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New York Times bestselling author Shelley Shepard Gray spins a beautiful holiday tale of finding love in unexpected places

Twenty-year-old Ruth Stutzman is a wonderful caregiver . . . but she has no experience with children. Laid off because of budget cuts from her job at a retirement home, she's relieved to find work--even if it means temporarily watching widower Martin Rhodes's brood of six

Martin has been doing his best since his wife's passing, but he and the children need help. Their house, once full of laughter and light, has been darkened by sadness. Soon after Ruth arrives, the children are drawn to her warmth and gentleness, and so is Martin, even though he feels it's wrong. But the harder he tries to ignore her, the deeper he begins to care for this attractive young woman who has brought joy back into his children's lives . . . and his own.

Each passing day brings the Rhodes closer to Ruth . . . and closer to Christmas, when she will have to say goodbye. Ruth cannot deny the bond she feels with the children--and with Martin. When her old job becomes available again, Ruth finds herself torn: How can she stay with the Rhodes? And yet how can she go?

So begins Bible scholar Stephen Patterson's fascinating and rigorously researched study, revealing the dramatic story behind the modern discovery of the earliest gospels--accounts that do not portray Jesus just as a martyr, but instead recover a lost ancient Christian tradition centered on Jesus as a teacher of wisdom. The church has long advocated the Pauline view of Jesus as deity and martyr, emphasizing his death and resurrection. But another, earlier, "lost" tradition portrayed Jesus as a teacher of wisdom. As Patterson explains, scholars have now uncovered this community's gospel--the lost Gospel known as "Q."

Patterson also tells the riveting story of the discovery of the Gospel of Thomas, another "wisdom gospel" from the earliest communities that looked to Jesus as their teacher, and of the Egyptian Christian community from which Apollos, a New Testament teacher of Christian wisdom, emerged. Q and Thomas together illuminate a lost chapter in the story of Christian origins, one in which Jesus and other prophets of wisdom advocated something they called "the Way," in which everyone, regardless of race, class, or gender, can become a "child of God."

Winner of the Prose Award for HumanitiesFinalist for the NAACP Image AwardFinalist for the Hurston/Wright Legacy AwardA Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year

No musician has lived a more transformational, or tragic, life than Charlie Parker, one of the most talented and influential figures of the twentieth century. Drawing on decades of original interviews with peers, collaborators, and family members, Stanley Crouch reveals Parker as he was: from the dance clubs of late-night Kansas City, where he learned his craft, to the ballrooms of wartime Harlem, it offers an unprecedented window into the world--and intimate life--of the young genius.