by Katie Powner
2022 / 343 pages
The back cover pitched this as, quirky dying woman meets confident cute guy. Hmmm…. I don’t know if that would have gotten me to pick it up. What actually sold it for me was a recommendation from a friend who’d previously passed along a curve ball that ended up being exactly my kind of book. Now, with Where the Blue Sky Begins, she’s 2 for 2.
I went in not knowing if this was going to be a somber reflective read, what with the 40-something small-town Christian girl Eunice Parker having only 6 or so months to live. Or was this somehow going to be a comedic odd coupling, with the early 30s, non-Christian pretty boy/city boy Eric Larson moving in as her next-door neighbor? It’s a bit of both – as lighthearted as a book about death could be expected to be, but one that’ll still have you thinking about how you’d like to end your own time here on Earth.
Our story begins with Eric Larson arriving from Seattle to fill in as branch manager for a small rural branch of his uncle’s financial company. When his GPS has him wondering where exactly his rental unit is, his inattentive driving sends Eunice and her scooter careening off the road. It isn’t exactly a hit and run, but close enough, so when she discovers Eric is her new neighbor she makes him a deal: she won’t press charges if Eric will chauffeur her to different addresses over the next weeks. Feeling bad, and without much choice, Eric agrees.
And where does Eunice want to go? To make amends. With the ultimate deadline approaching, Eunice is certain that God wants her to seek forgiveness from seven different people she’s wronged. It’s a very different sort of bucket list.
This plot could have been tacky and lame in the hands of a different writer, but Katie Powner has got some skills. Eric Larson starts off as a bit of a stock character – good-looking, athletic, shallow, and a little smug – but these sorts do exist. And as Eric drives Eunice around, he grows. And Eunice grows with him: she’s let her illness shut her off from the world, but now, with a mission from God driving her to where she desperately doesn’t want to go, she’s been given this unexpected angel of sorts, to offer assistance and even encouragement.
Caution
The one caution is only that this isn’t one for younger readers. Eric isn’t a Christian and he does have a girlfriend back in Seattle. A few comments are made that make it clear their relationship has involved more physical intimacy than non-married folks should be up to. But Powner doesn’t get into any details. When Tiffani with an “i” comes by for a short stay, and Eric wants to see how compatible they would be apart from the physical stuff, Tiffani doesn’t make it easy for him. So, the most “explicit” passage would just be a mention made of how she left the bathroom open a crack when she took a shower.
Conclusion
Things could have gotten strange if there had been a romantic angle between the shallow Eric and the dying Eunice, but there wasn’t. The lack of romance is a nice twist – this became more of a “buddy pic” story. I really enjoyed Where the Blue Sky Begins, and if you’re up for a book that will get you smiling some and crying a bit too, you should check it out.
