Theresa Manning: or A Girl in Progress

The brutal beating of a young pregnant woman forces a former co-worker to confront the painful memories of his brief and failed affair with her and the choices he made in life that brought him to her side at the hospital six months later. As doctors struggle to save her life, he must explain to police his role in the fatal argument in which the woman, Theresa Manning, killed her husband. The police want to know why, as she lay bleeding and barely clinging to life, her husband nearby in a pool of blood, the only person she considered calling was a man she supposedly had not seen in nearly half a year.

Theresa Manning is a powerful novel about two people trying to find their paths to redemption, believing they did not need each other but discovering they needed each other more than they could ever know. It takes the reader on a journey of discovery as the events of the fateful evening unfold. In the end is the realization that sometimes redemption is not the final destination in life, but the beginning of another long and equally difficult journey.