Book Review- Traveler’s Rest by Ann Tatlock

Travelers Rest by Ann Tatlock
ISBN: 978-0-7642-0810-2
Paperback, 344 pages
Publisher: Bethany House
Retail: $14.99

From the back cover:

A young woman determined to honor her commitment…

An injured soldier convinced life is no longer worth living…

A retired doctor certain it’s too late to be forgiven…

Jane Morrow has a dilemma, and love alone may not solve it. Her faith has never been strong, yet somehow she hopes God will answer her prayers and tell her what to do. the answer she finds may not be at all what she expected…

Ann Tatlock lives with her husband and daughter in North Carolina. Travelers Rest is her ninth novel.

You can read the first chapter at Bethany House Publishers.

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This is Ann Tatlock’s ninth novel, but the first that I have read from her. The description on the back cover and even at the book selling websites I’ve visited give little more information about this book’s make up. So it was with uncertainty that I began reading this book. Not with whether I wanted to read it but what awaited me in the book. Perhaps it is just how I am lately but this book took a bit for me to get into. It didn’t grab me right away. I was more inclined to set it aside than I was to pick it up until I made it about 1/3 of the way through.

The main characters consist of those mentioned on the back cover: Jane Morrow, the young woman; Seth Ballantine, the wounded soldier; Truman Rockaway, the retired doctor. Other characters, in lesser roles, are: Diana, who is away in Europe (Jane is house-sitting for her); Jean-Paul Pearcy, an almost completely blind lawyer who frequents the VA hospital where Seth is being cared for and plays the piano; Hoboken and Sausalito, two caregivers at the hospital; Seth’s parents; Jane’s father, grandmother and memories of her mother. Also, we hear about Laney near the start of the book and meet her towards the end. There are a few other individuals that are brought into the story, such as Maggie, whether briefly or just short of the lesser characters but I’m not going to name them all.

The writing is slow and measured; careful. I really appreciated that there was not a lot of drama although the topic of this book is emotional, throughout a lot of it. I didn’t get the feeling that it was being drawn out unnecessarily. I do think that it was possible to understand the characters feelings, yet there wasn’t the attachment to the characters to the point of feeling the emotions as they went through them.

Another point to make about the writing, this isn’t listed as a Christian book and the main character isn’t very strong in her faith. In some books when this is the case the parts with mention of God or faith are strained; they can feel forced. This book did not feel that way. It was all smoothly incorporated into the conversations of the characters. It felt natural.There was only one scene that I just felt was out of place and felt fixed to me. Perhaps I didn’t, and still do not, understand how it was to be applied. In case you are interested to know, the pages are 319-321. I understand the message, just not how it was to be meant to be matched to the scene.

I really liked this book. It didn’t turn out exactly how I thought it would. We aren’t given lots of hints and clues in this book. Actually we are taken along as it is in real life; we cannot know what will happen tomorrow apart from an assumption or a guess. We suppose this or that will take place, this or that will continue, but we truly do not know. Ann Tatlock writes, in my opinion, realistically. It isn’t far-fetched and definitely not predictable. It just is.

I received this book from Bethany House Publishers free in exchange for an honest review. All opinions stated are my own.