My Books


Awake
Book One of the New Order Series
Short Summary

The missionary apartment in North Platte, Nebraska, was like most missionary apartments. In other words, it was a collection of junk and filth, left over from a dozen years of nineteen year-old inhabitants. Among the old socks and torn pants, there was a sturdy attache case that had only gone unclaimed because it was locked and no amount of prying could open it. Finally, while cleaning a cabinet, Elder Eric Hopkins found a secret panel that housed the key.

When opened, the attache case was found to contain two pieces of beat-up, but expensive, pieces of jewelry: a necklace and a ring.

Upon returning home from his mission, Eric went to BYU. After admiring Rebekah Hughes from afar for several months, his friends manage to coerce him into asking her out. Their relationship, however, isn’t extremely romantic. He becomes her statistics tutor, and, despite his desires to change their involvement to something less scholarly and more personal, Rebekah doesn’t seem interested.

The semester ends, and she calls him to tell him that she’s bringing him a Christmas present (she also says she is on her way, and she’ll be there in a few minutes). Without any present to give in return, Eric tears his apartment apart for something decent, and reluctantly chooses the necklace he’d found on his mission.

All of the preceding information, however, is discovered in flashbacks. The book begins a week before Christmas:

Rebekah, a gifted violinist, is performing in a nationally televised Christmas concert at Temple Square. Her father, an extremely wealthy businessman, is inviting the family to join him in England to spend the holidays. Rebekah’s mother and sister have already left, and Rebekah plans to fly out the morning after the concert, and she asked Eric to drive her. He is pleased, of course, not only because she asked him, but also because she is wearing the necklace he gave her.

Before he gets a chance to meet Rebekah after the concert, however, she is kidnapped. He sees the abductor fleeing from the concert with Rebekah in tow, but in an attempt to apprehend them, Eric gets severely wounded.

Well, hilarity ensues, and one page is far too short to summarize everything. Suffice it to say that they end up on the run.

Oh, and did I mention that this is also funny? Not slapstick-funny, but funny nonetheless.

Also: It’s the first book in a series of three, which follow the story of Eric and Rebekah and the terrorist plot they have discovered.

This summary is a portion of the plot synopsis that was delivered to Covenant Communications while they were making a decision about publication.