Healing Sands by Nancy Rue and Stephen Arterburn

Healing Sands was a pleasure to read and hard to put down. I’m trying to read more Christian Fiction and I’m pleasantly surprised at how well written it has become.

Ryan Coe is a photo journalist home from a year in Africa. She moves to New Mexico to be near her sons who are living with her ex-husband. The story opens with her trying to get acclimatized to a new home, new job and new relationship with her children. Things go wrong from the beginning when her 15 year old son is accused of trying to kill his friend Miguel. Ryan needs to find out the true story and along the way confronts her fears, her anger and her failures. As the story progresses she learns to face her fears, control her anger and accept her failures. She’s helped with this by another of the main characters, Sullivan Crisp.

Although the story is about uncontrollable anger and violence there is gentleness in the overall tone. Part of this is achieved by listening in on her therapy sessions. I’ve never been to a counsellor but if I did I would hope it would be one like Sullivan Crisp with a sense of humor and a down to earth attitude about life. The overall treatment of Christian psychology in this book is very positive.

The mystery is good but the pleasure in reading this story comes from the development of the characters. By the end they are no where near perfect but you can see how they’ve grown and the lessons learned along the way are applicable to the real life of the reader.

The book comes with a reading/discussion guide and would make a great book club pick.