Calling the Unlikely: A Review of Davis Bunn's "The Turning"

Perhaps you’ve heard the voice before. That inexplicable urging deep within your heart and soul, not audible but just as clear as if it had been shouted to you from a bullhorn. The voice of a Divine Storyteller, nudging you to follow a path you never would have expected.

It is this kind of Divine calling that Davis Bunn writes about in his new “devotional fiction” novel The Turning.

A brooding businessman from Cleveland. A snobby choir leader from Baltimore. A beautiful young oriental woman torn between two major life decisions, and an Arab learning the Christian faith. Each one hears the same message from God. Each must face a unique task. Each must take a monumental step toward forgiveness, reconciliation, compassion … spiritual obedience.

Feeling God call them to New York, these spiritual misfits band together under the leadership of a well-known Christian author to battle a rising cultural enemy.

 

My thoughts:

I love the fact that each of the protagonists is introduced as someone who we normally would not look to for spiritual guidance. Each character has baggage, yet God does not wait till their baggage is gone to call them. He calls them with dirty lives, and offers them progressive steps of obedience to follow. Yet with each step, hearts are rearranged, maturity deepens, and the characters begin to take bigger and bolder steps of faith.

Davis shows us through these characters that we don’t have to be spiritual giants for Christ to call us. We simply need to be open to hearing His voice. He’ll meet us in that spot where calling and action collide.

 

“The fruits of the Spirit require us to grow beyond our comfort zone. Like Isaiah, we are the most unworthy of believers. And yet God has called us. Each and every one of the family of Jesus. We are all invited to move beyond the failures and limitations that confine us.” ~ The Turning

 

Davis Bunn is as encouraging and Christ-focused as ever! I'm giving The Turning 4.2 stars.

I received a complimentary copy of The Turning from River North Fiction in return for my honest review.

 

Limitless Potential

Simon Orwell has grown accustomed to living in the dust of abandoned dreams. A college dropout from a prestigious university, Simon’s life has turned out much like his last great science project – an unfinished mass of potential, set aside, regarded as an impossible failure. Too broken to accomplish that for which it was created. Settling for the mundane, Simon believes he is unworthy and incapable of fulfilling his greatest dream. That of changing the world.

 Summoned to Mexico by his elderly partner on the project that would have literally brought light to those living in darkness, Simon faces the bleakest prospect of a new chance. Perhaps not a chance to rejoin the project and rebuild his career as a scientist – that hope has all but faded like the dim light bulbs of the poor Mexican town – but maybe, just maybe, a chance to remedy at least a few of his past wrongs.

 Hope becomes an unreachable goal once again when Simon arrives in the tiny town of Ojinaga to the tragic news that his partner is dead. Natural causes of course. The same natural causes that now stalk Simon as a hunter stalks his prey. Simon is thrown from his unassuming life, thrust into a quest for answers as to who is behind the old professor’s death and what clues he left behind for his young protégé.

 Now, taking refuge at a struggling orphanage, Simon must accept the help of some of his late partner’s closest friends if he is to find answers. Because maybe, the unthinkable really is possible. Maybe he, like his project, really does have more potential than he thought. Maybe even the ability to light up the world.

 

Least favorite parts:

 The book was slightly predictable in a few spots, but overall that did not detract much from its readability.

 

Favorite parts:

Despite his own lack of confidence and vision for himself, Simon is enveloped by unmerited encouragement from the orphanage director (and friend to his deceased partner), Harold Finch. Harold pushes the unmotivated Simon to view his life as something more than what he has made it so far. To set goals. To believe in impossible dreams. Probably my favorite line in the book is when Harold tells him, “Son, that’s the power of dreams. If they’re not big, if they’re not impossible, they’re not worth investing your life.” (Unlimited, page 177)

 Conclusion:

 At a time when I, like Simon, doubted my potential and the gift God has planted within me, Unlimited glimmered into my reading life with a challenge – “be more.” Channel that wasted energy and potential. Believe in the dreams that God has buried in your very soul. Believe in His ability to make the impossible possible. Believe that you are destined to light up the dark.

 I believe this book will challenge you as well. Dare you to defy your doubt, to trust that when you allow God to direct your dreams, the results could be … unlimited.

I'm giving this book four glowing light bulbs out of five.

 

 

I received a complimentary copy of this book from B&H Publishing Group in exchange for my honest review.

Some Dreams Are Hidden

It looms on the horizon, black and sinister, churning through the atmosphere and masking all that it touches in shadows of doom and deadly uncertainty. Circling the land like a beast stalking its prey, the hurricane surges closer and closer to the Florida coast, threatening to level everything in its wake. For Dr. Elena Burroughs, the almost sadistic storm system is but a single raindrop in her bucket of worries. A much larger storm is brewing, far more power-hungry ... and far more deadly.

 

“It all came down to the dreams. And her own next step. The prospect of what awaited her was wrenching.”

 As we re-enter Elena’s life in this sequel to Book of Dreams, she is steadily attempting to piece her shattered world back to a semblance of normalcy. After a fizzled romance, shelved friendships, a tanked career, along with the loss of her home and nearly all her possessions, the world’s leading authority on dream analysis has only one remaining option – the dreaded spotlight. With no job and virtually no one to turn to except her ever-persistent editor, Elena reluctantly agrees to a worldwide publicity tour … one that leaves her drained and emotionally raw, not to mention humiliated by a demeaning and obnoxious scientific colleague.

 A glimmer of hope shines through the wreckage when Elena is offered a professorship at a Melbourne college campus. But no sooner has she filtered back through the cracks and slipped momentarily underneath the fame radar than a peculiar bit of her past creeps back into her new life.

 Elena is dreaming again.

But she’s not the only one experiencing the prophetic dreams … more than a dozen people from around the world with no prior connection to each other are now assaulted by the same dreams. Worst of all, these vivid nightmares are beginning to come true.

Forced once again to serve as reluctant leader of an unlikely group, Elena feels less prepared than ever before. How can she, with a faith gone dry, find the strength and guidance to lead such a group? Especially when that group’s most compelling urge is to warn the world of the encroaching disaster.

  

“… right now, all I can tell you is, God has never felt more silent.”

 The clock is ticking and Elena must seek out the truth harder than ever before if she is to discover why she and the other “dreamers” have been granted the ability to see the future. And more importantly, what they can do to prevent the coming storm from destroying them all.

 

Personally, I didn’t enjoy this book quite as immensely as its predecessor, but that’s not to say that Hidden in Dreams isn’t amazing in its own right. Still packed with peppy dialogue and timeless Biblical truth (not to mention a few startling plot twists that’ll have your brain doing an about-face), this novel oozes quality and talent.

 I’m giving Hidden in Dreams a very unsubtle five stars as well as two thumbs up to Davis Bunn!

 

I received a complimentary copy of this book for review from Howard Books, a division of Simon & Schuster. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255.

 

Book of Dreams (a review)

What if you had a choice … a choice to hear the voice of God speaking to the deepest crevices of your soul? What if you were given a book, a centuries-old heirloom that is a meticulous and perfect copy of the original … and what if you were told that God may choose to speak to you through that book? What if all you had to do … was listen? Listen. And dream.

 This is the choice Dr. Elena Burroughs is presented with upon receiving a priceless treasure from a dear family friend who believes that Elena may be “the one” chosen to unlock its secrets.

 For seventy-two of her eighty-one years, Miriam, a seasoned and saucy woman with a successful counseling career, has viewed a shining gift as a shadowy burden. Now ready to be free of the enigmatic book, she passes it on to Elena, certain that her goddaughter possesses the gift of interpretation necessary to discern the meaning behind the calligraphic writings. There’s more to the book than jeweled covers and fancy lettering. Could it be that an ancient prayer written in its original language is the key to unearthing a plot against the world’s economy?

Thrust into an unwanted leadership position, Elena must learn to surrender her fear of change and her aversion to letting anyone get close. As her trusted pastor friend so wisely conveys: “God has drawn you out of your comfort zone. Get used to it. I doubt it will be the last time.”

 Ranging from the grand and historical brick abodes of London to England’s back hills to Italian mansions, Book of Dreams will steal your breath with its setting and enrapture your mind with its deep theological themes. (Plus, any story with such a copious supply of British accents, rain-drenched backgrounds, and coffee gets mega awesome points in my book.)

A definite five stars! Book of Dreams is a priceless treasure worth reading.

 

 Deeper into Dreams:

  *Warning: May contain mild spoilers.

 

To Miriam, the ancient book containing the Lord’s Prayer in Aramaic is nothing more than a picturesque mockery of her life – a glowing representation of her failure. Despite the woman’s success and even the wisdom she clearly possesses, she has spent her life feeling unworthy and detached. Never able to move past the first page, the first word of the Lord’s Prayer in the decorative book. Never quite able to call her God “Abba” … Daddy.

 

The answer was there all along. She was upset because she felt she had missed the clues, the formula, the rules of how it all was supposed to work, but all along the first step was to come to God in utter confidence of His fatherly love and His desire to speak to her.

Yet when Elena inherited the book, she realized that there were no rules. All that was required was a heart searching for wisdom ... a heart that was willing to learn and to continue searching until it found answers.

Elena knew that despite the unique book’s value, the book itself was not divine. It was merely another tool with which to better understand the divine. She realized that the ancient book could not replace prayer and God’s Word itself. It is through those things that we maintain communication with the Lord and a sensitivity to His Spirit’s whisperings. Anything else is merely another avenue through which He speaks. It is only through prayer and Scripture that we can understand those other avenues. The truth is right there waiting for us to open our heart and see.