The Dead Don't Dance Paperback - 2004

The debut novel from New York Times bestselling author Charles Martin is a bittersweet yet triumphant love story--a tale of one man's journey through the darkness of despair and into the light of hope. Perfect for readers looking for the emotional resonance of Nicholas Sparks or Lisa Wingate.

In a sleepy rural town in South Carolina, Dylan and Maggie Styles are a young couple in love, preparing eagerly for the birth of their first son. But events take a tragic turn in the delivery room, and their child is delivered stillborn. When Maggie hemorrhages and slips into a coma, Dylan slips into what can only be described as a walking coma, holding vigil at his beloved wife's bedside.

Usually tough and self-reliant, an outdoorsman and a farmer, Dylan finds that everything he has known is suddenly thrown into doubt. Refusing to give up on Maggie's recovery, a devastated Dylan takes a job as an English professor in order to pay for Maggie's medical bills. Dylan connects with his students despite himself and offers hope to others amid his own disappointment and grief. As Dylan waits for some change in Maggie's condition, he reflects on his life and hers.

Through friends and grace-filled moments of insight, Dylan slowly begins to heal, but it will take a second tragedy--and an anxious period of wrestling with God--to truly awaken him from his stupor and open him up to a new life.

Deeply emotional and filled with themes of enduring love, loss, struggles with faith, and redemption, The Dead Don't Dance is not to be missed.

"This is the story of a real person's real struggle with the uncertainties of faith, unadorned with miracles of the deus ex machina sort but full of the sort of miracles that attend everyday life if you bother to notice. Charles Martin notices, and for that I commend him. He's unafraid of tackling the crucial questions--life, death, love, sacrifice." --Duncan Murrell

"[The Dead Don't Dance is] an absorbing read for fans of faith-based fiction . . . [with] delightfully quirky characters . . . [who] are ingeniously imaginative creations." --Publishers Weekly