I don’t often purchase secular fiction, but something sparked my interest in a Nicholas Sparks book, The Last Song. It was probably the beach scene on the front. I absolutely LOVE anything related to the beach and had seen this book advertised in a store mailer.
It usually takes me weeks to finish any fiction book since I only read fiction at bedtime (the rest of my reading is spiritual, work, and leadership related). Typically, it only takes about 10 pages to put me to sleep; it takes me forever to finish one book! But not this time. I started a week ago and finished this afternoon. It was truly a fabulous story of family relationships, broken relationships and restored relationships, living and dying, bitterness and forgiveness. There was a spiritual thread through the book that enabled the father in the story to face a life different from what he had anticipated. His pastor friend and his Bible brought him incredible strength and peace. I was so touched by this story that I couldn’t put the book down and cried through the last 30 pages or so. If you haven’t read it, you might want to take a look.