From Your Valentine

Maris Ellery keeps her grief like a ledger—tidy, counted, and locked away. As a widow and the director of her late husband’s funeral home, she has spent four years perfecting the art of being invisible, finding safety in the silence of the dead and the distance of a back-row pew. Her only secret rebellion is tucking handwritten Scripture into casket linings, a private message to a God she is no longer sure she trusts.

When she is reluctantly appointed to the planning team for Grace on the Hill’s “Feast of True Love,” Maris braces herself for the usual commercial clichés of chocolates and photo booths. Instead, she finds herself challenged by Pastor Thayer Colson, a man whose intense passion for the sacrificial history of Saint Valentine mirrors her own raw understanding of loss. Together, they envision something different: a tactile vigil where the grieving can pin the names of their loved ones to a rugged, white-draped cross.

As a flashy developer threatens to turn the sacred event into a shallow spectacle and local gossip begins to swirl, Maris and Thayer are forced to confront their own “loyal citizenship” to safety. In a world that demands comfort over conviction, Maris must decide if she is willing to remain a “loyal citizen of grief” or risk the terrifying, beautiful thaw of living again.

For if love is truly as strong as death, then hope might be the greatest risk of all.

#feastoftruelove