Travis Thrasher's Love Stories

Author Travis Thrasher is today associated with well written suspense novels like Isolation and Ghostwriter, including Solitary, the first book in his new Young Adult series. (He’s also got three other writing projects underway for publication in 2011 – the guy not only writes well but he writes well and prolifically.)

Interestingly enough, Thrasher started his writing career with two collections of love stories.

Because I like his novels, and because I usually like to read everything by an author I like, I was able to get my hands on both collections (one was easy; the other was not and took quite some time before an Amazon affiliate got hold of it). The first is The Promise Remains/The Watermark: A Collection of Love Stories (2001) and the second is Three Roads Home: Stories of First Love & Second Chances (2003).

The Promise Remains/The Watermark is two novellas. In The Promise Remains, a young couple who fall in love during a summer camp find their way back to each other (and just in time to avert one’s pending marriage). The Watermark is a more contemporary interpretation of the story of the prodigal son, in which a young man from a wealthy family experiences years of guilt for the responsibility he bears for the death of a young woman because he was DWI.

Three Roads Home is a collection of three novellas, and they continue the themes of first loves and second chances found in the earlier volume. In Somebody, a young married couple have an argument about the wife’s suspected infidelity just as the husband is going out the door to catch a plane to Germany; the plane crashes in the Atlantic. In In Care Of, a successful author with a family he loves receives an email from his first love, and then faces the possibility of meeting her. In Still Life at Sunset, a young woman returns home to make peace with her past, and discovers an old love.

I like these stories. Thrasher early on was demonstrating his ability as a storyteller. But I discovered something else. These love stories foreshadow a number of the later suspense novels to come.

That shouldn’t have surprised me. A love story, after all, has elements of suspense, even considering the suspense is about “will they get together” as opposed to “will they get killed.”

But there are also specific stories lines and plot developments in the love stories that will see a different kind of treatment later on. The geography of The Promise Remains, for example, is very much like the geography of Solitary and plays much the same role. There is a Mexico parasailing event in Still Life at Sunset that will become a major element of the novel Sky Blue (and one of my Thrasher favorites). And then there are the surprise twists and plot developments that are used so well in both the love stories and the later suspense novels.

The love stories all stand on their own, as do the later suspense novels. But they’re of a piece, and it’s interesting to identify and understand the connections. But whether you read his love stories or his suspense novels, you're in for some good reading.

“Every Breath You Take”

Thomas Rowe awakens on an airplane bound for Chicago. Nothing unusual for most of us, except Thomas Rowe died 24 years before in a traffic accident, leaving behind his two-year-old daughter Kayla. The man sitting next to him tells him to fasten his seat belt, and that he’s being sent back because there’s something only he can do. It has to do with Kayla – and the man can’t tell him what it is.

Kayla Rowe is getting married in three months. She has spent a lifetime missing the father who was killed. She’s spent the last two years missing Billy Harris, a young musician she met in college and whom she fell in love with. And Billy Harris, despite his musical talent, is going nowhere, because he can’t get over Kayla Rowe.

It’s obvious that Travis Thrasher’s Every Breath You Take is a love story. But it’s not the kind of love story you expect when you start reading it, and it certainly isn’t the kind you expected by the time you finish it. But it is many things more than a simple romance. A deeply satisfying story. A story about love and misguided intentions. A story about love getting derailed and set right. A story about soul mates. A story about a father’s love that is so strong that it reaches across eternity. A story about the love for music.

I was captivated. I didn’t want this novel to end. There are scenes between Kayla and Billy that are so real and so familiar that it’s like living your own first love all over again.

Thrasher started his writing career with two love stories, The Promise Remains (2000) and The Watermark (2001). He then moved into suspense, and has written a series of outstanding suspense novels, like Admission (2006), Isolation (2008) and Ghostwriter (2009), along with several before and since. Sky Blue (2007) might defy classification; it is a kind of combination suspense novel and love story that’s an extraordinary work.

And now Every Breath You Take. While all of his other novels have been published by conventional publishing firms, this one is self-published. It fell outside publisher expectations and, I suspect, he wanted to do this one entirely himself, because it is its own love story – Thrasher’s love story for his own daughter.

The love story about music is important, too. The novel’s title comes from a song by the Police/Sting. And there are a lot of references to Cold Play and other groups (I like Cold Play, although I know I’m not supposed to at my age, and I was tickled to catch all the references in the novel).

A final note. This was not a review copy. I bought it through Thrasher’s web site because I’ve read a lot of his other works. And I knew this one was going to be special. But it surpassed even my high expectations.

For more information on the book and how to buy it, visit Thrasher’s web site. And I give you my strongest recommendation to do so.

Every Breath You Take is that good.

Travis Thrasher's "Ghostwriter"

I like how Travis Thrasher writes. He’s written 11 novels; I’ve read four of the most recent – Isolation, Sky Blue, Admission and now Ghostwriter. Earlier today, I posted my review of Ghostwriter at Amazon. It’s a novel that sticks.

Ghostwriter falls in the suspense/horror genre, and it’s got all of the characteristic elements – a ghost, a serial killer, the possibility that the main character is only living his own horror writer’s imagination and slowly going mad, and enough tension that builds to the point you wonder if you can stand any more. The novel succeeds simply as a suspense/horror story.

But it’s more than that. And it’s the “more,” rather than the story’s ghost, that’s haunting me right now. The “more” is about creativity and faith, and I’ve read this novel at a moment in my life when I’m wrestling with both. And Ghostwriter has helped me see that I’m actually wrestling with one thing, not two, and His name is God.

I’ve talked before (OK, I’ve bragged before) about the incredibly creative team I have at work. For more than two years now, the team has had an unparalleled run of innovation and accomplishment. A handful of lightly regarded functions was brought together and given the chance to excel. And excel they did, beyond anything thought possible. Our website was transformed. Our internal communications went from coach to first class. Our involvement in social media was launched. A research function was created and soared right out of the starting gate. Issues management was fundamentally changed from reactive to “we’re playing in this space so watch out.”

A lot of people have pointed to my leadership of the team. I knew better. It wasn’t me. I wasn’t the wellspring of all the creativity. I contributed some things (like helping hire good people) but I added one critical thing – my belief that all people have the same inherent value (which I’ve often talked about at work), the inherent value that comes from all of us being made in God’s image. That part is more problematic to talk about in the workplace; possible but problematic, and only done very carefully.

Things at work are now changing. It’s hard. My focus has shifted from creativity to helping people deal with the change and not be changed by it.

At the same time, church is changing. We’ve attended a church for several years that we really enjoy. And now church is changing, beginning to embrace a more “relevant” and contemporary approach. We left our last church because the focus became relevance instead of worship and discipleship. And I’m struggling to cope here, too, questioning a lot of what’s going on and my own beliefs as well.

Then I read Ghostwriter. And it tells me that, like the main character, I’m trying to control what I really can’t, at both work and church and all other parts of my life. A novel did this. It’s going to haunt me for a while, and I needed to be haunted. So, Travis Thrasher, you did more than entertain and tell a good story. You challenged and provoked.

Good writers tell good stories. Great writers challenge and provoke, and help change people’s lives.