Beauty on the Backroads

Stories of grace for life's unexpected turns

books

A ticket to another world: Review of Forest Child by Heather Day Gilbert

When I can’t travel the world, I pick up a book, and good fiction is a ticket to another world. Heather Day Gilbert’s series of Viking stories is guaranteed transportation to another time and place.

The first book, God’s Daughter, was mesmerizing. I had high hopes for the second one, Forest Child, and it didn’t disappoint. (Disclaimer: I received a free digital copy of the book from the author but my opinions are entirely my own.)

forest-childGilbert’s Viking stories are some of my favorite stories to read.

In-depth, flawed characters telling the stories in their own voices set me right into the middle of the action and I cannot get out. I am captive to these tales.

In this one, Freydis, the illegitimate child of Erik the Red, sets out to prove her place in the family by plundering Vinland (northern North America). But the reality she faces in the New World is horrific and her own actions will haunt her all the way back to Greenland and the family farm.

Hers is a story that is at times heartbreaking and difficult to read, but her journey is a beautiful picture of redemption. I especially enjoyed the way married life is illustrated in this story (and the previous one). Gilbert has a talent for depicting the realities of marriage without demeaning the relationship. It is one of my favorite things about her stories.

Gilbert gives us a gift in retelling these little-known Viking sagas. More than simply entertaining, they lead us to truths about marriage, forgiveness, love, and community. The Viking era is not one I am overly familiar with beyond the famous names like Erik the Red and Leif Ericsson (both who play roles in these stories and whose names are spelled differently, reflecting their heritage) but Gilbert’s books make me want to read more about them and hop a plane to Iceland.

Book 2 lives up to the high standard set in book 1. Truly, these are remarkable stories.

The book I was afraid to read: Review of Falling Free by Shannan Martin

To me, the scariest books to read aren’t the ones that conjure up the most horrific scenarios meant to thrill and terrify us. Nope. The scariest books I read are the ones that challenge me to do something difficult, or at the very least, outside of the comfortable world I’ve created for myself.

falling-freeThat’s the kind of book this is. Falling Free: Rescued from the Life I Always Wanted by Shannan Martin is a book I would only recommend if you are willing to re-evaluate the status of your life. If not, I’d advise you move along. (And while I did receive a free copy of this book from the publisher, my review reflects my opinion only and a positive opinion was not required.)

Martin was living her dream life in a cute farmhouse with her family surrounded by acres of land, full of friends and church family (she used to be known as the Flowerpatch Farmgirl) when that life began shifting in ways they didn’t expect. And it opened them up to so much more.

They gave up the farmhouse and moved into the city, a change that seemed all wrong from the outside: wrong side of the tracks, wrong schools, wrong job. They took a chance that God was serious about less being more, and they’ve discovered that He is true to His word. But it’s a struggle to get there. Martin writes:

In order to live an abundant life, we will lose before we gain. We will be last so he can be first, but no worries, he won’t forget in the end. God promises us gifts of loss and less, and though we know all his promises are for our good, we resist them. (p. 101)

And just because God is in it doesn’t mean it’s been easy. As the Martins moved into the neighborhood and began to open their lives to their neighbors and eventually the men in the jail where her husband is a chaplain, they learned the truth about community. Martin writes:

Community, in its purest form, is anything but pure. It’s noisy. Inconvenient. It demands we com to painful terms with the persistent cultural lies of independence and self-sufficiency, both of which run contrary to the gospel. … To be in community is to be painfully aware of our own unlovability but to offer ourselves anyway. Community simply can’t share space with masks or props. (p. 123)

Falling Free is Martin’s personal story of having her eyes opened to the world around her, but it’s also a challenge for the rest of us to see our lives anew. In the book, she doesn’t lay out a step-by-step plan for everyone to follow exactly in her family’s footsteps. But she does invite us to see in a different way.

One encounter with God’s sovereign love and consuming power can change your heart’s desire on a dime … It doesn’t mean it will be easy or simple or that there won’t be some mid-grade anxiety. There’s a difference between being too scared to do hard things and doing hard things scared. Communing with the God of the universe will inspire all kinds of unscripted movement and giant leaps past “normal.” It’ll make surrendering seem like the safest way. (p. 82)

There’s so much to digest in this book that a once-through isn’t enough. Beyond just reading Martin’s words and calls to step away from comfort, though, I want to live it out.

Falling Free probably won’t leave you feeling satisfied or calm. It might make you angry, defensive or scared. I think that’s okay. Just know that reading it might make you squirm and set you on a new path for life.