I picked up Sheila Walsh’s The Longing in Me: How Everything You Crave Leads to the Heart of God to add some diversity to my reading. Most Christian books by female authors are explicitly written for women, so I don’t pick them up. However, when the marketing material for this book mentioned nothing of the sort, I figured I’d check it out. I’d not heard of Walsh before this book, so I didn’t know what I was getting into. As with many others, this book written to and for women. (I do wish that had been made known.) That didn’t stop me from finishing it, but I’m certainly not the target audience.

The bulk of the book is Walsh’s story about leaving her ex-husband, later marrying another man, and then the problems they’ve had, and trying to connect her life’s desires with that of King David’s. I didn’t get how the subtitle (How Everything You Crave Leads to the Heart of God) fits with the way these stories are presented. There’s a lot of hopping around between stories and chronology with no real linear thought progression or development.

If you’d like to read about Walsh’s life mixed with a long and loose retelling of David’s story, then you might find this interesting. Some of the anecdotes may tug at your heartstrings, but I don’t think they’re worth the price of the book. This one’s definitely not a book for me.

*Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookLook Bloggers book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”