Home Another Way

Christa Parrish
Bethany House (2008)
ISBN 9780764205231
Reviewed by Nikki Pringle for Reader Views (6/08)


Sarah Graham travels to the small town of Jonah, which isn’t even on the map, with nothing to her name besides twenty-three dollars and the deed to her deceased father Luke’s house in her pocket. She is incensed to learn that there is a stipulation she must meet before being given the home and the money left by her father. She must live in the house in Jonah, which might as well be the middle of the Sahara Desert for someone from New York City, for six months. Only then will she inherit the home, and the money that she so desperately needs.

Now twenty-seven years old, Sarah has already suffered through a miscarriage, divorce, and the death of her mother when she was 1-year old. Sarah was left in the care of her stern, abusive grandmother when her father was arrested and charged with her mother’s murder. She entered and then dropped out of Juilliard and worked a string of dead-end jobs, ending up with no place to live and no means of supporting herself. The home and money that are left to her after her fathers passing came in the nick of time for Sarah, and lured by the two things she so desperately needs, she begrudgingly decides to stick it out over the long winter in Jonah.

Try as she might to avoid them, Sarah finds she is in need of the help of the townsfolk, who all seem to remember Luke not as a paroled murderer, but as a man full of compassion and kindness. After taking a job under the local doctor delivering first food and then companionship to the town’s older and poorer residents, Sarah starts to realize that other people just might need her too. Inn owner Maggie, her scarred but resilient daughter Beth and her son Jack, the town pastor, among others, become a larger part of Sarah’s life than she is prepared to admit to them or to herself.

With the six months and her time in Jonah drawing to a close, Sarah must wade through the feelings she has developed for this small town and its resident’s and find her own happiness through forgiveness, spirituality and love for herself and others, all things she thought she was no longer capable of.

With “Home Another Way,” author Christa Parrish has written a debut novel that resonates with themes of human kindness, moral and spiritual dilemmas that many can relate to, and above all, faith strong enough to stand the test of time. Her characters are loveable, funny, and so realistic that you ache for them in their struggles and weep with them in their times of joy. My hope is that Parrish will continue her tale of Sarah, Maggie, Beth, Jack and the other residents of Jonah with a follow-up novel as strong as her first. I recommend “Home Another Way” to anyone who enjoys a story that shows that even in the darkest of times there is a light at the end of the tunnel that can lead where you least expect it.

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