“Wow. Really, that's the first word that springs to mind when you ask
me to sum up Nikki Arana's new release, As I Have Loved You. She grabbed me in the
prologue, when she parts the misty veil between heaven and earth and reveals the plan of
God for one boy's life. And she kept me hooked until the last page. This book made me
cry—which is a real feat—and kept me thinking for days on end. . . . Each
character grows and shifts and changes, alternately taking steps forward on the path to
God and then slipping away down the path to self. But it's the journey they each choose
to make that really illuminates the depths of humanity within them; and it's the place they
finally reach that made me blink back tears and wonder what wonders await me behind the misty
veil.”
— Roseanna White, Christian Review of Books
“This is the story of a boy, and of God's love. But it goes further
than that: It is about God working in lives, in real lives.
“It's about Jeff, a boy with ADD, in itself a controversial disability. It's about how
it leaves a mark on one's life, and gives insights into others' hurting. It is about
his mother, his grandparents, and his girlfriend. But more than that, it is about
struggling in life while working on a closer relationship to God, and working on
obedience in one's life. It is not a story where everything works out, according to
how we consider things working out. It is a story about perseverance, about
working out our salvation with fear and trembling, about accepting that God's
will in our lives is not always the easy road nor the one we want to travel, but in
the long run it is best. It is about doing the hard thing if that is where God puts
you, and being faithful.
“This story is a hard one to read, it is full of pain and heartache, but
it is also about real people. The characters are well conceived, well drawn, and . . .
just real. People you may have passed daily, people who are living next door or down the
street. People who you know or see, but don't know about the heartache in their lives.”
— Betti Cogswell, Christian Fiction Review
