Marta

When the Rodrigos are forced to abandon their church and parsonage in Arizona in 1952, the family makes a decision to move to California’s San Joaquin Valley, where fieldwork is plentiful and a rental waits for them. Seventeen-year-old Marta Rodrigo is worried. They’re low on traveling money, the old station wagon is on its last leg, and they don’t know whether the rental will still be available to them. Worse, they are leaving behind Grandmother, who fell during a stroke, and her brother Phil, who is at war in Korea. Marta’s faith is under attack as her fifteen-year-old brother, Julian, has made her life miserable. She sees their Arizona home as their point of contact with God, their cypress trees and terrain serving as her hope. Leaving that normalcy behind, Marta believes life will never be the same; depression leaves her questioning her faith. But when the Rodrigos arrive in Somerville, California, they meet a young man named Henry Barnes who provides Marta with a new hope for the future and helps her reconnect with her trust in a heavenly God who was always faithful and just. Set in the mid-twentieth century, this novel follows a young woman dealing with challenges to her faith when her family moves from Arizona to California.