If You Were Mine ...: A Novel

St. Cyril of Jerusalem wrote: "The dragon sits by the side of the road, watching those who pass. Beware lest he devour you." The late author Flannery O'Connor suggested that no matter the particular manifestation of the dragon, "it is of this mysterious passage past him, or into his jaws, that stories of any depth will always be concerned to tell." If You Were Mine . . . deals gently and compassionately with a very painful consequence of falling into sexual temptation from the perspective of a young woman's experience. It is a love story turned tragic, as the protagonist fails to listen to her heart in her own defining moment before the dragon-a story told simply and sweetly, offering eventual hope, healing . . . and release from the dragon's jaws.