Kicking

She can fight the world. She can fight herself. But she can't outrun grace forever.

Sixteen-year-old Zoe Prescott is out of chances. After one reckless night too many—running from police, bleeding, and terrified—her stepfather wants to send her to a lock-down facility for "at-risk youth." But her grandmother Esther, whom she barely knows, offers a different path: Come live with me. Start over. Zoe agrees, but only because the alternative is worse.

Carver Harbor, Maine, is the last place Zoe wants to be—cold, quiet, and full of weirdos. Worst of all is Rachel, the tall, eccentric church lady in the colorful hats who somehow gets appointed as Zoe's mentor. Rachel is cheerful, persistent, and uncomfortably perceptive. Zoe hates it.

Zoe tries to keep rebelling, but one bad choice lands her with a community service sentence at the church—an embarrassing punishment that unexpectedly pushes her into the orbit of a few new friends. Together, they stumble into a mission of their own: catching the vandal who's been targeting the fledgling church.

As sobriety brings light, Zoe is forced to confront things she's long tried to avoid: her burning anger, her cold fear, and that quiet, lifelong sense that she's not really alone—that someone or something has been there all along.

When the walls she's built finally start to crack, Zoe must decide whether to keep kicking against the very people trying to save her—or to take the first fragile step toward a life she never believed she could have.

Gritty, honest, and deeply compassionate, Kicking is a powerful Christian novel about a runaway heart, the grandmother who refuses to give up on her, and the unexpected community that helps her fight her way back to hope.

This is Book 2 of the New Beginnings Christian Fiction Series. Readers say this series is best read in order. Binge the completed series:
Book 1: Knocking
Book 2: Kicking
Book 3: Searching
Book 4: Knitting
Book 5: Working
Book 6: Splitting