In the 1970s, when a distant cousin dies unexpectedly, Mary Ellen and Charles Hawley agree to take his seven-year-old son Steven into their home. Steven\u2019s birth mother, a Polish immigrant, has schizophrenia and can\u2019t assume custody. But in a last traumatic visit, she convinces her son that a mysterious presence called the bicycle messenger has followed him into his new life.<\/p>\n
Years later, Steven, a recovering alcoholic with a history of bipolar disorder, is working as a short-order cook. To Megan Helmsworth, a college student waiting tables, he is a sweet, doting boyfriend. But Steven becomes more and more preoccupied with his lost family of origin, and when a manic swing sends him on a quixotic journey to Poland, Megan seizes her chance to escape. In a well-meaning attempt to shelter her fragile son, Mary Ellen agrees to harbor a secret no mother should ever keep.<\/p>\n
Told through the eyes of the three women who love Steven best\u2014Mary Ellen, Megan, and his adoptive sister Margaret\u2014The Bicycle Messenger <\/span><\/em>is a story of generational trauma that stretches from the last days of the Krak\u00f3w ghetto in 1942 all the way to 2016. But it is also a story of unexpected grace.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Releases August 4, 2025<\/p>\n Order Now to Get the First Chapter!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":9000,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"product_brand":[],"product_cat":[2566,59,2630,222],"product_tag":[2567,2647],"class_list":{"0":"post-8995","1":"product","2":"type-product","3":"status-publish","4":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"product_cat-chrism-press","7":"product_cat-contemporary-fiction","8":"product_cat-dual-time","9":"product_cat-new-releases","10":"product_tag-chrism-press","11":"product_tag-jonathan-d-torres","13":"first","14":"instock","15":"taxable","16":"shipping-taxable","17":"purchasable","18":"product-type-variable"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/whitefire-publishing.com\/read\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product\/8995","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/whitefire-publishing.com\/read\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/whitefire-publishing.com\/read\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/product"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whitefire-publishing.com\/read\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8995"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whitefire-publishing.com\/read\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9000"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/whitefire-publishing.com\/read\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8995"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"product_brand","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whitefire-publishing.com\/read\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product_brand?post=8995"},{"taxonomy":"product_cat","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whitefire-publishing.com\/read\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product_cat?post=8995"},{"taxonomy":"product_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whitefire-publishing.com\/read\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product_tag?post=8995"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}