The 53rd Card — Virginia Weiss

Agoraphobic Emma Addison is afraid of any place too far from home, afraid of outside. But when one Christmas Eve she inadvertently summons the devil, she opens a door that will not close.

Emma dismisses her unbidden guest, though not before relinquishing a cherished stone carving of Kuan Yin--an unwitting concession that bestows on her an unusual power. This power isn't much--but it's plenty enough to spark a craving for the devil's tantalizing promise of more.

And now Emma has some disquieting choices to make. Because if the devil is real, doesn't that mean God is too? But if God is real, then why is the world such a mess and so desperately wanting the attention of the very power in her hands?

Meanwhile, a door hangs open, a portal through which the devil will step, through which a host of divine beings will follow, all with an agenda of their own. And impelled to the remotest regions of faith and doubt, Emma discovers a place beyond both--a place the reader just might recognize as home.