Into the Fire

The third book in the Porter Family Novels, A Love Like Ours by Becky Wade tells the story of two best friends separated at early ages who are reunited as adults involved in the same industry of Thoroughbred horse racing.

The third and youngest Porter brother, Jake, damaged, scarred, and haunted by his final tour in Iraq where he lost three of his men in an IED explosion, suffers from PTSD and survivor's guilt while training Thoroughbreds for Whispering Creek Horses. Well-respected in his profession, he knows he's barely holding it together most days. To add to his intense struggle his childhood friend has returned to town and asks if she can exercise horses for him. For an indecipherable reason she incites his rage in spite of her beauty, kindness, and determination. Does he resent her for leaving him when she had no control over moving away? They were inseparable friends, and he'd always protected her from her sometimes harebrained escapades and rescues. That part of him hasn't changed. 

Lyndie James is back in her hometown of Holley, Texas, and her former best friend is now a former Marine sergeant and she thinks of him as "tall, dark, and brooding". She's learned his last tour caused him physical and severe emotional pain, and she's determined to help him however she can – if she can. She's a licensed jockey and has exercised horses at Santa Anita, one of the most prestigious tracks in the world. Jake wants no part of hiring her, but somehow he does.

(My only peeve – and it's only because I spent 30+ years in horse racing – is the incorrect use of racing terms. No one will know they're incorrect because the average reader has no inside racetrack knowledge. I do know that Becky did some research and tried to be reasonably accurate. It's a lot to learn, and I forgive her for the mistakes. Like I said, no one else will know she made them.) 

Okay, we all know where this is going because it's a romance novel. And Becky knows romance. You have to have a passion for it to write real romance and to write it well. Becky gets it, she feels it deep and translates it to the page. Using humorous internal dialogue and some offbeat situations with her friend who lives in the same building, Becky is able to take some serious moments and infuse them with laughter, but make no mistake, there are some tear-jerking tender times involving Lyndie's younger sister Mollie and with Jake. The journey to the inevitable end is filled with raw pain, multi-faceted devotion, faith in who God is, intense struggle, longing, rebellion, and self-loathing. It's a study of a wounded soldier who sees himself as never healing, a young woman who needs to be a solid and dependable, loyal and loving friend - and more - to this man whose walls are steel-like impenetrable.

A Love Like Ours is typical in romance formula only. Becky Wade gives us well-developed and lovable – most of the time – characters with snappy dialogue and the absence of it which speaks volumes. Jake is a smoldering, serious, hotbed of hurt. Lyndie is fun, devoted, skilled, and lovely. It's a story of the inevitable plans of a loving God whose Son knows all the flaws and sins but gave His life for us anyway. It's about recognizing none of us are forgivable but God gave Jesus so He could do it anyway. It's about giving up on our own abilities to do anything and letting God's Spirit work in us to do what's best for us. It's a story about the least of us being given special gifts by a great God who sees what we can't fathom. It's about love, both big and small - and supernatural. It's about loyalty and divine protection which surpasses that of the human kind. It's about sacrifice, intentional and unintentional. And giving when there's nothing left to give.

A Love Like Ours is a quick and touching read that explores PTSD, loyalty and love, and the power of a relentless God and two friends who grow up to see the world in opposite ways. It's a story of healing and the miraculous touch of a close God. A Love Like Ours might be the best of the series so far – my favorite anyway.

Father, please continue to bless Becky's writing, to lead her to those places you want her to go, watch over her and keep her safe from all harm. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.