In Sandy Hope Stewart’s brand new novel, "Entertaining Angels," Rebekah Lang learns lessons about life that shape her belief system forever.

We meet Rebekah at 70 years old as she’s confronting her lifelong guilt, seemingly for the first time, in therapy. What a prologue! I didn’t quite know what to expect, but it certainly wasn’t an admission of killing her best friend.

To understand this confession, Stewart takes us back to 1966, when Rebekah’s adolescence shifted to adulthood.

Every summer, Rebekah’s family spent a week in Myrtle Beach, often including her best friend Pammy. The summer of ‘66 was that of enlightenment for Rebekah. At 15, her awareness of the world outside her own seemed to come into view.

“Injustices should always be seen but never understood.”

Yes, she was still very much ensconced in her own bubble, where the biggest problems were getting to the beach as quickly as possible and catching the eyes of teenage boys.

She was also noticing her parents’ behavior for the first time and meeting people who made her aware of segregation. She questioned why she herself wasn’t more open to people of color in her life. It seems that it took meeting people outside her bubble to show her different perspectives.

We spend three summers in Myrtle Beach with Rebekah. Over that time, she meets and falls in love with Johnny — one of those boys on the beach that caught her eye — with the help of guiding forces along the way. There are encounters I can only assume are angels pushing them toward each other, reaffirming the rightness between Johnny and Rebekah.

Now, a lot of teenage girls would let their self-absorption take over once a boy starts giving them attention, but Pammy remained a constant for Rebekah. They navigated those tough teenage years together, never straying too far from one another. It didn’t hurt that Johnny had no interest in isolating her from the rest of her life.

All of the people in her life seem to be the moral compasses she needed when her own intrusive thoughts led her astray. Between Pammy reminding her not to lie, her parents de-escalating arguments that were leading to hurtful language, and Johnny protecting her virtue, Rebekah had plenty of people saving her from herself and teaching her valuable life lessons.

These lessons came with joy, loss and loneliness. Honestly, I don’t know how Rebekah made it to 70 without therapy. She endured quite a bit, but that is the message of the book: remain rooted in faith, and it’s OK to be angry with God.

Each summer seemed to bring new opportunities and new struggles. I feel like the reader really goes through it with Rebekah: reading her diary entries, looking forward to letters from Johnny, and always having a hunch that something terrible was about to happen.

This story will resonate with people struggling to make sense of what they’ve experienced in life. It’s also written in a way that conjures up imagery of a time before chain restaurants and condominiums.

I’ve never been to Myrtle Beach, but I could picture every detail as it was written. From descriptions of food to the humid air and the way wet sand feels on your feet, the reader is in the story with these characters.

As my first faith-based novel, I can say I am left thinking about my own life and the guilt I may carry that needs to be let go. Hopefully, "Entertaining Angels" does the same for everyone who reads it.

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