Walking on Water, The Walk, #5

Walking on Water by Richard Paul Evans
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

In the fifth and final book of the Walk series, Evans returns Allan from his walk to his father's bedside in California. Mr. Christofferson, hospitalized with a heart attack - is in failing health. While the walk is indefinitely on hold, Alan sleeps at his childhood home, returning daily to the hospital to talk with his dad, mostly about their past and discuss the diary Allan had found. To Allan's dismay, he must let his father go and endure the final physical and emotional motions of laying him at rest. Only thereafter, encouraged by recent words of his father, does Allan return to his walk to the Florida Keys..


As Allan's walk was quite a journey, so is ours...may we all enjoy the cast of characters we meet along the way and keep those we love close to our heart....

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Step of Faith

A Step of Faith by Richard Paul Evans
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Book four in the Walk series by Richard Paul Evans finds our character Alan Christoffersen, who was walking from the state of Washington to Florida, flying back to a medical center near his father’s home in Los Angeles for surgery on his recently found brain tumor. Fortunately, the tumor is found to be benign, and after spending weeks recuperating and against his father’s wishes, Alan flies back to St. Louis to continue his journey – meeting interesting and engaging people along the route. Walking provides an outlet for his jumbled, tortured thoughts and as he approaches the Florida state line, Alan realizes that he is ready to live and love again. But, he has to hold onto hope when a message is left on his cell reporting an emergency at home.

As Alan says, “For now Key West must wait. For the third time since I began, my walk has been delayed. In the beginning, I had considered these stops on my journey as interruptions - but I’m coming to understand that perhaps these detours are my journey. No matter how much I, or the rest of humanity wishes otherwise, life is not lived in smooth downhill expressways, but in the obscure, perilous trails and rocky back roads of life where we stumble and feel our way through the fog of the unknown. Life is not a sprint. It was never meant to be. It is just one step of faith after another.”


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The Road to Grace

The Road to Grace by Richard Paul Evans
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Book three in the Walk series, this is another keeper. Alan is back on the road again, walking out his demons, from South Dakota, through Iowa, and ending as far as St. Louis, Missouri - over halfway to his destination of Key West, FL. Along the way he meets the most interesting people, but to his surprise and dread, his mother-in-law Pamela appears and follows him through several towns, disappearing and reappearing. Just when Alan believes he has left her behind for good, Pamela appears, looking worse than ever until finally she collapses on the shoulder of the road. When Alan revives her with food and water, she tells him a convincing story he has never heard and ends by asking for grace. Can Alan forgive the woman who deserted his late wife when she was only a child? The next person Alan meets is the elderly man who finds him on the side of the road, dropped by another severe vertigo attack. The man, Mr. Leszek, immediately takes him to the hospital, but waits and offers him hospitality until Alan recovers. Again, Alan learns a valuable lesson in the art of compassion and forgiveness. So the story goes - as the books draws to a close, Alan is on the road to St. Louis and again is attacked by severe dizziness, and wakes up in the hospital - finding the cause to his vertigo.

A story of offering and accepting grace and forgiveness - as Alan says in his journal: The abundance of this grace is only limited by ourselves, as we cannot receive that which we are not willing to accept-be it for ourselves or others..that not to extend forgiveness is to burn the bridge that we ourselves must cross...

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Miles to Go

Miles to Go by Richard Paul Evans

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


The continuation of The Walk by Richard Paul Evans. In this small novel Alan wakes up in a hospital in Spokane, Washington with three knife wounds to his stomach, inflicted by a gang. He has only walked 318 of the 3,500 miles in his journey from Seattle to Key West, Florida. Alan has lost everything important in his life and walks, with only the bare necessities on his back, to get through the pain - well he did, until he was jumped by the gang outside Spokane. Now, lying in a hospital bed regaining his strength, Alan wonders how he will get through the day, let alone the upcoming months of recuperation. A good samaritan, by the name of Angel, offers to take him home and care for him until he's back on his feet and able to travel again. Can Angel and Alan help each other heal from their own personal tragedies?

My 18 year old daughter read the first in this emotional series and eagerly awaited Miles to Go. Two nights of staying up until 3am and it was finished - she said she couldn't put it down.



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