Marked by Grace: an Ash Wednesday Romance of Repentance, Second Chances, and a Love Rebuilt in Truth

A town that never forgets. A past they can’t escape. And a season of grace that changes everything.On Ash Wednesday, the last place Mara Ellison wants to be is in a church pew. She especially doesn’t want to be in the sanctuary of Haven Ridge Community Church, where every stained-glass window reflects the memory of the year her family fell apart.Mara planned to slip into the back row, hide behind a hymn book, and leave before the benediction. She didn’t plan on being seen. And she certainly didn’t plan on running into Ethan Caldwell.Ethan is no longer the boy she remembers. He is a carpenter with steady hands and a quiet strength, a man who fixes broken porches and storm-damaged rafters for a living. But lately, Ethan hasn’t known how to repair the one thing that matters most: the distance between him and God after a professional failure that the town refuses to let him forget.When the ashes are pressed onto their foreheads—Remember that you are dust—Mara and Ethan feel the words land like a vow. Not a vow of perfection, but of honesty.Drawn together by a community service project and a shared Lenten challenge to “return,” they begin to build a tentative friendship amidst the winter chill. But as the snow melts and Easter approaches, old headlines and buried secrets rise to the surface. Mara is convinced her past disqualifies her from love, while Ethan believes he must fix himself before he can offer his heart.If faith is real, it must hold under the weight of confession. If love is from God, it won’t demand a flawless story—only a surrendered one.From the quiet corners of the town library to the sunrise on Easter morning, Marked by Grace is a moving novella about two wounded people learning that the way home isn’t found in hiding, but in letting themselves be known.This heartwarming Christian romance explores the beauty of repentance, the courage of second chances, and the healing power of a love rebuilt in truth.