Hope from Rocks

Anne Maltempi is an American author of contemporary inspirational fiction. Her debut novel "Hope from Rocks" was published in 2014 by Deep River Books and follows Lia Strong, a bright young woman in New York City whose plans for her life unravel and who has to rebuild her sense of identity, faith and purpose with the help of her best friend Cora and two new figures who enter her life during the crisis. The book sits in the contemporary women's-fiction and Christian-fiction overlap, written for readers who want present-day urban settings paired with a faith-aware character arc. Its central preoccupations — disillusionment, the slow work of starting over, and the way unexpected friendships can carry someone through a period of loss — are characteristic of the inspirational fiction market that grew through the 2010s alongside authors such as Susan May Warren and Becky Wade. "Hope from Rocks" was followed by speaking engagements, devotional writing and continued community work in the Christian women's-fiction space, and the book has remained in print in paperback and Kindle editions since its release. The novel's title comes from the image at the center of the story: the idea that meaningful hope is often quarried slowly out of the hardest material a person is given. Maltempi writes for an audience that overlaps with readers of Karen Kingsbury and Robin Lee Hatcher — character-driven contemporary stories in which the spiritual dimension of the protagonist's life is treated as one of the real engines of the plot rather than a backdrop. Her work is a useful entry point for readers looking for first-novel voices in inspirational women's fiction outside the historical-romance subgenre that dominates the category.