Christa Parrish, Home Another Way

Home Another Way

Christa Parrish

Bethany House, Oct 2008, $13.99

ISBN: 9780764205231

With twenty-three borrowed dollars in her pocket, twentyish Sarah Graham leaves the big city to travel to the mountain hamlet of Jonah, New York where her estranged father recently died. She only goes to collect her inheritance as she has not forgiven her dad Luke Peterson for deserting her. Thus when she arrives to find out that to inherit his estate; she must remain in the small town for six months, Sarah goes berserker. Unhappy she reluctantly accepts the terms as she desperately needs the money.

The townsfolk apparently loved her father. Each visits her and tells Sarah favorite stories about Luke. She cannot believe that the Luke the locals describe is the same Luke she remembers. Still she begins to reconsider her beliefs re dad, but each time she feels a bit of affection; Sarah quickly recalls why she loathed him. Will the townsfolk teach her to forgive and move on by thinking of the good or will she retain her belief that Luke was a louse.

Although the theme seems out of Inspirational fiction 101, Sarah's hedonism throughout the storyline keeps 'Home Another Way' quite fresh and interesting. There is no miracle return to nature even as the lead protagonist considers forgiving her father because Sarah has a lifestyle she is used to and can see the dirt poor poverty that engulfs Jonah. Instead Sarah remains a somewhat spoiled hedonist while the key townsfolk also have faults in a brisk inspiring character study in which the outside reflects on to forgive or not forgive that is the plot.

Harriet Klausner