There’s a little bit of Libby Hawthorne in most of us. She’s the girl with lots of dreams, not a lot of time, who often settles for less than what she aspires to just because it’s easier. Libby’s character has spent years waiting for a promotion that won’t come, and trusting the wrong people in the process. Hope Lyda asks the question of her heroine: what happens when a girl like Libby decides to aspire to be more – in work, love, life, and faith? And how are the lives of her friends changed along the way?

Hope Lyda has a way with her words and characters. The reader walks briskly along the streets of Seattle, enjoying lattes and the rain, the stunning architecture and the quiet little bookstore that Libby visits as her Sunday morning ritual. The supporting cast is interesting, equally flawed, and mutually in need of some sort of redemption. Libby is the catalyst in more lives than she could ever imagine.

It is easy to wrap oneself in Libby’s issues, identify with her foibles, laugh aloud at the crazy antics of her psycho boss and finding solace in the daily downloads with her friends. When Libby is given an emotional and professional blow – demotion in her job, in order to keep her job – of course she runs to her best friend for counsel. What Libby fails to realize is that by completely focusing on her own dreams and plans, she’s failed to notice that her friends and family are going through issues of their own. What’s worse, when asked to keep an enormous secret, she finds herself enmeshed in a web of lies that further removes her from what is most important. Libby can only become the person she’s aspired to be by listening, learning, and risking all by opening her heart to the one she holds most dear.

Libby’s story is one we should all take to heart. Take your eyes off yourself and listen to those around you. My mother always said, God gave you two ears and only one mouth for a reason, and this is a lesson Libby seems to learn as well. By listening to and helping others, she finds herself able to come to grips with what really matters in her own life.Reviewed by: Ashley Ludwig