A Thousand Sleepless Nights - by Micheal King - REVIEWED!

This week, the Christian Fiction Blog Alliance is introducing A Thousand Sleepless Nights Realms (October 16, 2012) by Michael King

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

When Mike Dellosso won a one-year battle with colon cancer he set out to help readers of his books discover it before they had to go through what he experienced.

“I want others to avoid what I had to go through,” he says. “It was an experience that taught me a lot about myself, others, and God, but one I wouldn’t want to repeat. If I can help even one person battling this disease, it would have been worth it.”

Mike set about writing a novel quite different from what his fan base had come to expect from him. Not a thriller, but a character-driven novel, so he wrote it under a pen name, Michael King, and entitled it A Thousand Sleepless Nights. His publisher, Charisma Media, went for it and the first copies went on sale in October.

Mike’s next step was to determine whether a partnership between him, Charisma Media, and the Colon Cancer Alliance was possible. This month both announced their cooperative fundraising venture, with Charisma Media making a significant contribution to CCA and Mike committing a portion of the proceeds from the book through December to CCA.

Speaking about A Thousand Sleepless Nights Mike says, “I want people to see colon cancer (and all the other cancers) for the monster it is, but also to show it does not need to defeat us. There is hope, there is strength, and there is courage and love. And though cancer may rob us of our physical vitality, it has no power over our spirit.”

ABOUT THE BOOK

In the 1970s, escaping a home where he knew nothing but violence and hate, Jim Harding found work, and love, on the largest horse ranch in Virginia. The object of his affections, Nena St. Claire, is the daughter of the owner—a man who ruled his ranch with an iron fist and would do whatever it took to keep Nena and Jim apart.

Against the wishes of her family, Nena marries Jim, and after her father dies, she sacrifices everything—including her family—to keep the ranch alive. Now their three grown children have lives of their own and want nothing to do with Nena. She was never the mother they needed.

When cancer strikes and Nena is given a devastating diagnosis, can Jim reconcile the family before it is too late?

My Thoughts:

“Just because He’s God and I’m His child doesn’t mean I get excused from the sufferings of this world. There’s no get-out-of-suffering- free cards.” (p.172)

The truth of these words are the summation of a concept many Christians struggle with as they walk through this life. The characters in Michael King’s debut novel,A Thousand Sleepless Nights, takes a family through a perfect storm of trial that threatens to rob them of everything – everything that matters to them in the present. The story is told from the vantage points of Jim and Nena Hutching and their three children and respective families. Each family is facing unexpected crisis, and each must decide how they will react to their circumstances.

How we react to circumstances in our lives is often affected deeply by circumstances that happened earlier in our lives, and the Hutching family is no exception. They are made aware of the consequences of poor choices in the past, and they must choose whether or not they will go forward differently. That process is most often terrifying , and the temptation to return to familiar patterns of behavior – even though wrong –is a huge temptation. However, when your life is in the balance, somehow taking chances isn’t as scary, because eternity is at stake. That’s where you find the Hutching family – at the crossroads that separates the present circumstances from eternity itself.

The choices this family makes are pretty universal in their familiarity. At least they were to me. So many times the choices they made were simply out of a desperate need to get away from the pain of their past mistakes. It isn’t until they are brought together as a family that they are forced to face the past and reconcile their present behavior with God . The change that is wrought is not without painful consequences, but the strength to survive is evident by the end of the story.

This is an excellent modern-day story of family, faith and a fiery trial. Readers will identify with one or more of the characters in the story, and will be challenged to look at their own life differently. The author, Michael King, knows the struggles of the Hutching family intimately, because he is a cancer survivor. Bravo!! This is a beautiful story!

If you would like to read the first chapter of A Thousand Sleepless Nights, go HERE.