For fans of William P. Young's The Shack and Mitch Albom's The Stranger in the Lifeboat, The Essence of Emmaline Strong not only brings a paranormal musical element to the Christian Thriller and Suspense genre, it also illustrates how, one way or another, we're all connected whether we accept it or not. When multiple tragedies bring Jordan McCray to her knees, one more destroys her faith-she's going blind. Having taught herself to play the 5-string banjo, guitar, and resonator guitar before age ten, she retreats from college and the world to teach those instruments for her meager living ... and to hope love might come along to ease her loneliness. Late one night at her home at the base of Sufferer's Mountain, in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, a stranger shows up on her doorstep. Although she's attracted to him, she scoffs when he says he's on a musical quest-to prove the existence of the human soul. Intrigued by the premise, however, she joins him on his quest, where they meet a musical faith healer who claims she and her husband were born-as hard as it is to believe-before the Civil War. As Jordan faces more challenges, she's summoned to the faith healer's home. There, what she experiences will cause her to question everything she thought she knew about music ... as well as about herself.