​She believed them when they said if she prayed harder, loved better, submitted more, her husband would change. They were wrong.

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KELSEY MITCHELL spent fourteen years drowning in a marriage to a charming narcissist who used Scripture as a weapon and the church as a shield. Todd is handsome, charismatic, and widely regarded as the tragic victim of a difficult wife. But when her daughter’s illness becomes another tool in Todd’s arsenal, Kelsey stops drowning and starts swimming.

 

ALEX BECHTEL is an accidental pastor with a giant dog named Obadiah, a 1995 Lincoln donated by the church, and zero patience for spiritual abuse disguised as godliness. He’s not looking for complications. Kelsey Mitchell is nothing but. When she walks back into his world, he can’t seem to stay away—from her, from the kids, from the mess her ex left behind. Alex tells himself it’s just a ministry to restore her faith. 

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He’s wrong. But is he willing to pay the price to love a woman like Kelsey?

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With her children’s lives hanging in the balance, Kelsey must find the courage to do what the church told her was unthinkable. Even if it costs her everything. 

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Swimming to the Surface is an emotional novel about spiritual abuse, found family, and one woman's fight to reclaim her life from the man and the system that tried to drown her. Devastating and hopeful in equal measure, this book offers hope when it feels like there’s none.

For every woman who was told to stay.
For every woman who chose survival instead.