Good Hope Road - A book Review

What do a twenty-one year old girl and her elderly widowed neighbor have in common?  After a tornado comes through and destroys the house of Eudora Gibson, the elderly woman's life is saved when the twenty-one year old, Jenilee Lane, rescues her and her granddaughter from the cellar.  We meet these two residents of Good Hope Road on what was a very traumatizing day.

From there we learn about these two lives, and the history between their families in the small town in Missouri where they reside.  We learn that sometimes good, Christian folks aren't the nicest.  We learn that we should care for our neighbor as Christ said, even if it is hard. 

Jenilee Lane and Eudora Gibson decide to volunteer in town at the local armory, turned into a makeshift hospital, when the tornado destroys the town.  Jenilee is alone, not knowing what happened to her father and brother.  Eudora is staying with her son, not having a home to go back to.  An unlikely friendship develops, and the storm brings good changes to their lives as well as ones that are difficult. 

I love the writing of Lisa Wingate. Her characters aren't perfect.  They often have messy lives. In every novel, the past has a way of influencing the present.  In the Prayer Box, it was a box of letters written to God over the years by a lady that held many secrets.  In Tending Roses, the Grandmother wrote stories of her life down, influencing her granddaughter.  In Good Hope Road, momentous of lives destroyed by a tornado, letters and pictures, are gathered up in the hope they might be returned to the original owners that had lost everything. 

Letters and pictures mean a lot to me.  I have albums full of pictures.  I kept letters from my younger years, from my children and my husband. I kept poetry my mother wrote and a book my grandmother wrote as an autobiography. I kept birthday cards through the years by loved ones that have since passed away.  It's the little things that make a life. It's the people and the memories and the stories.  Reading Lisa Wingate's novels is like remembering what is important in life:   Faith, family, relationships, and life lived fully.