A Spark of Light

The warm fall day starts like any other at the Center—a women’s reproductive health services clinic—its staff offering care to anyone who passes through its doors. Then, in the late hours of the morning, a frantic and agitated shooter storms in, opens fire, and captures everyone inside.

Hugh McElroy, a police hostage negotiator, races to the site, sets up a perimeter, and starts formulating a strategy to talk to the shooter. His phone starts to buzz with incoming text messages, and when he looks at it, he discovers to his dismay that Wren, his fifteen-year-old daughter, is inside the clinic.

Wren is not alone, however. She will spend the next several hours, maybe the most intense of her life, with a group of individuals she will never forget: a nurse who controls her own fear in order to save the life of an injured patient. A doctor whose religion will be put to the test like never before—one who practises medicine because of it, not in spite of it. A patient turned pro-life protestor who finds herself in the crosshairs of the same fury she has experienced. a young lady who is here to have her pregnancy terminated. And the troubled person themselves, promising to be heard.

This is a tale that unravels the mystery of what drew these disparate people together on that fateful day, told in a bold and captivating narrative structure that counts backward through the hours of the standoff.

One of today's most courageous authors, Jodi Picoult, addresses a complex subject in her engrossing and subtle book. How can we strike a balance between the rights of the unborn child that a pregnant woman carries and her own? What does being a good parent entail? A Spark of Light will stimulate discussion, debate, and, ideally, understanding.