For the first week in May, 2012, the CFBA Tour presents Ann Tatlock's Travelers Rest published by Bethany House. The elegant sepia cover gives the reader an invitation to partake of the beauty and pain of this touching story.
Twenty-five year old Jane Morrow defies her fiancé's wish that she not come to see him in the VA hospital after the vibrant Seth Ballantine is hit in the neck by a sniper's bullet in Iraq making him a quadriplegic. She goes to the hospital committed to pushing through whatever they must face together. But Seth is wounded as much in spirit as he is in body, and his greeting erases the warmth of her devotion she hopes to share with him. Determined not to let him dampen her efforts to convince him they can make a life together, his rebuffs threaten to erode her plans.
While visiting the hospital she meets retired Dr. Truman Rockaway who provides her with a solid friendship as she wades through the sadness and revelation of her fiancé's circumstance. While bolstering her courage to once again visit Seth's room, she listens to someone making beautiful music from a piano in the Atrium. Gaining the courage to see who it is, she finds an attractive man who plays while waiting to visit his sister who's a nurse at the hospital. Jon-Paul Pearcy, a blind attorney in his family's business, proves he's not only a courageous man, he's willing to offer his version of hope to Seth by finding a mutual interest.
In Jane's hours of reflection on her childhood, she begins to seriously address the challenges that lay before her. Seth's parents ready their home for their son's release, and Jane feels set aside. She hears the urging of her friend Diane trying to make her realize she's too young to be bound to the difficulties of Seth's condition. Jane thrashes around in guilt, despair, and the confusion of the situation, wonders about what little faith she has, and gives her best effort to convince Seth she wants to complete their plans.
Travelers Rest connects the lives of seemingly disconnected individuals into a working but complex story of small town life. With tragedy and triumph intermittent, crushing and invigorating sometimes all at once, this novel captures pain, sorrow, recovery, and rebirth in a finely tuned drama of intersecting emotions and lives. Easily read in one sit-down if a reader has the time, Travelers Rest gives respite to the upheaved souls in this story. Resolved in a peaceful and not unexpected conclusion, Travelers Rest by Ann Tatlock takes the reader through her pretty prose and realistic story to journey's end.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0764208101
Father, you've given Ann such beauty in her words. She knows how to use them to honor you. Please continue to meet her supply of stories. I'm sure you have plenty more for her to tell. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.