Benji is one of several survivors of a shipwreck who find themselves in a lifeboat. Desperate for someone to save them, a stranger appears out of the water, claiming to be the Lord. They can be saved, he says, if they believe in him. Benji journals the experience in a notebook which is later found in an empty lifeboat washed ashore on the Caribbean island of Montserrat.

The diary finds its way to the island’s chief inspector, who is charged with solving its mystery. Albom’s novel weaves a tale of mystery and intrigue, leaving the reader guessing until the final reveal.

Fans of Albom know he is the master at creating stories that involve heavenly issues, and this book is no exception. You will not be disappointed.

(Personal note: I couldn’t wait to read this novel, as […]

Fans of Nicholas Sparks are accustomed to his books’ settings in the Carolinas. The Wish deviates from that template, as it’s set in current day New York City, but goes back in time to when Maggie, the protagonist, was a teen. After getting pregnant, she is shipped off by her Southern California parents to her aunt in Ocracoke, on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, where she stays until she delivers her baby. While on Ocracoke, Maggie meets another teen, Bryce, and the inevitable Sparks love story begins.

Maggie, now a world-traveled photographer dealing with metastatic cancer, recounts her memory of that time on Ocracoke to Mark, her young assistant. He becomes increasingly devoted to her as her health declines and Christmas approaches, and is determined to prevent her from being alone over the holidays.

Sparks […]

If you love dogs (and who doesn’t?), the author Rick Bragg, or both, you won’t want to miss Bragg’s The Speckled Beauty…a Dog and His People. In my opinion, any book that makes me laugh out loud on one page and has me reading through tears on the next is a book well written.

Speck wanders into Bragg’s yard one day–an uninvited “guest” who just stays. Slowly, he then wanders into Rick’s soul as well. He is, as Bragg says, a “terrible dog,” bent on destroying or eating everything he encounters. But Speck lives under the delusion that he’s a good boy because of, as Bragg says, “the thousands of times I have lied and told him so.”

In his down home-flavored method of writing, Bragg hilariously recounts his family’s life with Speck, and how […]

Sara Jenkins is comfortably ensconced in New Orleans, her new home, where she’s started a business selling antiques and reclaimed bits and pieces. She has separated herself from her past in Sweet Bay, Alabama…until her grandmother Mags’s will takes her back home, where she learns she’s inherited The Hideaway.

The Hideaway, once a renowned southern bed and breakfast, and later Sara’s childhood home, is now the dilapidated home of folks who came for a visit but then stayed.

Sara sees potential in The Hideaway’s good bones, enticing her to stay at least long enough to bring it up to date. But the longer she’s there, the more she learns of a past she never knew her grandmother possessed.

Slowly, secrets wrapped up in The Hideaway, Mags’s life, and even the double helix of Sara’s own […]

The first thing you’ll notice in Charles Martin’s The Water Keeper is the font used in the untitled prologue. It’s sans serif, and our eyes are accustomed to serif. But, don’t despair, serif returns in Chapter One.

The protagonist, Murphy Shepherd, lives alone on an island, where he tends an abandoned church. We quickly learn he’s a rescuer of lost souls–not necessarily spiritually lost, but physically lost or threatened.

What starts as a nautical journey down the Intracoastal Waterway as a trip to honor his mentor’s wishes for the disposal of his ashes quickly morphs into something else entirely. Murphy encounters an eclectic cast of characters that includes a woman desperate to find her daughter, an old man dying of cancer, an orphan searching for her identity, and a stray dog (books are always better when […]