In Brief: Tiny House of God

By Sara Zavacki-Moore. The Wild Rose Press, 2023. 256 pages. $16.99/paperback; $3.99/eBook.

This novel opens with a dramatic scene detailing the death of narrator Willow Morgan’s mother and grandmother. As a child, Willow endured severe neglect and abuse by her bereaved father who lived with alcoholism. Willow then moves to a series of foster homes in which she suffers more neglect. As an adult, she moves into a tiny home where she relishes her solitude.

Author Sara Zavacki-Moore is a member of Rochester (N.Y.) Meeting. In Tiny House of God, which is her second novel, she tells the emotionally compelling story as a series of emails from Willow to an editor at a fictional publishing house called Catharsis Time Press. The story of Willow’s adult life takes place against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Willow reflects on how her distressing relationship with her human father influenced her view of God as heavenly father. She also discusses her repressive experience with a strictly religious foster family. She suggests that the foster father was donating to the church money he received for parenting her instead of providing for her well-being.

As an adult, Willow suffers the death of her infant son and then finds an abandoned baby girl on her doorstep. After taking the baby in and breastfeeding her, Willow hopes that God is giving her a chance to create the happy childhood she never had.

Friends looking for an exploration of spirituality and child raising will find this novel valuable.

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Sharlee DiMenichi is staff writer for Friends Journal.