Book Endorsers

When He Leaves:  Help and Hope for Hurting Wives by Kari West and Noelle Quinn 

April 2005 release
ISBN 0-7369-1586-9  

By reader request, Harvest House Publishers is re-releasing When He Leaves. In 1998, Kari and Noelle gave readers hard-won but hope-filled insights for surviving...and even thriving...after their husbands leave. They share their experience and companionship to help readers "hang on!" by acknowledging the pain, grasping God's love at a new level, and even learning to laugh and love again.

He promised, as you did, ‘till death do us part.”  You did not want the marriage to end; now you are hurting, angry.  You wonder, “Will I ever love or laugh again?”  You are not alone.  Kari West and Noelle Quinn have both gone through unwanted divorces. They emerged from the pain, and with God, created new lives for themselves and their families.                                                                

When He Leaves is warm and transparent, offering a woman-to-woman feel for kindred souls abandoned within a Christina marriage. Raw emotion blends with weathered perspective to fuel hope. The authors challenge you, in the journey through divorce, to risk turning every scary corner. You, too, can find the courage to take steps back into life, love, and laughter. 

Kari and Noelle have survived with honor and balance; now they have the credentials to help others. When He Leaves will give uplifting and inspirational challenges to women who have endured overwhelming loss from a broken marriage. It will jumpstart them on the road to becoming well again and prove to be a handbook for women who feel they cannot make a fresh start.

                                                                                                                Barbara Johnson
                                                                                                                Author, Stick A Geranium in Your Hat
                                                                                                                and Be Happy  

Only from deep pain could come these life-giving insights by Noelle Quinn and Kari West. From their personal dark nights they’ve emerged not only with tools for surviving the darkness, but with a vision of life renewed and joy reclaimed.

                                                                                                                Elizabeth Sherrill
                                                                                                                Author and roving editor, Guideposts 

Flinging open the windows to their own post-divorce experiences, Kari West and Noelle Quinn invite you to share in their personal healing processes. Carefully avoiding old-hat-fix-it advice, they demonstrate that life not only will go forward, it can be done with a richer and deeper awareness of God’s tender guidance and care. 

                                                                                                                Dr. Les Carter
                                                                                                                Counselor, The Minirth Clinic
                                                                                                                Author of The Anger Workbook  

As a professor of clinical psychology and a therapist, I greatly look forward to recommending this work to my students, clients, and all who suffer similarly—as well as to professionals in helping positions. Displaying the vivid colors fo dyes extracted from intense emotions, this volume offers hope, encouragement, and direction.                               

                                                                                                                Dr. Gary H. Strauss,
                                                                                                                Associate professor, Rosemead School
                                                                                                                of Psychology, Biola University

A fabulous work of hope and direction for any woman who has loved and lost. The authors share how the plot of our lives is never as we expect, yet there is One who never leaves. The answers are here, written with a lyrical quality, embroidered with honesty, and woven with the eternal truths of Scripture. 

                                                                                                                Robin Jones Gunn
                                                                                                                Author, best-selling Christian romance

With powerful scab-scraping honesty, empathy, vulnerability, what encouragement and hope-giving is contained in these pages. I’m a woman living out the truth of this book, learning and growing by every wonderful sentence. The emotions, thoughts, the soul of it are exactly where I have been—and am. I want to cut out so many thoughts and paste them all over my home, but then my book would look like my heart used to look. 

                                                                                                                Dr. Karen J. Hayter
                                                                                    Former host and producer of nationally
                                                                                                                televised “COPE” (Southern Baptist Network);
                                                                                                                and conference speaker 

This book is important for pastors and those working with the divorced. They must see the extreme trauma and sense of alienation fro Christian fellowship that can often accompany this tragedy. As portrayed and supported in this book, the proclamation of grace and forgiveness in divorce does not dilute Christian standards. It rather strengthens them. 

                                                                                                                Dr. Paul E. Larsen
                                                                                    Former president, The Evangelical Covenant Church

An empowering book for women experiencing the crucible of divorce. Writing with unique perspective, Kari and Noelle do not sugarcoat the pain and consequences, but offer hope that God can rebuild the broken places. I believe this book will be a cherished how-to-survive manual for those who want to go from being a victim to one who triumphs. 

                                                                                                                Nancie Carmichael
                                                                                                                Former editor at large, Virtue Magazine
                                                                                                                Author and conference speaker 

Rooted in vivid, realistic experience, this book deserves to rise to the top of the lists for women in whatever stage of divorce. Written with luminous descriptive and analytical skills, sayings and sidebars will be copied and kept on refrigerator doors. I applaud this fine work.

                                                                                                                Dwight Small
                                                                                                                Professor emeritus, Westmont College
                                                                                    Author of Remarriage and God’s Redeeming Grace 

I liked this book for its examples.  Kari and Noelle shared their lives and gave us a view. They stood with their pain. Through acceptance and persistence, they found what every redeemed, divorced woman discovers “when he leaves.” God’s grace is sufficient. 

                                                                                                                Ingrid Trobisch
                                                                                                                Author, speaker, and founder of
                                                                                                                Family Life Mission  

If he leaves, he leaves. But the broken pieces of your life don’t have to stay. No matter what you’ve thought, prayed, said, or heard since your divorce, you haven’t heard enough until you’ve read West and Quinn. Usher them in to share how to convert anger into forgiveness, disgust into direction, and shame into celebration. Just when you thought you couldn’t face tomorrow, here’s hope for every woman abandoned by her mate, every counselor’s resource shelf, and every friend wanting to listen more effectively. 

                                                                                                                Phyllis Wallace
                                                                                                                Host of radio’s “Woman to Woman” show
                                                                                                                Envoy Productions, and
                                                                                                                Conference speaker 

Finally someone wrote the book that was screaming to be written! In a topic often swept under the carpet and awkwardly dealt with, the wound is finally getting some attention. A surprise: I discovered a treasure trove of principles to guide me through totally unrelated hurts, tragedies, confusion of my own.

                                                                                                                Bruce Marchiano
                                                                                                                Actor who portrayed Jesus in the Video
                                                                                                                Bible production of The Gospel of    Matthew

Unexpected in its candor. Stirring in the courage to write what is unspeakably private. Important in its insistence on confronting betrayal. All with an insistent belief in God’s grace. I know these authors, have seen them cry, and watched their struggle to believe again. The corporate experience of two women defies trite answers. This is a story for everyone who has believed in the power of love.

                                                                                                                Jeanette Thomason
                                                                                                                Former editor of Aspire Magazine, and 
                                                                                                                Editor at Baker Publishing Group