The First Lady of Mercy

Book One of The Greater Faith Series

By Ashley Thomas

For eleven years, Vanessa Odom has been the First Lady of Greater Faith Community Church—the woman everyone turns to when someone is sick, grieving, or simply needs a little mercy.

So when Vanessa starts a small caregiving ministry for the church’s aging members, no one questions her motives. She has a notebook, eleven names, and a heart that has never learned how to say no.

What begins as an act of love soon becomes something much bigger.

The families are grateful. The money is good. And for the first time, Vanessa sees a way to build something of her own while helping the people she loves.

But good intentions don't always survive success.

As Vanessa's ministry quietly becomes a private business, boundaries begin to blur. A nurse's professional license is used in ways she never fully understands. Church resources become business resources. And the line between serving the congregation and profiting from it becomes harder to see.

Vanessa tells herself it's temporary.

Her husband tells himself they're protecting their future.

But someone inside Greater Faith knows exactly what they've done.

When church treasurer Sofia Reyes uncovers evidence that could expose everything, she calls an emergency meeting that could destroy the Odoms' reputation, their marriage, and possibly the future of their church.

Sofia never makes it to the meeting.

Now four people know why the meeting was called—and one of them is beginning to wonder whether Sofia's disappearance was really a coincidence.

As whispers spread through Greater Faith, Vanessa is forced to confront a question she never expected to ask:

How far can a woman go in the name of doing good before she becomes the very thing she once prayed against?

The First Lady of Mercy is a gripping story of faith, ambition, marriage, betrayal, and the dangerous choices we make when we convince ourselves that the ends justify the means.

In the house of God, everybody has something to hide.