Ashes to Beauty leans into a part of life that many will find difficult to face, but it does so with courage and hope. The author, Jacelyn Serrano, survived twenty years of abuse, mostly during her childhood, at the hands of relatives. As she grew up, she became promiscuous, rebellious, and bitter. But God did not abandon her.

The chapters in Ashes to Beauty offer personal accounts of times of abuse and mistreatment, reflections that draw the hope and inspiration of the Scriptures into conversation with pain and injury, prayers that turn to God for sustenance and healing, and power...