We first met Janet as a secondary character in Josi Kilpack’s novel “Earning Eternity.” Now Janet has center stage in this deeply touching novel of trial and conflict.
Janet works as a buyer for an upscale department store. She loves her job, but the stress of a high power career and being a single mother is getting to her. She is finding it harder and harder to keep up the frantic pace her life demands and her prescriptions are running out. She just needs a little bit, just a little boost, and she can keep going. With the help of a co-worker, she gets those prescriptions refilled, too tired to care that they were obtained illegally.
Tally is a good, kind-hearted man, and when he meets Janet through an accidental exchange of day planners, he is immediately drawn to her. Although they come from two different worlds, they quickly fall in love, and decide to get married. There’s just one problem, though – Tally doesn’t know she’s addicted.
Throughout the course of their marriage, there are good days and bad days, and then the bad days start getting worse. Janet’s health is going down, her addiction spiraling out of control. Tally doesn’t know what to do to save his marriage and Janet’s small son is paying the price. It’s not until Janet hits absolute rock bottom that the pieces fall into place, and Tally realizes what his wife has been going through. He doesn’t know if there’s any way out.
I appreciated this novel quite a bit for bringing to light the fact that prescription drug abuse is on the rise, and that it is not uncommon for an LDS woman to fall prey. The reader is shown the substance abuse program Janet goes through, as well as the fight she has every day to get clean and stay clean. There’s no sugar coating in this story; drug abuse is not pretty and neither is the road to recovery, but it can be done, and there is light at the end of the tunnel.
This is my favorite of Josi Kilpack’s books, although I have enjoyed all of them.
(This book was published in 2003 by Cedar Fort Incorporated.)
