"Taking Boston" by J. Steven Butler

A horrific car crash leads Pastor Jake Wilson to becoming the guardian to a nine-year-old girl. And it will eventually lead to much more – love and an attempt to disrupt his ministry. 

Wilson is 35, single, and the pastor of a large church in small-town Georgia. When his best friends from college are killed in a car accident, he becomes the guardian for their daughter, Boston. Overnight, he has to begin learning how to be a girl-dad for a child severely traumatized by the accident – she was in the back seat, and she spent hours with her parents’ dead bodies while rescuers reached the car and cut away the mangled frame to reach her.

 

The child’s life is utterly transformed. So is Jake’s. Jessica Maracle, a Sunday School teacher, reaches out to the little girl, sand she is soon reaching Jake’s heart as well. But she has a past, one she can’t seem to break free from, and she’s determined not get Jake involved in her life.

 

J. Steven Butler

It’s not like Jake doesn’t have enough problems. A growing one is the wealthiest member of the church, the man who seems to own a good chunk of the time, is used to getting his way, and decides Jake is standing in the way. Dewey Knapp becomes a bottomless pit of increasingly l=malicious actions directed against his pastor.

 

J. Steven Butler takes these threads and sews them into a compelling story in Taking Boston. It’s an engaging tale, with characters life Jake, Boston, and Jessica drawn true-to-life (even if the awful Dewey Knapp seems almost too villainous). 

 

Butler has previously published four novels in the Sweeper sci fi/fantasy/apocalypse series and is currently writing a sequel to Taking Boston. He lives with his family in Georgia.

 

Some Thursday Readings

 

Whistler in Limehouse & Wapping – Spitalfields Life. 

 

To Read a Poem Quickly & Easily – Zina Gomez-Liss at The Beauty of Things.

 

Fatty Bolger, A Local Hero – Paul Schweigl at Front Porch Republic.

 

“You Are Old, Father William,” poem by Lewis Carroll – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

Russian Roulette: The Woman Who Bet on Dostoevsky – Joel Miller at Miller’s Book Review.