This story made me cry. I loved the story within a story. The characters were great in this book. I loved the priest and Gomez Gomez and Bones the best. This story shows how a few people and a whole town react when one person dies in a horrible accident. There were many twists and turns during this story. I love the inspiration. I received a copy of this book from Read with Audra for a fair and honest opinion that I gave of my own free will.

I don’t think I have been entertained by a book like this one in a long time. The characters are flawed, quirky and downright fun. The author writes a story that captures the good old days reminiscing about rock music and hanging out with friends you've know forever was a treat.

Gomez Gomez is missing his wife and doesn’t want to let go of her memory. He has become a recluse in the woods. I liked him instantly when he said he was a believer . I thought it was funny that so many people were worried about him, yet Gomez Gomez seems quite content with how he is living. The bitterness he harbors about his wife’s death is getting to him though.

There are several characters that interact with Gomez Gomez that makes the story interesting. I can’t forget about Father Jake. Now there’s a man who has a double whammy of guilt and regret. We make decisions in our life and sometimes they turn out bad. Jake is regretting a big decision he made and now is wandering around unhappy. It sure is hard to see the person you love everyday and not be able to be with them.

There are several twists in the story that took me by surprise. Just when I thought I had figured out what was going to happen, the author throws a curve ball in the story. I do believe I would like to meet Gomez Gomez and let him know that others may judge him , but God knows the pain he is in. The author gives us a look at forgiveness, redemption and characters I hope to see in another book.

I received a copy of this book from Read With Audra Blogging Program. The review is my own opinion.

3.5 Stars

I wasn’t sure what to expect from this book, and there were some high and low points for me.
It was hard to get into the story, there are so many character points of view, it was difficult to really connect with any single one of them. There was also a lot of repetition throughout the book (specifically in the dialogue but also in the whole plot development).

That said, the themes of this book—the impact someone has on the lives of many, forgiveness, and healing—are woven throughout. The friendship between Gomez Gomez, Early, and Jake is forged through years and life experiences and even when those ties are fragile, they remain.

And while a couple things took me by surprise in the book, I had most of them figured out long before their big reveal.

Literary fiction with pieces of magical realism, the story takes themes that are often found in Christian fiction and gives them an original spin.


Disclosure statement: I voluntarily reviewed a complimentary copy of this book and was not required to write a positive review. All opinions are my own.

It took a long time for this book to grab me. It was not until about the last 40 pages I was really happy I was reading it. While I appreciated the ending and was moved by it, I am not sure it made up for the slow pace of the rest of the book. I just could not find the characters engaging. They almost seemed liked caricatures of real people. Each of the characters was flawed but almost to a debilitating extreme. And the plot seemed absent, void of structure for much of the novel. The story just seemed to ramble along for quite some time.

I was not amazed at Storm's writing style. The novel seems to be something like magical realism with talking snakes and the ghost of Elvis appearing often. Some of the writing was lyrical in almost an other worldly way but the pace was slow. For much of the novel I wondered if something really life changing would ever happen.

And there were a couple of pet peeves in this novel. One is a dream Gomez Gomez had. We don't find out it is a dream for some time. I thought it was a flash back at first. I don't like it when an author does not identify a dream right off. And then there was the confusing way of addressing Paradise Chief of Police Matthias Galt. Sometimes he was identified as Officer Galt in the text, not just in dialogue. I can see people referring to him in various ways in dialogue but not the author doing so in the text.

The last 40 pages or so of the novel made it into a story of forgiveness, restored love and new beginnings. Readers who don't mind a rambling story leading up to that point will appreciate the novel.

I received a complimentary digital copy of this book from the publisher. My comments are an independent and honest review.