Best of Family & Relationships
Best of Family & Relationships
"So Many Books, So Little Time!"
A Place to Belong: Josephine’s Story - Discerning God's Best Series Book 5.5
A Shumard Oak Bend Companion Christmas Novella
by
Heidi Gray McGill
Genre/s
Religious
Publish Date
November 19, 2025
Short Description
A wounded Civil War veteran. An unwed mother with nowhere left to turn. In a town full of second chances, will a marriage of convenience become the love story neither dared hope for?
When a scandal forces Josephine Blake to flee everything she’s ever known, she arrives in a snowy frontier town with little more than a secret and a swollen belly. Shumard Oak Bend wasn’t her destination—but it just might be her rescue. Faced with town gossip, an uncertain future, and a past she can’t undo, Josephine finds unlikely allies in a doctor, a lawman, and a wounded veteran with one arm and a guarded heart.
With Christmas approaching and her baby’s birth imminent, Josephine is offered a second chance—not just at survival, but at belonging. In a marriage of convenience rooted in grace and not romance, she must decide if healing means hiding… or finally being seen.
A Place to Belong is a powerful standalone novella in the Discerning God’s Best series, filled with redemptive hope, heart-tugging romance, and the kind of found family that changes everything.
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Book's Awards
Description
Some fresh starts begin in silence… others begin with a baby’s cry.
Josephine Blake has run out of places to hide. Pregnant and burdened by secrets, she flees the whispers of Philadelphia, clinging to the hope that her former boardinghouse roommate in Shumard Oak Bend will take her in. When a weathered but kind-hearted miner offers her a ride west, she dares to believe she might finally outrun her shame.
But hope comes at a price… and Josephine isn’t sure she can afford it.
Jeremiah Remington lost everything in the war—his family, his home, even one arm. Now a quiet fixture in the growing town, he avoids entanglements, content to live on the edges of community. But when Josephine arrives with wary eyes, an iron will, and a child on the way, Jeremiah is drawn to something he thought he’d given up for good—a second chance at family.
As Christmas nears and the town orphanage opens its doors, Josephine is offered a new beginning—not just for herself, but for her daughter. But when the past threatens to unravel it all, she must decide: keep running… or stay and fight for the place—and the man—God may have prepared for her.
A marriage of convenience. A scandalous past. A baby who changes everything. And the kind of love only a Savior can give.
If your heart longs for stories of quiet redemption, fierce hope, and homes built one act of grace at a time, A Place to Belongwill welcome you in. Fans of Misty M. Beller, Liz Tolsma, Karen Witemeyer, and Jody Hedlund will feel right at home in this heartfelt Christmas novella.
A Place to Belong is a standalone Christmas companion novella in the Discerning God’s Best series, following Written on My Heart (Book 5).
