, by grief he never processed and a life he never fully inhabited.

Desperate for change, Baker moves to Idaho, hoping geography might accomplish what time hasn't. He joins Trinity Episcopal Church in Boise and befriends former bishop Karl Thomson, but his patterns of self-sabotage run deeper than location can fix. A destructive affair with his religious neighbor Darcy Calhoun forces Baker to confront what he's been running from. His Madison Avenue instincts-efficiency, control, emotional management-clash with Trinity's rhythms of grace and genuine community, but the real battle is interior: a man finally facing the grief that has been chasing him for two decades.

When Baker finds love again with Libby Bradshaw, an athletic and genuine woman who offers the possibility of rebuilding his life, he must answer the question he's been avoiding since Wendy's death: Can he allow himself to be fully present again, or will his guilt and fear destroy this second chance?

Baker Vaughan is an unflinching story about the long aftermath of catastrophic loss-the decades we spend running, the patterns of self-destruction we mistake for survival, and the painful work of finally letting ourselves grieve. Through Baker's journey from grief-stunned flight to genuine presence, we discover that healing doesn't come from outrunning our past, but from finally turning around to face it.

Perfect for readers of Patrick Ryan's Buckeye and Ann Napolitano's Dear Edward.