Christy Awards

In the wake of WWII, a grieving fisherman submits a poem to a local newspaper: a rallying cry for hope, purpose . . . and rocks. Its message? Send me a rock for the person you lost, and I will build something life-giving. When the poem spreads farther than he ever intended, Robert Bliss's humble words change the tide of a nation. Boxes of rocks inundate the tiny, coastal Maine town, and he sets his calloused hands to work. Decades later, Annie Sawyer is summoned back to Ansel-by-the-Sea when she learns her Great-Uncle Robert, the man who became her refuge during the hardest summer of her youth, is now the one in need of help. But what greets her is a mystery: a wall of heavy boxes hiding in his home. Memories of stone ruins on a nearby island ignite a fire in her anthropologist soul to uncover answers. Together with the handsome and enigmatic postman, Annie uncovers the story layer by layer, yearning to resurrect the hope GrandBob once held so dear and to know the truth behind the chasm in her family's past. But mending what has been broken for so long may require more of her and those she loves than they are prepared to give.

When Ivy Rose returns to her hometown to oversee an estate sale, she discovers her grandmother left behind more than trinkets and photo frames. She provided a path to the truth behind Ivy's adoption-- but a key piece to the mystery is missing. Twenty-four years earlier, Harvey James finds an abandoned newborn who gives him a sense of human connection for the first time in his life. His desire to care for the baby runs up against the stark fact that he is homeless. As he becomes entwined with two people seeking to help him find his way, Harvey knows he must keep the baby a secret or risk losing the only person he's ever loved.

For decades, three generations of women of Old Depot Grocery have been keeping secrets from each other. When Sarah returns home with hopes of running the store, the long-buried past will be brought into the light and threaten not only to destroy the family business but sever the family ties.

Within weeks of Germany's invasion of Poland, the brutal realities of occupation rob Zosia Lewandowska of the man she loves. As ghetto walls rise and the occupiers tighten their grip on the city of Krakow, Zosia meets Tadeusz Pankiewicz, a pharmacist who dares to operate a pharmacy in the heart of Krakaow's ghetto. Determined to help, no matter the cost, Zosia joins Tadeusz and his staff as they risk their lives to aid the Jewish people trapped by Nazi oppression. Hania Silberman's carefree girlhood is shattered as her family is forced into the ghetto. Struggling to survive in a world hemmed in by walls and rife with cruelty and despair, she reunites with her former neighbor, Zosia, who now passes through the ghetto gates each day to work at the Pharmacy Under the Eagle. But as deportations winnow the ghetto's population and snatch those she holds dear, Hania's resiliency is tested in impossible ways. Zosia and Hania's lives intertwine as they face the griefs and fears thrust upon them by war. Until one day, they are forced to make a desperate choice, one that will inexorably bind them together, even as they are torn apart.

What if you met your twenty-three-year-old self in a dream? What would you say? Brock Matthews' once promising life is unraveling. His coffee company. His marriage. So when he discovers his vivid dreams--where he encounters his younger self--might let him change his past mistakes, he jumps at the chance. The results are astonishing, but also disturbing. Because getting what Brock wants most in the world will force him to give up the one thing he doesn't know how to let go ... and his greatest fear is that it's already too late.

At the age of eighteen, musician and songwriter Cooper O'Connor took everything his father held dear and drove 1,200 miles from home to Nashville, his life riding on a six-string guitar and the bold wager that he had talent. But his wager soon proved foolish. Five years after losing everything, he falls in love with Daley Cross, an angelic voice in need of a song. But just as he realizes his love for Daley, Cooper faces a tragedy that threatens his life as well as his career. With nowhere else to go, he returns to his remote home in the Colorado Mountains, searching for answers about his father and his faith. When Daley shows up on his street corner twenty years later, he wonders if it's too late to tell her the truth about his past and if he is ready to face it. A radical retelling of the story of the prodigal son, Long Way Gone takes us from tent revivals to the Ryman Auditorium to the tender relationship between a broken man and the father who never stopped calling him home.

After a broken engagement, genealogist Nora Bradford decides focusing on her work and her novels is safer than romance. But when John, a former Navy Seal, hires her to help find his birth mother, the spark between them is undeniable. However, he's dating someone, and Nora is hesitant. Is she ready to abandon her fictional heroes and risk her heart for real?

The love story of C.S. Lewis and his wife, Helen Joy Davidman Gresham, was improbable--and seemingly impossible. Their Eros-story led to some of Lewis's greatest works, yet Joy is most commonly known for how she died. Becoming Mrs. Lewis allows us to see how this brilliant and passionate woman lived--and why she stole Jack's heart