Veil of Secrets - Shannon Ethridge and Kathryn Mackel

Melanie Connors has been through the stress and excitement of a campaign battle before, with her father as the candidate.  Now that her husband is running a presidential campaign, and her daughter is involved with the process, she can't ignore the toll it has taken on her marriage and the scars she suffered in her past.  Will loves Melanie, but can't seem to break through to her heart to get their marriage back on track.  How can they find each other again, in the midst of election chaos, while also dealing with potential terrorists, political scandals, and family trouble all around them?

I've said this before about other books, but it fits well here: this is not an easy book to read.  That isn't to say it isn't a good book, or that it doesn't hold the reader's attention, but that there are several trigger areas that may be difficult for many readers.  Marriage struggles, infidelity, miscarriage, unplanned pregnancy, statutory rape, drug and alcohol use, and prostitutes - all topics included in this book.  Logical in the storyline, dealt with sensitively, but there all the same.  The overarching theme of the story is what Will and Melanie have to do to heal their marriage, and whether they're willing to deal with their pasts and their individual mistakes and scars to get to a better place, together.  Their storyline is done well; it's not glossed over, it's not made to seem easy, but they both have to put a lot of work into understanding where the other person is coming from.  Society frequently tells us that if a marriage is broken, it's easier to dispose of it and move on than to invest in the reparation of the relationship.  This book says differently, and it's an important message.

I give this book 4 stars; books that tackle hard topics can't be easy to write, but this book does it well.
I do wish I had known this was book 2, however, because I would have liked knowing some of the characters better from their earlier story.

You can find Veil of Secrets HERE.
You can find Shannon Ethridge's site HERE (along with lots of resources related to the topics she writes about).
You can find Kathryn Mackel's site HERE.

I received a copy of this book from Thomas Nelson as part of the BookLook Bloggers program, in exchange for my honest review.