**First Runner Up: 2012 Eric Hoffer Book Award (General Fiction)**

**Short Listed for 2012 Balcones Fiction Prize**

**Short Listed for 2012 First Horizon Book Award**

On a rain-swept Florida highway, eco-terrorist Edie Aberdeen is robbed and left for dead. When two police officers rescue her, she offers nothing of where she came from and nothing of what she fled three-thousand miles to leave behind.

While recovering from her ordeal, she is taken in by several members of Christ by the Sea, an evangelical mega-church whose pastor preaches a fiery brand of charismatic activism. But the praying in tongues and the energy with which the congregation worships--combined with a focus on conservation and end-times theology--refuse to grant Edie freedom from her dark and ever-encroaching past.

Green Gospel deftly navigates past and present while moving across the landscapes of California, Florida, and Oregon. Several unforgettable characters narrate this vivid debut novel that examines the roots of fundamentalism; the powerful sway of community; and cuts to the heart of the question of whether or not people change.