When the kingdom of Kuvale demands an oath of fealty to foreign gods, Bethan’s family refuses.
Branded traitors, stripped of protection, and driven into exile, they become refugees in their own homeland. When starvation leaves Bethan with one impossible choice—die with her convictions, or live by betraying them—she chooses survival.
It costs her everything.
Sold into the hands of a pirate captain who offers safety only to tighten his control, Bethan’s world narrows to fear, obedience, and the slow death of the woman she once was. By the time the sea finally claims her, she believes judgment is all that waits beyond the grave.
Instead, she wakes in a foreign kingdom with a new name, a chance to disappear, and a Shepherd she has spent years trying to outrun.
As Alana, a palace maid with a shattered past, she finds unexpected kindness in a prince who sees her scars and does not demand more than she can give. But healing is never simple. Love requires trust. Faith requires surrender. And the truth of who she was cannot remain buried forever.
To walk into freedom, Bethan must face the past she survived…
and decide whether the God who sees her could still call her His.
The Story Behind Bethan's Identity.
"There is no chasm so deep the Shepherd will not fight to bring one lost lamb home.
That truth is the heartbeat behind my novel. A girl who chooses to live, loses nearly everything, and must discover who the Shepherd truly is.
It is also the truth that saved my life eighteen years ago.
I was a freshman in college carrying an undiagnosed traumatic brain injury and the weight of childhood wounds I believed made me damaged beyond repair. I was tired of choosing life. I had a plan. I had done the research. I wanted to leave my family with as little mess as possible.
But the Shepherd did not stop fighting for me, even when I was finished fighting for myself.
My mother came home early the day I decided to go through with it. The Holy Spirit had pressed on her heart so urgently that she later told me she wept on the drive.
That night I opened my Bible, and Luke 15 met me on the page.
The Lost Sheep. The Shepherd who leaves ninety-nine to go after the one.
I was the one. That broke me.
The Shepherd never stopped pursuing me. He used my mother, my church, a clinician who finally named my injury. He used counselors who helped me carry what I could not bear alone.
Today I am a wife, a mother, and an author because Christ refused to let me die.
I have learned there is no darkness so deep He will not enter. No pit so hidden He will not climb down into it.
Bethan's Identity was written for the person who believes their choices have taken them out of the Shepherd's reach. For the reader who wonders if the Shepherd still rescues the lost.
He absolutely does!
Happy Reading,
Jessica Hopson
