Diane M. Komp The Healer's Heart: A Modern Novel of the Life of

The Healer's Heart: A Modern Novel of the Life of St. Luke

Diane M. Komp

WaterBrook, Feb 2006, $13.99, 352 pp.

ISBN 1578569133

Yale University Medical School Infectious Disease specialist Dr. Luke Tayspill visits his dying father in Ohio. Being there makes him wonder how his currently estranged journalist wife Theo is doing in London, where she deals with a strange physical diagnosis that she hides from Luke, and from the post-traumatic stress disorder caused when she covered war ravaged Sarajevo. He further reflects back on his childhood when his father showed no positive emotions, while his grandfather gave him a zest for life.

Inside a secret compartment of a locked desk, Luke finds a hidden manuscript "The Deaths of Lukas Tayspill" written by his late loving grandfather Giles, he is shocked not just by the title, but also by the revelations of two ancestry Luke Tayspills dying martyr deaths, and the tale of a third to be completed in the near future. He decides to finish the story his grandfather set forth in the journal. Seeking closure, Luke travels to war wracked Sierra Leone where his grandfather's story started, but he will "write" the ending with his actions in this devastated African nation.

THE HEALER'S HEART is a strong modern day retelling of the St. Luke story that fans will appreciate. Luke is a terrific protagonist whose discovery of the journal opens his mind to all sorts of possibilities when one believes in Jesus while performing good deeds. Though the storyline contains too many subplots in too many different periods, that at times makes it difficult to follow, Diane M. Komp provides a strong character driven look at faith in the modern age.