The Girl on the Bench

The Girl on the Bench is Lisa Higgins, an 19-year-old orphan who escapes the bondage of human trafficking and hitchhikes her way into a small Southern town, forever changing her life and that of three of the town's residents.



"Doc" McGinley is a widowed, retired physician who encounters Lisa sitting on a park bench on a winter afternoon. Doc persuades her to trust him when he offers her food and shelter -- a gesture his adult daughter Jennifer resents at the outset and works ardently to undo.



Grace Ann Marshall, a retired college professor and Doc's neighbor, joins him in helping Lisa rebuild her life and adjust to a world of normalcy. Lisa's entry into this new world is bumpy, at best, and she resists embracing the Christian aspect of the lives of Grace Ann and Doc.



Over time, Lisa slowly reveals details of her life in uncaring foster homes that ends when she is kidnapped and forced into the life of a trafficked sex worker at age sixteen.



Grace Ann and Doc's deceased wife were life-long best friends, and after the death of her husband she longs for a romance with the seemingly unaware Doc. Their shared interest in helping Lisa eventually sparks the romance, but only after Lisa is the one to strike the match to ignite the flame that brings them together.



Lisa, Doc and Grace Ann successfully overcome the danger of an effort to kidnap Lisa and return her to the trafficking world, as well as Jennifer's own efforts to remove Lisa from her father's life.



One way in which Lisa and Doc bond is a shared love of his dog, who becomes a fixture throughout the book.



Despite her life's circumstances, Lisa proves to be an extremely intelligent woman with an abundance of common sense and remarkable insight into not only her own life, but that of the other three.



As part of Grace Ann's tutoring, Lisa reads the iconic book To Kill a Mockingbird and draws comparisons to her new life, herself, Grace Ann and Doc. Sharing those insights is but one of the ways she helps transform the lives of the two people who have opened up to her their their homes, their resources and their love.



There are, however, rough edges all around this circle of love. Depression in one character; alcoholism in another; bitterness and feelings of rejection by yet another; and the diagnosis of a life-ending illness for the fourth.



At the heart of The Girl on the Bench is the story of strong women, women not dependent upon or defined by men, who rise above their weaknesses, fears and challenges.



And, most importantly, it is a story with a happy ending.