Now, we don’t have slavery in America, but if you’re on death row, the state pretty much owns you. It’s about a death row inmate, Shay Bourne, an uneducated, marginal man who’s been convicted of a double homicide, who decides that to redeem himself, he must donate his heart post-execution to the sister of his victim – a little girl who needs a heart transplant. Is it because it’s right? Or because it’s too scary to admit we may not know the answers? And suddenly, I started to come up with the story for CHANGE OF HEART I found myself asking why we believe what we believe. People think, “I’m right, so you MUST be wrong.” Although historically it was a way to unite people, it’s become divisive – because beliefs have become absolutes. All the big controversies – like abortion and gay rights and capital punishment seem to boil down to religion, and the weird thing that’s happened to religion. But right now in America, it feels to me like the country’s being broken apart on the fault line of religion. And I’ve looked at legal issues that, when pushed, are less than fair. I’ve explored religion and spirituality before in books – it’s a topic I could plumb many times and still raise more questions than answers. “The disturbing, thought-provoking questions Picoult poses about capital punishment, the ethics of organ donation, and the moral dilemma of telling the truth at all costs go well beyond the issue of whether Shay will be allowed to die in a way that preserves his heart and whether Claire will accept it as her own.” Does religion make us more tolerant, or less? Do we believe what we do because it’s right? Or because it’s too frightening to admit that we may not have the answers? Featuring the return of Ian Fletcher from Keeping Faith, it also asks whether religion and politics truly are separate in this country, or inextricably tangled. Until he realizes that the things Shay says may not come from the Bible…but are, verbatim, from a gospel that the early Christian church rejected two thousand years ago…and that is still considered heresy.Ĭhange Of Heart looks at the nature of organized religion and belief, and takes the reader behind the closely drawn curtains of America’s death penalty. Could an unkempt, bipolar, convicted murderer be a savior? It seems highly unlikely, to the priest. But then Bourne begins to perform miracles at the prison that are witnessed by officers, fellow inmates, and even Father Michael – and the media begins to call him a messiah.

Called in as Shay’s spiritual advisor, he knows redemption has nothing to do with organ donation – and plans to convince Bourne. Enter Father Michael Wright, a young local priest.

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