Pages & Paws

Writing, Reading, and Rural Life With a Border Collie

‘Thirteen Miracles’ & My New Best Bud!

4 Comments

 

Thirteen Miracles

By D.L. Kennedy

Christian Fiction, 2020

 

Kimber the Magnificent here. Introducing my new best bud, Bebo. He’s a blue-eyed albino boxer dog. Super smart. Loyal. Dependable. Totally fearless. Solid as the Rock of Gibraltar. All-around awesome. You know. Like me.

Anyway, Bebo my new best bud is the hero of this cool book Mom and I recently read. It’s called Thirteen Miracles. Humans probably think this book is about a lady named Abby Welles. She kinda has a crisis of faith after her twin sister dies in a car wreck.

Depressed, confused, and running on faith fumes, Abby travels to Mexico to find Jose Luis Hernandez, aka: Destiny Man. He supposedly knows about miracles. Abby wants to research and write a book on the subject. She heads into the Sierra Madres and the Devil’s Backbone to try to make some sense of her life’s loose ends. What she finds is more than she bargained for as something dark and evil stalks her every step.

But Bebo steals the show.

There’s also a Patek Philippe wristwatch. “Carbohydrate courage.” Drug runners and hostages. “Keep everlastingly at it.” A storm. An earthquake. Flash floods. An ancient oak. A Cat. A still, small voice. A maleficent black bird. (“Maleficent.” Isn’t that a great word? Mom found it for me. You know how moms are.)

We also see how the difference between life and death “is often a split second decision.” And my favorite part, besides Bebo: Hugs that will never end.

 

Mom muscling in here. (You know how Kimbers are.)

I loved this book.

I just finished a slog and a half prior to reading this book. So Thirteen Miracles: Looking for God on the Devil’s Backbone was a breath of fresh air. A cup of cool water on a hot summer day. Oh yeah.

Faith-affirming without being preachy, Thirteen Miracles is a highly engaging read. It’s a little Narnia, a little This Present Darkness, a little The Shack and a bit Hatchet. All rolled into one. Less than a hundred pages, this delightful page-turner packs a wallop! There’s so much joy and hope in the final pages, I’m thinking of buying stock in Kleenex!

Note: I typically dislike reading books in PDF. The format is tedious and tiring. Moreover, indie, unknown, or self-published authors sometimes over-represent the quality of their work or their writing abilities when requesting a review. Sometimes both. So accepting a manuscript for review on those grounds can be risky. Like navigating a minefield. Or a garbage dump.

A Gem

But every once in a while, a real gem comes along. A beautifully written story that’s warm, invigorating, and maybe even a little bit extraordinary.

Thirteen Miracles is one of those stories.

Faith-affirming and uplifting without being preachy, Thirteen Miracles is nimble, creative, and fresh. It’s also brimming with engaging, lively characters who learn and grow. Ditto credible dialogue and enough mystery and intrigue to keep you guessing until the last page. Its 96 pages flew by like Secretariat around the final turn at the Belmont Stakes. I couldn’t put it down!

You can find Thirteen Miracles on Amazon in both digital and print formats here.

 

Our Rating: 5.0

Find out more about our Rating System here.

4 thoughts on “‘Thirteen Miracles’ & My New Best Bud!

  1. This is my first review, and you’re my first readers! I’m in tears. Talk about Kleenex. Where is my box? Thank you so much for this wonderful, wonderful review. I’m am so honored you love my story and especially my beloved Bebo — he’s really excited to be your new best bud! I know you give very few 5’s. I’m really thrilled to get one. Flabbergasted too. The PDF is really short because the font is so small, but the book actually comes in at just over 200 pages in print at Amazon and B&N. Thank you, thank you, thank you!! Bebo thanks you too: we’ll be flying on this review all day!

    • Our pleasure. We so loved this story and it’s very well written. It was hard to not reveal the ending. But we tried. 😉 Please give Bebo a hug for us! An excellent 5 star read. And we don’t say that very often!👏👏👏

  2. You did a good job not revealing the ending. Thank you, and Bebo sends three licks and some wags!

Leave a comment