Book excerpt: Baby Darlin Nellie Donagal is miraculously spared in 1922, when an inebriated ex-gambling partner of her fathers murders him in an attempt to retrieve a gambling debt. She is rescued by Thomas Endicott, a banker from England who had paid her father, Sean Donagal, fifty dollars to take him to Sedalia, Misouri where Sean was planning to live with his father, Patrick Donagal. Endicott delivers Nellie to her Irish grandfather, a store owner and a new Christian who has started a church in Sedaila. Nellies lovely mother died after giving birth to the baby she had prayed for and longed for. Darlin Nellie is the story of a little girl who is raised with great love and joy by her grandfather. However, always in the back of her heart is the passion to know who and where her mothers family is. Would she ever find them? Along the way she has many adventures and misadventuresespecially with her close friend, Aaron Blessing, who gets her into scrapes, but also helps her get out of some. God has given Nellie a big voice which she uses for Himat first in church, then in the New York area where her mentor provides voice lessons and opens the path to a career in music. She hears the beloved Marian Anderson sing and is encouraged by her to continue the path to fame with her voice. Now she has another question: shall she devote her life to the path of fame or shall she have a home and familyor can she have both? Can she know Gods leading and find His will for her life? These questions are answered in this beguiling story.