The Water Keeper by Charles Martin has it all! Action, adventure, emotions, a little romance, spirituality, good against evil, and underlying stories of resilience courage that prevails no matter what.

The Water Keeper is the first book of the Murphy Shepard series. “Murph” is our hero how rescues young, sex-trafficked girls across the world for the US government and is also a trained priest. He’s already been through so much as a child and teen and then enrolls in the government program to use his skills to find missing girls who no one cares about anymore. He cares and his passion for this who have strayed makes all the difference.

The pace of the book is perfect. It’s fast and exciting to keep you waiting for what is next. I listened to the audiobook version and the narrator was great. He kept the pace and momentum going perfectly. He wants you to feel as you are in the story with all the characters.

I am looking forward to the next book in this series.

I was so excited to read this series! It's a gripping story from the beginning, and it's perfect for the reader who wants a mystery that still holds lots of emotion and depth. This is a beautiful story and absolutely worth the read!

Charles Martin’s The Water Keeper presents a plot that, on the surface, seems promising: a hero hunting human traffickers in a gritty, high-stakes pursuit. However, the story quickly unravels into something far less believable. The protagonist, while ostensibly focused on his mission, veers off course at every turn, stopping to rescue every stray person and animal he encounters. This constant diversion strains credulity, as does his superhuman resilience—being shot multiple times barely slows him down as he continues to take on villains. Adding to the implausibility is the web of interconnections among strangers who just happen to cross his path, tying the narrative into knots that defy logic.

The writing itself doesn’t help. Martin burdens the story with excessive detail, stretching what could be conveyed in a sentence or two into lengthy, overwritten passages. This verbosity adds little to the narrative beyond padding the word count, turning an already tedious read into a slog. I found myself pushing through to the end more out of obligation than enjoyment.

The audiobook narration by Jonathan K. Riggs compounds the issues. His voice is pleasant enough, but his delivery falls flat. At times, he races through sections with breakneck speed, while in others, he moderates his pace adequately. Yet throughout, there’s a distinct lack of emotion or cadence—just a monotone presence that fails to bring the story to life. Whether this dullness stems from Riggs’ choices or direction from the author or producer, I can’t say, but it doesn’t inspire confidence.

In the end, The Water Keeper is a miss. The plot’s potential drowns in unbelievable twists and overlong prose, and the narration does nothing to salvage it. I wouldn’t recommend this book or author, and I’d reserve judgment on Riggs as a narrator until I knew more about the creative decisions behind his performance.

The Water Keeper by Charles Martin
This is a poignant story demonstrating heroism in today’s slave industry.
Murphy Shepard exists on an island tending the grounds of a church. Recently plagued with the loss of his mentor, he is one a mission to put him to rest.
Murph pulls Summer out of the Intercoastal Waterway and joins her journey to find her missing daughter.
A dangerous mission takes the two head first into the modern-day industry of trafficking and slavery.
Charles Martin has a gift with his story telling. The beautiful descriptions of Florida took me back to a place I love. I was right there in the story!
Gunner, a white labrador, is easily the hero in this tale and I love a good book that celebrates a canine hero!
I really enjoyed this audiobook provided by NetGalley. I would like to thank NetGalley for the opportunity to review it. 5/5⭐

I had a bit of trouble getting into this book but I’m so glad I kept with it. Murph is one of those great characters with so much depth & mystery that unravels at just the right moments. Summer, Ellie & Clay add great elements to the story and Gunner is a great dog character, The story was pretty serious & the human trafficking element was dark. The action was fast paced & great. The narrator is so easy to listen to & I enjoyed listening,

Thanks to NetGalley, Charles Martin & Thomas Nelson Audio for a copy of this audiobook.

Title: The Water Keeper
By: Charles Martin
Pub. Day: May 5, 2020

Genre:
Fiction, Mystery, Christian, Audiobook,

Trigger Warnings:
Human Trafficking, Suicide, Drugs, Intimate Scenes

Memorable Quotes:

“We don’t love because people love us back. We love because we can. Because we were made to.”

“You hang around people long enough and you learn their tells. Pain has a way of exiting the body, and most will let you know when it’s on its way out. Seldom do they know what their “tell” is telling you. Most often it’s silent. Sometimes it can be loud. However it comes out, it leaves a trail.

“Love is like water. No matter how you cut it, slice it, beat it, or blow it into ten trillion droplets, give it a few minutes and it will all come back together again. Like nothing ever happened. Love fills the empty places and flows from what was once the epicenter of the wound. And it’s the flowing that washes out the residue of the pain and makes us whole again. That’s the crazy miracle that is love. The more you pour out, the more you have to pour. I don’t understand it, I just know it’s true.”

Summary/Review:
Murph is living in the chapel by the water off the coast of Florida when a mysterious young girl appears. Murph can tell the young girl is in some sort of trouble, he gives the young girl his contact information. He is an undercover hero, and when Murph meets Summer, their situation comes full circle. Together, Murph and Summer join forces to find the mysterious young girl and bring her to safety.

Charles Martin has a beautifully tragic way of taking a reader down the path of human trafficking that is awakening to the soul, in a non detrimental way! The reader quickly falls in love with the deeply layered characters, the suspenseful plot line, with rich life altering themes of forgiveness, redemption, hope and most importantly love. I truly appreciated the author’s knowledge and insight into Human Trafficking. Thank you for an advanced reader's copy of this novel!

Thank you to Charles Martin, Thomas Nelson and Zondervan Fiction Audio, Boldwood Books , and NetGalley for the opportunity of an Advanced Readers Copy. I am voluntarily leaving my review.

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#CharlesMartin
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#advancedreadercopies
#ThomasNelson
#ZondervanFictionAudio
#NetGalley

Murphy Shepherd is my hero! He is a "priest" who goes on missions trying to find people who have been kidnapped and are being sold on the human trafficking.

While taking care of a church that has no parishioners, he rescues a woman name Summer who is looking for her daughter who is missing. Along with a faithful Labrador he plucks from the ocean and an ex-convict named Clay, Murph must race against the clock to locate the girl before he is consumed by the secrets of his past—and the ghosts who tried to bury them.

This was literally such a good book. Fast paced. Really gave a good look into what human trafficking looks like. I loved the story. It was so fast paced and kept my attention throughout the book. I can't wait to move forward with the series and already have the new book on preorder.

I read the second book in this series a while ago, so it was great to go back to the beginning of this series and see how it all starts. I really like the character of Murphy Shepherd. He has a past filled with many jobs and stories that have all affected him and he has managed to turn those experiences into a positive career and home. Looking forward to reading the rest of this series.

Jonathan K. Riggs did a great job narrating this story and I look forward to listening to him narrate the remainder of the series.

The Water Keeper, by Charles Martin, is quite the action adventure, romance. While that's not necessarily a unique genre, the slower pace of this book with each of the characters different stories, makes it unique. Each of the characters are such an interesting and varied mix of personalities and that helps keep the story moving. I must admit, after all the drama, I wasn't a fan of the ending. If you like a lot of details in your books, along with a slower pace, I think you'll enjoy this one.
The narrator, Jonathan K. Riggs, does a good job managing each of the characters and keeping the story going at a fairly steady pace. I found his voice to be calm and soothing in a way that worked well with the story.

This book seemed to take forever for me to finish. I tried listening to the Audiobook version and it kept losing my interest, then I picked up the ebook and the same thing happened. I kept putting it down and switching to other books. This obviously means the book was not in the top 5 for me.

The book itself isn't awful but it really couldn't keep my attention especially in audio format.

Murph is a mysterious man with a past, who lives and works in a chapel in Florida. That premise actually sounds cool right, but that's where things kind of go astray. Everything happens in weird coincidences. Murph meets Angel who he gives his card to, and then her mom Summer he meets in a boating accident where he saves her, picks up Gunner and happens on his owner in a field. I can go on with the coincidences but I'll just leave it at they are rather unbelievable.

It was silly at times too for me since I know I rolled my eyes at least once and more like 10 times. Murph gets stabbed, punched and shot multiple times and manages to walk away every time with very little intervention....yeah okaaaay.

Some may like it, I wasn't a fan.

Murphy Shepherd is an example of the saying "what doesn't kill you, makes you stronger". Life has handed him many challenges, he's won a few and lost some very important ones. Murph has retreated to an island off the Florida coast where he is isolated from those who have hurt him. But Murph cannot turn off that piece of his mind that insists he rescue those who need his help and rid the world of those who have no conscience. His life begins to twist again when he meets a young woman in trouble and later meets her mother, who's just trying to save her daughter.

I've read several of Charles Martin's books and am always surprised when I fall into the stories, only to "see" the characters and their stories. Martin's skillful descriptions of the Florida scenery give excellent display to the ever changing coastal waters. I listened to THE WATER KEEPER on audio book and was swept away by the narrator's reading. Reading or listening, it's a 5 star experience.

Murphy Shepherd is a broken man holding a lot of pain and secrets. He has dedicated his life to finding and rescuing those in peril. On his way to lay to rest his mentor and friend, he comes upon a ménage of equally broken friends and a faithful Labrador now all on a mission to save a lost girl that has been taken by human traffickers.

Forgetting what this book was about, I went into it completely blind and was hooked by the first action packed first scene! This Christian based thriller is set along the east coast of Florida. I loved reading Martin’s description of areas I’ve been many times, but can see that that might be a little slow. However the book picks up quickly with twists and turned that I didn’t see coming. I do feel like I had to suspend belief at times to forgive the coincidences or superhuman powers the main character had. But for the most part that did not turn me away from the story. This is my second Charles Martin book I’ve read and won’t be my last.

This is one of those books that will stick with me for a long time. I have been a Charles Martin fan for a while, so I'm not surprised how much this book touched me. The Water Keeper centers around human trafficking. The story shines a light on some of the horror that is happening around the world. The plot focuses on a man who goes by "Murph" as he takes his boat on a journey to process some past grief. As he journeys south along the coast, he picks up a rag-tag bunch of strays including a mom trying to find her daughter, a dog named Gunner, an ex-con named Clay and later a young girl with unknown ties to his past.
The novel highlights (in the words of Charles Martin) a journey "from broken to not, from slave to free." Each character has different steps to take to find their freedom, just like we all do. I found myself praying for the women and grils who get trapped in situations similar to the ones depicted in this book, praying for the sick and twisted individuals who look at humans as "flesh" and just want to make money, praying for those dealing with past truamas and grief, and praying for home like the hope found in Colorado in the book (I hope there is a place like that in real life and I pray that it is making the difference I believe it could!).
As you can tell, I was hooked and couldn't read fast enough. The plot is suspenseful and emotional, The charcters are engaging, and the writing is beautiful. I loved this book, and I can't wait to read the next one of the series.

This book is a little more intense than I was expecting which made it a bit of an anxious read for me. I'm not a huge fan of the style of the writing, but I do think that it is well done for the style. I could see this working well for folks who are fans of the Reacher series, although I've never read those books so I can only compare it to the story style and vibes of the television series. All in all, I think that this will be an excellent read for its intended audience.

Loved this story of redemption. At the time I requested this book, I hadn't made the connection that this was the same author as that of The Mountain between us. I was, however, extremely haply to discover that it was so, once I started listening to the book. Although this is very much a book unto its own, rest assured, if you're looking for something similar to The Mountain, this book will fit the bill.

Thank you Netgalley for this ALC in exchange for an honest review.

The Water Keeper by Charles Martin is a captivating and emotional journey that blends heroism, heartache, and the transformative power of love.
This book took on a heart-wrenching search for freedom, shedding light on the dark realities of human trafficking.

The Water Keeper is my first Charles Martin novel and I am blown away. This book took a few chapters to fully grip me, but I was intrigued by the explosive beginning. Then as the story slowly began to unfold, the fascination built.

From about halfway, I picked the story up at every possible moment. Even if I only had 90 seconds. So firm was my need to know what happened. I think Murph might be one of my favorite ever characters. Deeply wounded, impossibly courageous, fully skilled and all with the soul of an artist. Wow.

I won’t give away any plot details except that the byproduct of Murph’s wound is his ability to find missing people. The story centers on finding a missing teen, swept away by sex traffickers. He’s accompanied by the teen’s mom, an ex-con, his dog and a lost teenager.

Then a couple of twists put this already gripping read into a whole other level of brilliant. The Water Keeper is the first book in the series and I could not be more grateful for that. Murph and I have many happy hours ahead.

If you like gripping characters, unimaginable circumstances, high octane action and immeasurable softness all in one story, this is a book you must read. I received a copy of The Water Keeper from the publisher via NetGalley. The opinions are all my own.

“The Water Keeper” by Charles Martin and narrated by Jonathan K. Riggs is the tale of Murphy Shepard, a man with a secret life. On the surface, he seems like a caretaker for a catholic chapel, a religious man. But he is also a best-selling novelist and an undercover agent who specializes in releasing women from human trafficking. As he sets out to release the ashes of his mentor who dies in the very beginning to the book, he takes on a dog and makes friends with a woman who is searching for her missing daughter. Murphy, of course, knows exactly what kind of danger the girl is in. She is at risk of disappearing forever, sold to the highest bidder.

This is not the book I normally read, but it was beautifully written and the narrator drew me right into the story. There is a degree of violence, and of course the topic of human trafficking is not a light one at all. But I still enjoyed the book for the most part. I do think the last quarter of the book went on quite a bit more than necessary. I think a lot of it, especially the final chapters, should have been cut, or at least, severely cut down. At that point, I found it a bit tedious.

Many thanks to Net Galley and to the publisher for an audiobook version of “The Water Keeper.” My opinions are my own.

Very much liked this book. I read the 2nd book in the series first not knowing it was a series of 4. But it still made sense. This book did fill in some gaps from the 2nd book. Just started the 3rd book now.

Murphy Shepherd is a man of many talents, one of which includes rescuing people. Starting with the rescue of a dog swimming after his owner's boat, Murphy rescues many people along the road and collects new friends.

This is book 1 in the Murphy Shepherd series, I've never read anything by Charles Martin before and I'm really glad I found this series. This book is wildly entertaining and the tone of Murphy's character is so pure. I thoroughly enjoyed the entire book, its thrilling, heartbreaking and has a good message. I like the way the author describes everything, it really makes the characters come to life and makes you feel like you're right there in the story with them.

I highly recommend this book and I can't wait for the next installment.

Thanks to Netgalley and Thomas Nelson for an advance reader copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.