skid

Hank takes a job as an undercover investigator for an airline to assess their on-board service in their competitive quest for passengers. Always polite and positive due to his Christian background and personal faith, he both puzzles and annoys not only the crew but also the passengers he interacts with who are having an extraordinarily rough day.

Flight 1945 is no ordinary flight. Hank’s seatmate, Lucy, is trying to get over her split with her boyfriend and discovers him to be traveling on the same flight with a new love interest. One passenger “dies” enroute. Anna Sue, who the crew believes is emotionally challenged, has traveling with her her companion animal, a pot-bellied pig. Somehow Chucky gets loose and has the passengers and crew scrambling to catch him. A jewel thief attached to an FBI agent is being extradited to Amsterdam and believes there is someone on board who wants to kill him. Topping off this scenario we have a man sitting nearby who is carrying hidden diamonds to a grandmother he’s never met, a fake federal aircraft inspector and finally, a pilot-less cockpit.

Bordering on funny (lots of comedic misunderstandings) and just plain dumb, Skid, by Rene Gutteridge, is an easy, fast read that requires little thought. The gospel and comments regarding faith are scattered here and there for good measure, but there is no enduring lesson to ponder. It was not my cup of tea, but if you need something very light and simple, you might enjoy it.

New from WaterBrook Press, I have 3 (now 2) copies to give away.

Also available for purchase here.

Healing Promises

Where do you go and to whom do you turn when your world is falling apart?

Those are some of the questions the characters in Amy Wallace’s new novel, Healing Promises, find themselves asking. Healing Promises is a well-written, compelling book which kept me turning the pages to see what the next chapter would bring. It was a difficult read only because of the emotional subject matter.

Sara is an oncologist whose Christianity leads her to pray with her patients and connect with them during ongoing treatments. Her faith is shaken to the core when her husband, an FBI agent, is brought to the hospital for treatment for a gunshot wound. The doctors treating him find more than just a wound; extensive tests lead them to discover he has cancer. All these years she’s been espousing God’s healing promises. Does she really believe what she’s told her patients?

Emotionally painful also is the job her husband, Clint, has with the FBI Crimes Against Children Unit. He is in the midst of tracking down a serial kidnapper of young boys when he receives his cancer diagnosis. The powerlessness he feels as he undergoes chemotherapy and his inability to effectively help his partners also challenges his beliefs.

There are some other characters’ underlying stories woven through the book. All are dealing in one way or another with their faith in God. Hope, trust, anger, pain, wrestling with God; all these emotions are portrayed. Wallace’s characters are fictional but the struggles are real. Again and again they are pointed to the source of truth.

Read Healing Promises. You may find some for yourself.

This is book two in Amy Wallace’s “Defenders of Hope” series.
New from Multnomah, it can be purchased here.

If you are interested, I have two copies to give away.