On the Seventh Day
David and Kari Ames have a solid, loving marriage and a strong family life that centers on their four-year-old daughter, Mikayla. He is a professor at Tulane University. She works but is a devoted mother. They are both active in their church. Their lives in an upscale neighborhood in New Orleans seem ideal until Mikayla is kidnapped. Is the kidnapper the same man who has been kidnapping and killing children on the seventh day of their captivity? The stress of the kidnapping and subsequent investigation strains the Ames marriage as Kari’s dark past is revealed. Is she somehow indirectly responsible? The fidelity of their marriage is tested as David’s attractive assistant offers him solace, and Kari’s old love, now an FBI agent, takes charge of the effort to find the child. Jakes, author of books on faith (Let It Go, 2012) and executive producer of the movie Woman: Thou Art Loosed, offers a novel that raises questions of faith and forgiveness. --Vanessa Bush