Reviewed by Dan

TITLE: When Heaven Strikes

AUTHOR: F.E. Feeley, Jr.

PUBLISHER: Self-Published

LENGTH: 300 Pages

RELEASE DATE: July 20, 2017

BLURB:

Can love survive heaven’s wrath?

Artist Ted Armstrong lives a solitary and eccentric life. The survivor of child abuse disguised as religion, Ted has cut himself off from the world.

Then Ted meets Anderson Taylor, and it’s like being struck by lightning.

Anderson is a cardiac surgeon whose passion for his work has consumed him. He fears he’ll never find a partner—until he sets eyes on Ted. It’s happening fast, but both men know what they feel is right.

Confronted with an angry preacher, a scandal, and an act of God that threatens to destroy everything, their relationship will face its first true test.

REVIEW:

When this book came in for review, I was quick to grab it before I even knew what it was about, because I really enjoyed a previous book by the author that I read and reviewed back in January. From that previous book, I knew that I liked the author’s writing style and knew I’d enjoy this new story.

When Heaven Strikes is the story of two men, Ted Armstrong and Anderson Taylor, but it is also the tale of some other people along the way who are critical to the story. Let me start with the two MCs.

Ted is the product of religious child abuse. He grew up being told that ‘gay’ was wrong and he was going to Hell. It has warped the man and diminished his feelings of self-worth. He is a gifted artist, but doubts himself. When he meets a woman named Eleanor, things will change.

Anderson is the product of a well to do family and has an awesome grandmother named Eleanor. There was a section early in the book involving a tornado, and Eleanor spoke a sentence to her grandson which resonated with me and almost mirrored exactly a sentence that my own grandmother’s very elderly aunt spoke to me as a child. Here is Eleanor’s quote:

“You can be anyone you want to be and do anything you want to do, Anderson. Not everything is a phase. Remember that.”

It really hit me personally, because except for the ‘phase’ part, it was almost the same sentence. It was like I was a kid again, sitting with that elderly woman who knew more about me than I knew about me at the time, if you get what I’m saying. In the book, you knew as a reader that Eleanor had already figured out something important about her grandson.  The book moves on, and at the time of the majority of the story Anderson has grown up and is now a well respected cardiac surgeon. But he is all alone and a workaholic.

When the two men are brought together, the story really gets rolling. One word of warning… when you get to the middle of the book somewhere, all of a sudden the story switches to some side characters the reader met earlier in the book. I remember thinking ‘what the heck?’ when I flipped the page on my Kindle. Rest assured it all made sense as the book built to its big ending. All the characters made sense, and the comparison of the character Jeffrey with Ted’s family background really helped develop another character who came to be important in that half of the book.  I know I’m being vague, but I really enjoyed the story development, and don’t want to give too much away. I personally hate reviews that are book reports, so detailed that you don’t need to read the book! So I’m not saying another word about the story!

I enjoyed the read and will look forward to future stories from the author. I’ll end by saying that I highly recommend this book. It was well written, and it brought back a pleasant memory from my own past.

RATING:

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