Glory Unbound

Shackled to a controlling boyfriend by gold bracelets locked on her wrists, will she ever learn to live on her own terms?

Chicago, 1984. Glory Bishop wishes to feel safe in love. Rescued by her unwanted fiancé from her abusive mother’s violence, the seventeen-year-old warily moves into his wealthy mom’s luxurious house to get away. Overwhelmed and confused by the kindness and grace her host shows, Glory struggles to know how to behave.

Blossoming in the new environment where she is treated like a princess, the scarred teenager finally starts to feel good about her life. But when her controlling intended takes her to senior prom instead of the boy she’d planned on, she’s mortified when he roughly drags her away from her drunken friends.

Can she accept an offer of freedom and independence, or will she fall further under his control?

Glory Unbound is the dramatic second book in the Glory Bishop women’s literary fiction series. If you like brave characters, tense twists and turns, and unwavering hope, then you’ll adore Deborah L. King’s powerful story of self-determination.

Buy Glory Unbound and enjoy a compelling novel today!

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Excerpt

Each step she took, she prayed the cuts and welts wouldn’t start bleeding again. Fighting against the biting winds of the frigid February night, with her bracelets jingling softly, Glory tried to pick up her pace, but the moist bandages on her legs rubbed against her long skirt and loosened. Her head ached from that fall against the metal bed frame, and the gauze covering the gash was barely enough to staunch the blood flow. The purging shouldn’t have been a surprise. She must have been possessed by demons to say the things she’d said to her mother. Did demons of doubt make me question God’s will?

“What if God sent somebody else for me?”

Did demons of disrespect loosen my tongue and cause me to speak against Malcolm?

“Mama, he’s too old for me! I’m only seventeen! I don’t wanna marry him!”

Did demons of worldliness make me forget my place, make me ungrateful, make me argue?

“Why can’t I be normal? I hate this!”

Pulling her collar tighter, Glory walked the two blocks up Seventy-Fifth Street to the store with the pay phone. She had no idea who she’d call. She wished she could call her friends Tressa and Christy, but having no phone at home, she hadn’t bothered to learn their numbers. She could call the salon, but her boss and best friend, Herschel, was not likely to be there on a Monday night, and what would she tell him? He’d want her to go to the hospital, but that was out of the question. And what would I tell a doctor? They might lock her up if she said she was injured in a demon purge.

Glory shivered. The small movement sent lightning bolts through her aching head and caused her undershirt to rub against the open wounds on her back that she hadn’t been able to reach. That old extension cord, cracked and jagged in places, had scraped across her skin, raising welts and opening cuts, digging into the flesh on her left side, arm, and leg and on her back. Her mother wielded the weapon, shouting prayers to bind Glory’s demons, and Glory sobbed and screamed for Jesus and begged for mercy. And when she could scream and cry no more, when she had no energy left to fight, when the pain was so much that she could no longer feel it, Glory drifted off to sleep while her mother pressed a pillow over her face to see if God would take her this time.

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Book Club Questions

The author uses the literary device of interludes throughout the novel. Did you find this technique useful or intrusive?
Glory Unbound is a love story; or is it?
How can the bracelets Glory received from Malcolm be compared to Glory’s character?
Who truly loved Glory?
Who did Glory love?
Do you think Glory lived happily ever after?