The Rescuer

by Dee Henderson

Published 2003

This is the final book in O’Malley series, and focuses on Stephen, who is a paramedic.  Completely burned out from his job (driving a squad to emergencies in Chicago is no tea party), emotionally exhausted from the illness and death of his youngest sister, and frustrated because the rest of his family have all become Christians and he can’t understand why, Stephen leaves for a long break.  When he returns, he buys a small farm in a small town outside of Chicago, and is ready to start his new life.

I really enjoyed this book, as I have the entire series.  This one involved a jewel thief parallel story line that seemed a bit obscure to me, but Stephen’s love interest, Meghan, is one of my favorite characters in the entire series, so the book was a bit of a toss-up for me.  :-D  I will say that it contains more excellent conversations about religion.  I greatly appreciated this exchange–

“Why does it feel like God has conditions on loving me?”

“He doesn’t. You’re projecting your own list of what you think He should expect. It gets pretty intense when you realize He accepts you despite the fact that you’re a mess as the moment … Jesus is the kind who moves in, says I love you anyway, and then starts helping repair the mess. He means it when He says He loves you as you are, not based on what you’ve done. But He loves you too much to leave you in that chaos once you know Him.”

Henderson manages to capture that beautiful tension of the Christian life–Christ accepts us for who we are, without demanding us to “clean up” our lives in order to approach Him, but once we give our lives to Him, He helps us to clean them up, working alongside of us–a holy life is a result of a relationship with Christ, not a prerequisite.

I do feel like this book ends a bit abruptly.  We’ve traveled along with this family for six fat books, and then it’s just sort of “and everyone lived happily ever after” kind of feel and that’s the end.   Still, I really enjoyed this series as a whole, and this book in particular is an easy 4/5.

The Healer

by Dee Henderson

So, I was just writing a review for the last book in this series (The Protector) when I realized that I had somehow never reviewed The Healer?!?  Which is a shame, because it is a really good one.  So.  We will fix that now.  :-D

This is one of the O’Malley books, and focuses on the story of Rachel.  She works for the Red Cross as a trauma psychologist, traveling to areas that have had some kind of disaster, and working with the people there to overcome their stress and terror.  It involves lots of talking, lots of hugs, and recognizing that we, as humans, cling to things that are simple and small when our lives are spiraling out of control.  Rachel is excellent at giving people back a semblance of normalcy.  More, she doesn’t just abandon people after the initial difficulty has been overcome–she frequently hands out personalized business cards so that people with whom she has spoken can contact her later if they are struggling with returning to normal life.

Rachel is the O’Malley that I admire the most, honestly.  She is calm and steady, the kind of person you automatically turn to in a time of need.

We first met Rachel in-depth in the book prior to this one, The Protector.  While that book focused on her brother Jack, Rachel’s story was also a large part of it.  Between that book and this one, Rachel has also become a Christian, so this book, rather than focusing on her journey to Christ, focuses more on the struggles of a brand-new Christian–learning to roll trouble and confusion onto His shoulders, and to lean on Him when the way becomes rough.

I have to say, one thing that I really, really, really love about these books is the way that they value friendship.  The O’Malleys are a group of adults who have basically pledged to be life-long friends.  They have legally adopted one another by changing their names, and they choose to stay together and support one another.  And even as they are all getting married and such, those new spouses are brought into the family as well–true friends, accepted, loved, protected, challenged.  The friendships exhibited in these books are beautiful to me.

Throughout this book, Jennifer, the sister with cancer, is getting sicker, and that is also part of Rachel’s struggle–trying to understand prayer, healing (or the lack thereof) and how this all works.  The conversations are real and gritty, and I personally fell in love with Rachel’s love interest, Cole.  Such a good man.

Anyway, these books are great; I love them.  The mysteries are decent, the characters good, the conversations excellent.  If all Christian fiction was like this, I would be a much happier woman.

4/5.

 

The Long Walk

 

by Slavomir Rawicz

Published 1956

This is a fascinating book.  It is the true story of a small group of men who escaped from a Siberian prison camp and walked to India.  INDIA, people, from SIBERIA.  ACROSS THE DESERT AND THE MOUNTAINS.

I definitely recommend this book.  It is actually a reasonably fast read.  Rawicz’s narrative is easy to follow and completely fascinating.  Although it is also rather dark and sad (for obvious reasons).  He is obviously a haunted man, but eventually he ended up in England, where he married and had a family, so his life, at least, had a happy ending.

But this story of survival is simply brilliant, and the kind of book that everyone should read, if for no other reason than to remind ourselves of how incredibly easy our lives are.  Books like this make me stop complaining and start being thankful.

To Hell and Back

 

by Audie Murphy

Published 1949

This is classic World War II reading material, in my mind.  The memoirs of a decorated soldier, who went on to become a movie star (including playing himself in a film based on his book), make for interesting reading.

When studying history, I like to read books that were written during that time as well as books about that time.  The latter can provide retrospective big-picture views, but the former give us insight into the more personal nature of history–history is comprised of people who had feelings and fears and hopes and joys just as we do every day.  Books like this one give us a glimpse of that, reminding us of the very humanness of history.  It is easy to read a log of numbers of people killed; it is something different to read a story that gives names to those deaths.

While Murphy’s account makes for interesting reading, it can also be confusing.  He doesn’t bother a whole lot with telling you where he is or when it is–although, in truth, as a soldier, quite often he didn’t know where he was or when it was, so I suppose that makes sense.  A lot of his book is conversation in the trenches, so it’s stories being told by other soldiers, stories of their past lives, stories of the lives they yearn to have someday.  In some ways, this book is almost dull–day after day of trudging, of death, of waiting for death, of stupidity and frustration and hunger and cold and wet.

I wouldn’t recommend this book for very young readers–there is some language, and some discussion about women that makes the book a bit inappropriate for the pre-teen crowd, but overall a good read.

One Corpse Too Many

by Ellis Peters

Published 1979

This is the second of the Brother Cadfael books.  As I said, this is a series that deserves to be read from beginning to end.  In this book, we are introduced to other new and important recurring characters.  Although part of the fun of this book is trying to determine which of the characters that will be, so I will try to not tell you his name!

As a rule, my husband doesn’t even try to keep up with my reading material, but he did question why I was reading a book with such a picture on the cover!  :-D  But, as I said in the review of A Morbid Taste for Bones, these stories are set during a civil war in England around 1140 (I think this book takes place in 1138).  In this story, King Stephen’s forces overrun Shrewsbury, which had been in the territory of the Empress Maud.  All of the garrison are unceremoniously hung (hence the cover picture).  The monks are given permission to care for the bodies, making them ready for burial, and allowing the people of the town an opportunity to collect their dead.  But in the midst of this rather gruesome, but necessary, task, Brother Cadfael discovers that there is one more body than there ought to be–a murderer has taken advantage of the fact that over 90 men were hung and thrown into one terrible pile, and added his own victim to them.

I so admire Cafael’s shrewd wisdom, and the battle of wits between himself and a younger foe makes for fantastic reading.

I can’t recommend these books highly enough.  5/5.