“This is a powerful story of grief, love, forgiveness, and holy mystery, and I loved it. Billy Coffey is a master storyteller.” —Lauren Denton, USA Today bestselling author of The Hideaway
Owen Cross grew up with two loves: one a game, the other a girl. One of his loves ruined him. Now he’s counting on the other to save him.
Owen Cross’s father is a hard man, proud in his brokenness, who wants nothing more than for Owen to succeed where he failed. With his innate talents and his father’s firm hand guiding him, Owen goes to college with dreams of the major leagues—and an emptiness full of a girl named Micky Dullahan.
Owen loved Micky from the first time they met on the hill between their two worlds: his middle-class home and her troubled Shantytown. Years later he leaves her for the dugouts and the autographs, but their days together follow him. When he finally returns home, he discovers that even peace comes at a cost. And that the hardest things to say are to the ones we love the most.
From bestselling author Billy Coffey comes a haunting story of small-town love, blinding ambition, and the risk of giving it all for one last chance.
“In one evening, a single baseball game, Coffey invites us into a lifetime. With lyrical prose and aching description we join Owen Cross on a journey of love, loss, faith, the unexpected—and America’s favorite pastime.” —Katherine Reay, author of Dear Mr. Knightley and The Austen Escape
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Sexual Content - 1/5
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Summary
From: Rebecca Maney
Book Title: Steal Away Home
Book Author: Billy Coffey
What do you like about this book:
3.5
. . . .faith comes hardest for those who have much to lose."
Folks in Shantytown had nothing to lose and everything to gain. Isolated from the fine, upstanding citizens of Camden, Virginia, they eked out an existence on the fringes of life in general. Except for Michaela Constance Dullahan, daughter of the meanest drunk in Camden; Micky dared to become herself; befriending a newcomer, Owen Cross, and falling in love with friendship.
Owen Cross has been raised up as a baseball player, and for good reason, he is extremely talented. His father has made sure that Owen's life goal is to play at the highest level, having had his own ball career cut short by a debilitating shoulder injury. Besides baseball, there is nothing in Owen's life worth more than Micky Dullahan. Their secret rendezvous on top of the hill between their homes, sharing their innermost thoughts and dreams, is a lifeline for both of them.
Sadly, everything changes on the night of their senior prom, when life and death pass before their very eyes, leaving Michaela with a pure sense of her own destiny, while Owen continues to wish that what he thought was worth everything, was at least worth something.
The context of this story is brilliant, the author using baseball as a means of delivering his own sermon about life. The weakness lies in the sheer volume of his musings, so much so that it may leave readers scratching their heads, wondering what they have just read. Crystal clear however, is the deep desire within all of us to claim a "love everlasting", illustrated so beautifully in the somewhat tragic characters of Michaela and Owen.
I received a copy of this book from the publisher. The opinions stated are entirely my own.
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