Temptation
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Overview
Kyla and Jefferson Blake count their 16 years together as a wonderful blessing from God. Their marriage is passionate, their daughter is a joy, Jefferson's medial career is prospering and they have loyal friends.Kyla knows her newly divorced and lifelong friend, Jasmine, is desperately unhappy and no amount of prayer or encouragement seems to help. But what Kyla doesn't know is that Jasmine has a plan to move her life forward with the type of man she feels she should have married in the first place.
A man like Jefferson.
Alexis Ward, Kyla's, best friend, is single and successful and willing to wait for the right man for all the right reasons. But, when "Mr. Right," Dr. Brian Lewis, finally appears she finds herself facing a new challenge. Does she really have to walk away from what she believes in order to have a man in her life?
As people who love God, Kyla, Jefferson and Alexis discover, each in their own way, what happens when they truly allow God to be first in their relationships.
Full of contemporary characters who struggle to keep their strength, friendships and daily lives framed by the Word of God, Temptation is a novel no reader will soon forget.
Synopsis
Kyla and Jefferson Blake count their sixteen years together as a wonderful blessing from God. Their marriage is passionate, their daughter is a joy, Jefferson's medical career is prospering, and they have loyal friends.
Library Journal
Kyla and Jefferson Blake's marriage is perfect. They have passion, love, a beautiful daughter, status as an influential African American family in Los Angeles, and a boundless faith. Unfortunately, this angers Kyla's friend Jasmine Larson, a recent divorcee. Even after Kyla gets a warning, she doesn't believe that Jasmine would hurt her until the morning she comes home from a trip to find Jasmine in her bed and Jefferson in the shower. As Kyla and Jefferson decide whether to piece their marriage together with the help of their pastor and the Lord, Jasmine schemes to steal Kyla's life for herself. An emotional, realistic look at the devastation temptation can wreak by a bright new author for this new Christian fiction imprint. For all collections.
Editorials
From Barnes & Noble
Our ReviewA Test of Faith
An intriguing and unique romance that will feed the souls of those who believe God is an important part of any relationship, Temptation is the story of one couple's struggle to survive a potential deathblow to their marriage. Author Victoria Christopher Murray keeps her faith and her God at the heart of this tale, tackling difficult issues and raising realistic questions that can test one's faith, beliefs, and religious convictions.
Kyla Blake thinks she has the perfect marriage. She and her physician husband, Jefferson, have a close and loving relationship, a beautiful daughter, and a shared conviction for their religious beliefs. However, a chink appears in this armor of happiness when Kyla suggests to Jefferson that she might like to go to work again because she feels unfulfilled as a stay-at-home mom. The tension it triggers within the marriage is great but not half as bad as what happens when Kyla comes home early from a trip and catches Jefferson in bed with another woman. The fact that the other woman is Kyla's childhood friend, the newly divorced Jasmine, doesn't help matters any.
Crushed and forlorn, Kyla turns to her best friend, Alexis Ward, for solace. Alexis's concerns over her pal's marital woes are compounded by religious and relationship crises of her own. There is a new man in her life, Dr. Brian Lewis, and this relationship feels like it could be the real thing. However, Alexis's conviction to her faith could prove to be an insurmountable obstacle, one that could cost her a man she has come to love. For Brian and Jefferson, the real challenge will be to look deep within themselves and decide what things in life are truly the most important.
Murray does an admirable job of drawing the analogy that marriage, like religion, isn't always perfect or easy. As these men and women struggle with such issues as love, faith, trust, and forgiveness, they find solace, strength, and peace in the tenets of their religion. Although some parts of the ending are a bit convenient, and Murray occasionally succumbs to her own temptation to proselytize, Temptation serves its purpose. Anyone who has ever wrestled with a marriage in trouble or a faith in crisis will recognize the mental and emotional agonies Murray's characters have to deal with.
--Beth Amos