In the small town of Smoke River, Washington, everyone knows the plain church called the Elect of God. They're good people, honest, hardworking-and they're hiding some dreadful secrets. Who do you listen to when every word might be a lie? In the small town of Smoke River, Washington, Chloe Montoya has seen the church leaders she trusted disgraced and watched helplessly as her best friends rejected their faith. When radio evangelist Luke Fisher is invited to headquarter his ministry in town, Chloe is drawn to him. Against her church's will, she joins the staff at the station as bookkeeper and, while she's totally behind Luke's vision for the community, she begins to realize that under the message is a sound that frightens her ¿Fresh out of the state police academy and assigned to the Organized Crime Task Force, Ray Harper is sent to Smoke River to investigate an underground church that seems to attract the criminal and the predatory. What he finds is a town prospering in its religious fervor-and a dark-haired, dark-eyed innocent who he'd bet his first year's salary has never been kissed. Ray has no use for religion. She's forbidden even to speak to him.

But Luke Fisher's growing power threatens what they both love-and sometimes you have to listen to someone ¿ and hope that they hear you ¿.