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Faith-based fiction gets back to reality
REVIEWS BY MIKE PARKER The days when Christian fiction contented itself with preaching to the choir are over. "People have messy lives. Sometimes they don't have it all together. I think you are seeing that reflected in today's Christian fiction," says Brynn Thomas, publicity manager for FaithWords, a division of Hachette Book Group USA. Rarely content to sit in the sanctuary, the new crop of Christian authors explore exotic locales and situations from the boardroom to the bedroom, from breaking news to breaking hearts. They are telling compelling stories, creating complex characters and making us care. Isn't that, after all, what good fiction is all about? Short stories resurrected
By Bret Lott WestBow, $14.99 252 pages ISBN 1595540776
Can this marriage be saved?
Popular pastor, speaker and best-selling author T.D. Jakes mines the emotions of a couple on the cusp of divorce in his latest contemporary novel, Not Easily Broken. Dave and Clarice Johnson make an attractive, intelligent, upwardly mobile couple, both successful in their own realms. Yet something is missing from their marriage. An incapacitating auto accident, coupled with a beautiful rehab nurse, only serves to exacerbate their wounded relationship. Jakes pulls no punches as he explores the ramifications of allowing your love to grow cold, and your heart to grow hard.
By T.D. Jakes FaithWords, $23.99 256 pages ISBN 0446576778
A nose for news
Ray Duffey truly believes he is doing his community a service by reporting the news. At least, he did, before the channel's drive for ratings shifted the focus from what is important to what is sensational. But when Ray encounters his boss' new assistant, Hayden Hazard, a fresh-faced slip of a girl who innocently expresses her faith—in public, out loud, on purpose—Ray finds his own faith in himself and his profession restored.
By Rene Gutteridge WaterBrook, $12.99 352 pages ISBN 1400071577
Sci-fi gets religion
After that mind-bending sight, Collin realizes he is no longer Collin Boyd. He is now Grant Borrows, although he has no idea who Grant Borrows is, and someone else is living his old life. A motorcycle-riding assassin with a totally cool sword stalks him with cat-and-mouse glee while Grant spends his time leaping from one frying pan into the next. Parrish writes with the verve and attitude of a New York City cab driver, plunging ahead with barely a glance at oncoming traffic, slinging you from side to side with near misses and narrow escapes before delivering you, safe, to your destination. There's a reason this novel is called Relentless.
By Robin Parrish Bethany House, $19.99 443 pages ISBN 0764202219
Mike Parker is a former pastor who writes from Murfreesboro, Tennessee.
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As editor of The Best Christian Short Stories, Vol. 1, it fell to best-selling author Bret Lott to find stories that treated the biblical command to bear witness with dignity and aplomb. Lott contributed a story of his own and came up with 10 others that illustrated his point by authors such as Larry Woiwode, Erin McGraw, Homer Hickam and James Calvin Schaap. In Schaap's "Exodus," a father drives from Iowa to Arizona to deliver his daughter from an unhappy marriage, and ends up learning something about himself. Hickam's "Dosie of Killakeet Island" finds a small island community rallying around one of their own after tragedy strikes. These are honest stories about people with challenging lives—just like us.
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If you believe everything you hear on the news, marriage is on the decline, divorce is on the rise and relationships are considered disposable commodities on the same level as paper plates and plastic spoons. But even when affection grows cold, cutting the tie that binds can be an excruciating experience.
The local newscast is the bread 'n' butter for most television stations, and the news anchors are hometown heroes in our celebrity-obsessed society. But can you really tell the whole story in a 30-second sound bite? When does news become entertainment? And what is a conscious-stricken reporter supposed to do about it anyway? That is the premise for author Rene Gutteridge's laugh-out-loud funny send-up of TV news, Scoop.
"Collin Boyd stepped off the Metro bus on his way to work, and across the street he saw himself strolling down the sidewalk." So begins Relentless, author Robin Parrish's entry into the thriller/sci-fi genre and the first in a planned trilogy.