Love on the Line: A Novel

Identity, attitudes, and culture collide as a mother and
daughter's values and backgrounds are challenged by everyone around them in
this newly updated version of a Laura Castoro classic.

Thea Morgan—no,
Thornton—is thrilled about starting life with her new husband Xavier. After so many years apart, it was truly a blessing
that they found each other again. But the new life is going to take some
adjustment.

Used to being high-powered lawyer, Thea is having difficulty balancing
that with her new role as the preacher’s wife in small town Arkansas. And the
townspeople in Xavier’s new parish are watching her life a hawk—most of all,
Mrs. Hattie Patterson, the chairwoman of Pastoral Relations Committee, who has
her own ideas about how things should be done. With her demanding job and light
skin, Thea will have to go far to prove to the people—Mrs. Hattie—of St.
Hurricane AME Church that she can be who she is and still be one of them.

On the other side of the country, Thea’s daughter Jesse is having an
identity crisis of her own. Off at college and away from those who’ve known her
for her entire life, Jesse has the chance to reinvent herself. But is it a
chance worth taking? The child of a light-skinned black woman and a white man,
Jesse has blond hair and blue eyes. No one would know her heritage if she
didn’t tell them, leaving Jesse to face a difficult realization: is she forging
a new path in life, free of any preconceived notions? Or is she hiding her
identity and denying her roots?

With skill and grace,
Laura Castoro deftly examines issues of race and women’s place in the world
that fans, new and old, will revel in for years to come.

“Entertaining, touching, and insightful.” - New York Times bestselling author Susan Elizabeth Phillips on Crossing the Line

“Kudos to Laura Castoro for creating an amazingly realistic romance novel that speaks to the pain, happiness, love and drama that transcend all races and cultures. Her characters are a combination of the simple, everyday people, and those complicated creatures born just a cut above the norm. We know them all... and that allows us to laugh out loud at their mishaps, and to celebrate their happy endings.” - Janis Kearney, author of Cotton Field of Dreams: A Memoir

“A wonderful and timely love story that shows us how love and faith can make a healing bridge between our past and the future. Moving and lovely.” - Sandra Kitt

"Laura Castoro is back with Thea Morgan and her daughter, Jesse, as they turn heartaches of the past into promises for the future. An authentic, warmly told story of love lost and reclaimed." - A'Lelia Bundles, Author, On Her Own Ground: The Life and Times of Madam C. J. Walker

“Laura Castoro writes passionate stories that tug at the heart and resonate with you long after the last page has been read.” - Francis Ray

“Castoro’s many-faceted novel honestly addresses significant universal issues—the give-and-take of marriage, self-sacrifice, the search for identity, prejudice, and preconceptions. Readers who enjoy emotionally fulfilling stories will find that this one more than fits the bill.”  - Booklist