Covenant, Not Chemistry: Mark and Sarah

When I began writing In the Shadow of Angels, I entertained some private doubt. Would audiences accept a love that did not display itself in steaming, panting sexuality or flowery descriptions of the Romeo-and-Juliet type? Most of the romance I read falls into one of those two categories. Lust rather than trust; eternity rather than the here-and-now. I was told this book is "not a romance." I would argue that it is, but of a very special type.

Mark and Sarah’s love is often mistaken for romance in the conventional sense—attraction forged under pressure, intimacy sharpened by danger. But what sustains them is not chemistry. It is covenant.

Erotic love responds to what is desirable. Friendship responds to what is shared. Covenant responds to what is owed—not as debt, but as moral responsibility freely chosen and repeatedly renewed. When we love in a covenant sense, we choose every day to love, regardless of the outside circumstances.

Mark’s work exposes him to violence, deception, and the grinding familiarity of evil. The danger is not only in what happens around him and to him, but what prolonged exposure threatens to do to his capacity for trust, tenderness, and hope. Sarah does not love Mark because he remains untouched by these things. She loves him so that they do not finally define him.

Covenantal love does not ask, "Are you still the person I fell in love with?" It asks, "Who must I be so that you are not lost?"

This love precedes reassurance. It does not require emotional symmetry. At times Mark carries the weight of moral injury; at others, Sarah carries the cost of waiting, fear, and steadiness. Neither interprets this imbalance as failure. Covenant allows unequal load-bearing without resentment because it is grounded in permanence, not reciprocity.

Their relationship also resists a quieter lie—the belief that intimacy must always be expressive to be real. Much of their love is enacted in silence: staying when explanations are incomplete, remaining when comfort would be easier than truth, refusing emotional withdrawal even when closeness feels undeserved or even unwanted. Both, throughout the series, experience moments when withdrawing not only seems logical but imperative. However, they both choose to deny this imperative, instead deciding to remain, no matter what the cost.

Spiritually, this mirrors a deeper pattern. Covenant is not sustained by constant consolation. It endures absence, ambiguity, and unanswered prayer. Presence itself becomes the proof.

Mark and Sarah do not love one another because the world is safe. They love one another so that it cannot finally destroy what is good.