Finding Ruth (Coming Home to Brewster) - Softcover

Henke, Roxanne

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0736909680 ISBN 13: 9780736909686

Publisher: Harvest House Publishers, 2003

Synopsis

Ruthie Hammond had a dream.  After high school she was moving to a big city...anywhere but Brewster.  Surely God had a plan for her, and it wasn't in this small, nowhere town.

Twenty years later she's back in Brewster working at a failing radio station with her boyfriend Jack.  She's given up on God and if she wants to get out of town, she'll have to do it solo. But when her first love, Paul, moves back, Ruthie wonders if happiness really does lie beyond this podunk town.

In this second novel in the Coming Home to Brewster series, Roxanne Henke offers another wonderful story about relationships, choices, and spiritual growth.

About this title

About the Author

Roxanne Sayler Henke lives in rural North Dakota with her husband,Lorren and their dog, DeeDee. They have two, very cool, adult daughters, Rachael and Tegan, and two delightful grandkids. As a family they enjoy spending time at their lake cabin in northern Minnesota. Roxanne has adegree in Behavioral and Social Science from the University of Mary andfor many years was a newspaper humor columnist. She has also written and recorded radio commercials, written for, and performed in, a comedyduo; and co-written school lyceums. Roxy is currently a columnist for ND Living magazine. She is the author of eight novels. You can contact her at: roxannehenke@yahoo.com

Reviews

In her second book in the Coming Home to Brewster series, the author of After Anne offers a well-told if predictable modern parable of the biblical prodigal for evangelical Christian readers. Brewster, N.Dak., is a quaint small town that Ruthie Hammond has spent almost two decades trying to escape. Through flashbacks, the reader learns that Ruthie's longings to get away caused her to refuse a proposal years ago from her high school sweetheart, Paul Bennett. Years later, she's still in Brewster, scrabbling to keep a small radio station afloat and wondering if she'll ever find her dream. Ruthie's live-in lover, deejay Jack Warner-"the Musicman"-shares a stake in the radio station, but his penchant for gambling and alcohol jeopardizes their relationship. When Ruthie's old boyfriend, Paul, now a widower, returns to Brewster to head up the town's small bank, the ending is a foregone conclusion. As she did in After Anne, Henke uses multiple points of view, and the reader is often fed portions of the same scene more than once. The themes include some cliches (e.g., smalltown life is better than city life), and a sermon inserted at the end of the novel hammers home the prodigal child connection. There's also a strained analogy to the biblical Ruth, even to the point of having Ruthie name her first child Naomi. But the strengths of the novel are Henke's engaging voice and competent prose-a combination that makes her a CBA novelist to watch.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

At the senior prom, Ruth Hammond, of Henke's Finding Ruth, turned down a marriage proposal from the love of her life, Paul. Ruth wanted to leave boring Brewster, North Dakota, and lead an exciting life. But like George in It's a Wonderful Life, Ruth can never get out of town. She moves in with fast-talking Jack, and they start a radio station in Brewster, but there's never enough ad money to pay the bills. When Ruth works up the nerve to kick Jack out, Paul conveniently returns to town as bank president. Henke casts this inevitable romance as made in Heaven, but it may seem to the reader like a middle-aged woman's last, manipulative stand. Even so, Henke turns in a portrait of little Brewster that is at least as vibrant as Vinita Wright's in Grace of Bender Springs (1999). John Mort
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Edition details

• Publisher: Harvest House Publishers
• Publication date: 2003
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0736909680
• ISBN 13: 9780736909686
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 384