Send Down the Rain: A Novel by Charles Martin

Send Down the Rain: A Novel. Charles Martin. Harper Collins Publishing. Copyright May 2018. E-Book. 352 pp.; ISBN: 9780718084769. 

Allie waits for her second husband to come home for dinner.  He’s a trucker who spends most of his time on the road but he and Allie seem happy in their new life in Cape San Blas. That complacent lull in life proceeding smoothly is about to be sheared apart, literally and figuratively.  But tragedy in the form of falling asleep and losing control of the massive truck changed everything, a massive fireball as the truck hit immense rocks on the side of a road and is obliterated beyond recognition.  Death tears apart Allie’s world!

Joseph (Jo Jo) Brooks has returned from a devastating time in Vietnam and wants nothing but to return to a life of normalcy.  So he settles into a cabin and is happy to work out his memory-driven demons.  He’s making progress but is still far from knowing normalcy.  A dramatically quiet meeting changes his world when he meets Allie and her two young children lost and wandering in the woods near his cabin.  They get to know each other and very gradually begin to care for each other. 

While he is helping her return to Florida to remaining family, a shocking truth comes to their attention and the rest of the story is a dramatic revelation indeed. All of this happens while Allie helps Joseph heal his way through nightmares and the PTSD that still looms large in his daily life.

The change in Allie’s life is tough to handle and it is Joseph who guides her through the journey to a satisfying end.  Sometimes life’s twists and turns are the tough road that makes a person grow the most, although one wouldn’t want to be part of this process. Although it may strike most readers as contrived, the story is still worth the reading, replete with high emotions and challenges!

I received a complimentary copy of this book from Thomas Nelson through NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.