At first glance, the ti­tle Ask­ing for the Hus­band You Want and Get­ting the One You Get sparks im­me­di­ate as­sump­tions. Many read­ers be­lieve it is ei­ther a Chris­t­ian self-help guide or a work­book de­signed to help women choose the ide­al hus­band. Oth­ers as­sume it is a re­la­tion­ship jour­nal root­ed en­tire­ly in faith-based teach­ings.

But ac­cord­ing to au­thor Tri­cia St John, the book is some­thing en­tire­ly dif­fer­ent.

The nov­el is a con­tem­po­rary ro­mance that fol­lows the life of El­la Alexan­der, a prac­tis­ing Chris­t­ian woman nav­i­gat­ing the re­al­i­ties of love, friend­ship, heart­break, fam­i­ly, and per­son­al growth. Through El­la’s ex­pe­ri­ences, read­ers are in­vit­ed in­to a deeply re­lat­able world where re­la­tion­ships are com­pli­cat­ed, emo­tions are lay­ered, and life rarely un­folds the way we ex­pect.

“Yes, El­la does make a list of the qual­i­ties she wants in a hus­band,” St John ex­plains, “but the sto­ry goes far be­yond that. This is not a work­book. It is a nov­el about peo­ple try­ing to fig­ure out love, pur­pose, heal­ing, and them­selves.”

The sto­ry ex­plores not on­ly El­la’s ro­man­tic jour­ney, but al­so the lives of the peo­ple around her—friends and fam­i­ly mem­bers who are each fac­ing their own strug­gles with re­la­tion­ships, loss, dis­ap­point­ment, and growth. The nov­el bal­ances hu­mour, emo­tion­al hon­esty, faith, and ro­mance while cap­tur­ing the chal­lenges of mod­ern re­la­tion­ships through the lens of Caribbean life and cul­ture.

Ask­ing for the Hus­band You Want and Get­ting the One You Get is al­so the first in­stal­ment in the What El­la Wants tril­o­gy, in­tro­duc­ing read­ers to char­ac­ters whose lives con­tin­ue to evolve through­out the se­ries.

St John, who has pre­vi­ous­ly writ­ten oth­er books out­side of the ro­mance genre, says this project al­lowed her to ex­plore sto­ry­telling in a more in­ti­mate and emo­tion­al­ly dri­ven way.

“This book is re­al­ly about ex­pec­ta­tions ver­sus re­al­i­ty,” she says. “Some­times we pray for one thing and life gives us some­thing com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent. The ques­tion be­comes: what do you do with that?”

With its strik­ing ti­tle, re­lat­able char­ac­ters, and emo­tion­al­ly lay­ered sto­ry­telling, the nov­el is al­ready gen­er­at­ing con­ver­sa­tion among read­ers cu­ri­ous to dis­cov­er whether El­la ul­ti­mate­ly finds the love she be­lieves she has been pray­ing for — or whether life has en­tire­ly dif­fer­ent plans for her.

More than a ro­mance nov­el, Ask­ing for the Hus­band You Want and Get­ting the One You Get is an in­vi­ta­tion in­to El­la Alexan­der’s world—a place filled with laugh­ter, mis­takes, heart­break, faith, friend­ship, and the com­pli­cat­ed beau­ty of be­com­ing who you are meant to be.