Misery Loves Company {Book Review}

Tyndale House Publishers provided me with a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Title: Misery Loves Company
Author: Rene Gutteridge
Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.
Format: Soft Cover
Page Count: 368 pages

I rarely read a book more than once. If I do read it a second time, I can’t remember doing so, so soon after the first reading, but Misery Loves Company by Rene Gutteridge is so good and I read it so quickly that I had to read it again. I intended to just pick it up to refresh my memory and find a quote or two for my review and found myself reading the whole thing again. Loving it just as much the second time as I did the first time.

Misery Loves Company Book Review Rene Gutteridge

About the Book:

Filled with grief, Juliet Belleno rarely leaves the house since her husband’s death while on duty as a police officer. Other than the reviews Jules writes on her blog, she has little contact with the outside world.

But one day when she ventures out to the local grocery store, Jules bumps into a fellow customer . . . then recognizes him as her favorite author, Patrick Reagan.

And that’s the last thing she remembers- until she wakes up in a strange room with a splitting headache. Jules realizes she’s been kidnapped . . . but what she discovers about her abductor will change everything she believed about her husband’s death, her career, and her faith.

About the Author:

Rene Gutteridge is the author of nineteen novels including Listen, Possession, the Storm series, and the novelization of the movie The Ultimate Gift. Rene and her husband have two children and live in Oklahoma.

My Thoughts:

This book isn’t just about Juliet and her struggles of trying to cope in a world without her husband. It’s also about Chris and his struggles of accepting his partner’s death.  He promised Jason he would take care of Juliet and now she’s disappeared. It’s also about Juliet’s father and yes even about Patrick Reagan.

Rene weaves the story in 3rd person alternating between Chris and Juliet. There’s a mystery to Jason’s death and a possible connection between the police officers death and Juliet’s kidnapping but it isn’t until the final chapters that Rene fully reveals all the spokes of the wheel.  We are left guessing at the end of many chapters: is Chris’s partner a good guy? Is Patrick sane? Who is this other author and what does he have to do with any of this?

Yes this is a Christian mystery but Rene’s approach is different.  She explores the idea of how the faith of one can impact those he loved even after his death. Jason, though dead, is just as important a character as Chris, Patrick, or even Juliet. We learn about Jason and the strength of his faith. That strength. That belief. That faith carries Juliet through her captivity and leads to Chris’s conversation at the climax of the story.

This book asks tough questions and doesn’t sugar coat answers and even better is a griping tale worth reading a second (or even third time!)

You can visit Tyndale House Publishers and download an excerpt from Misery Loves Company

I have already read Listen, (I highly recommend it as well as Misery Loves Company) and I’m looking forward to reading more of Rene Gutteridge's books.

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