My Hands Came Away Red by Lisa McKay

This novel is compellingly written, with a clear voice and great characterization. I was drawn right in. The story revolves around the first hand account of a young woman who goes on a mission’s trip to Indonesia to help build a church. Things go horribly wrong when violence erupts between the Muslims and Christians in the area and the people of the village are slaughtered. The young people of the missions team take to the mountains to escape the carnage.

Lisa McKay did a fantastic job of capturing the emotion and hardship as well as the camaraderie that develops and the emotional turmoil that results from such horrific events. I appreciated the fact that she did not shy away from presenting the questions that are inevitable in such circumstances: “Why did God allow this?” and so on.