The Climb

About the book

Every Sunday, Corey and Monica Lawson take their place in the third pew at First Mount Zion Baptist Church, and every Sunday the whole congregation calls them goals. Sixteen years married. A contractor with a country-soul voice and an AP History teacher with a Delta’s poise. The couple everybody in Melville, Georgia, wants to be.

But the space between them on that pew has been growing for years. There is a grief they never said out loud, a phone that lights up at the wrong times, and a perfume Monica didn’t buy. When the truth finally comes out, it doesn’t stay quiet. It spills into the fellowship hall, the school hallways, and every group chat in town.

Now, with their jobs, their reputations, and their faith on the line, Corey and Monica have to decide whether a marriage this broken can climb back. With Pastor Wilkins, the church mothers, and family who refuse to let them go, they start the hardest climb of their lives.

But some secrets are patient. And the past isn’t finished with the Lawsons yet.

“I quit on you first. I just did it quiet, where nobody could film it.”

Monica

A Southern church drama about love, betrayal, grief, and the long way back, from MM3.