God Spare the Girls

"Read it for twists on twists, meditations on faith, and a deeply thoughtful treatment of an evangelical community." -- Glamour, Beach Reads That Are Like Summer in a Book

"A thoughtful and candid meditation on faith, family, and forgiveness . . . fabulous." --Claire Lombardo, New York Times bestselling author of The Most Fun We Ever Had

Recommended by Good Housekeeping, Elle, Parade, Real Simple, Glamour, Refinery29, Bustle, Oprah Daily, The Millions, Shondaland, Yahoo!, Literary Hub, and more!

A mesmerizing debut novel set in northern Texas about two sisters who discover an unsettling secret about their father, the head pastor of an evangelical megachurch, that upends their lives and community--a story of family, identity, and the delicate line between faith and deception.

Luke Nolan has led the Hope congregation for more than a decade, while his wife and daughters have patiently upheld what it means to live righteously. Made famous by a viral sermon on purity co-written with his eldest daughter, Abigail, Luke is the prototype of a modern preacher: tall, handsome, a spellbinding speaker. But his younger daughter Caroline has begun to notice the cracks in their comfortable life. She is certain that her perfect, pristine sister is about to marry the wrong man--and Caroline has slid into sin with a boy she's known her entire life, wondering why God would care so much about her virginity anyway.

When it comes to light, five weeks before Abigail's wedding, that Luke has been lying to his family, the entire Nolan clan falls into a tailspin. Caroline seizes the opportunity to be alone with her sister. The two girls flee to the ranch they inherited from their maternal grandmother, far removed from the embarrassing drama of their parents and the prying eyes of the community. But with the date of Abigail's wedding fast approaching, the sisters will have to make a hard decision about which familial bonds are worth protecting.

An intimate coming-of-age story and a modern woman's read, God Spare the Girls lays bare the rabid love of sisterhood and asks what we owe our communities, our families, and ourselves.

"A deeply felt book about love -- love for family and community, for people who sustain you and people who disappoint you. And love for God, too, which Kelsey McKinney writes about with humane and incisive frankness."--Linda Holmes, New York Times bestselling author of Evvie Drake Starts Over

"The accomplishment of this canny novel is in positing coming of age itself as a loss of faith--not only in the church, but in our parents, our family, and the world as we thought we understood it." -- Rumaan Alam, New York Times bestselling author of Leave the World Behind and Rich and Pretty

KELSEY McKINNEY is a freelance features writer and cofounder of Defector Media. She previously worked as a staff writer at Vox, Fusion, and Deadspin. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, GQ, Cosmopolitan, and New York magazine, among other publications. Raised Evangelical in north Texas, she now lives in Washington, DC, with her husband and dog. God Spare the Girls is her first novel.