Baker's Wife

The Baker’s Wife by Erin Healy is a Christian fiction mystery novel. The title character, Audrey, is a former pastor’s wife, who near the very start of this book is a suspect in the disappearance of another woman in town, Julie. The rest of the story focuses on the mystery surrounding Julie’s disappearance, her police officer husband Jack’s suspicion of Audrey’s family, and his desperate attempts to locate her. The main backdrop in this story is the bakery owned and operated by Audrey, her former-pastor husband Geoff, and their teenage son. Another character is Diane, a woman fresh out of prison who has ties to the town and also to the missing woman.

When I selected this book as one to read and review as part of Thomas Nelson’s Book Sneeze program, I thought it would be the kind of novel I would start and not be able to put down. Unfortunately, this was not the case. For me, it was slow going at the start, and then picked up some when Audrey’s accident occurred on a foggy morning, and Julie was thought to be the victim of this wreck, but could not be located. I waded through a few more chapters, before the storyline picked up again, and then I forced myself to see it through to the end. The mystery of what had really happened to Julie kept me wondering through a good portion of the book, and there was some suspense as Jack became a loose cannon and was holding people hostage. Apart from the mystery, there were definite themes of evil and forgiveness throughout the book, among both major and minor characters. But overall, it just seemed to be missing something for me. In addition, there was a supernatural element that I didn’t particularly care for- specifically the way that Audrey seemed to physically be affected by the pain of others. Overall, it was an okay novel, but I wouldn’t whole-heartedly recommend it to anyone.