Home Another Way
Advance Praise for Home Another Way
“The people of Jonah are flawed and complicated, and Parrish allows readers to savor every moment of genuine, hard-earned human connection. With its vast array of richly imagined characters, its humor and its substance, this debut is sure to resonate with a wide and appreciative audience.”
Publishers Weekly
“In a poignant tale that wraps around your heart, Christa Parrish brings faith home to the hearts of all of us—genuine, abiding faith that can only be found in the trenches of life. Her warts-and-all characters remind us of what the Christian life is really all about.”
Michele Huey—columnist, author, radio host of
God,
Me
&
a Cup of Tea
“Realistic, and compelling, Christa Parrish‘s
Home Another
Way
brings a magnetic new voice to the market that holds you fast and opens your world. I read it in one sitting. Christa Parrish is here to stay!”
Virelle Kidder—conference speaker and author of six books, including
Meet Me at the Well,
and
The Best Life
Ain’t Easy
“Readers, get ready. This is the voice Christian fiction has been waiting for. In her debut novel, Christa Parrish breaks the ice with a story that is bold in character and rich in relationships. Like Sarah, I found myself melting, page after page, warmed by the glow of God’s grace.”
Allison Pittman—author of the Crossroads of Grace series, including
With Endless Sight
“There’s a bit of Sarah Graham in each of us: angry, defensive, and flat-out scared. In
Home Another Way,
Christa Parrish takes Sarah up a mountain and through a desert. Her fresh, direct voice draws us in, and gives us hope that we too can learn to listen and forgive. Leave room on your bookshelf. We’ll be hearing a lot more from Christa—and loving every word.”
Melanie Rigney—
Writer’s Digest
magazine, former editor
“Christa Parrish has packed an epic’s worth of realism and grace into powerful pages you won’t stop turning. You are likely to be as changed at the end as Sarah Graham herself. Isn’t that what great fiction is about?”
Nancy Rue—best-selling fiction author
CHRISTA PARRISH
HOME
ANOTHER
WAY
Home Another Way
Copyright © 2008
Christa Parrish
Cover design by Studio Gearbox
Cover photography by Chloe Dulude/Veer
Author photograph by Wendy Voorhis
Scripture quotations are taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION.
®
Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations are taken from the New King James Version of the Bible. Copyright © 1979, 1980, 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations are taken from the King James Version of the Bible.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Published by Bethany House Publishers
11400 Hampshire Avenue South
Bloomington, Minnesota 55438
Bethany House Publishers is a division of
Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Parrish, Christa.
Home another way / Christa Parrish.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-7642-0523-1 (pbk.)
1. Young women—Fiction. 2. Fathers and daughters—Fiction. 3. Forgiveness—
Fiction. 4. Villages—Fiction. 5. New York (State)—Fiction.
I. Title.
PS3616.A76835H66 2008
813'.6—dc22
2008028098
For Evelyn and Laura,
as He draws you to Him
A past winner of Associated Press awards for her journalism,Christa Parrish now teaches literature and writing to high school students, is a homeschool mom, and lives near Saratoga Springs, New York. This is her first novel.
Books by
Christa Parrish
Home Another Way
Watch Over Me
TABLE OF CONTENT
I had twenty-three borrowed dollars in my pocket, and the deed to a house in a town I couldn’t find on any map. How long ago had I stopped at that gas station to ask for directions? It seemed like hours. The attendant had pointed to the top of the mountain and said, “Keep going up.”
So I drove until the sun wilted into the horizon, dropping behind rows of shaggy, towering evergreens. Brown leaves skittered across the road; I swerved around them more than once, mistaking them for toads, or chickadees. Deer-crossing signs blazed yellow in my headlights around each turn. Snow appeared, as if growing from the ground. The windows began to fog.
I should have turned around before starting this absurd quest for—what? Revenge? Retribution? Whatever it was, a certain romanticism had crept into the ordeal—being on the road, alone, with just my thoughts and a cooler of Diet Coke. I always imagined myself the tragic heroine. That, and I had absolutely nowhere else to go.
Squinting, I saw a light ahead, attached to a worn, whale-shaped sign: THE JONAH INN
“Cute,” I mumbled, turning into the driveway.
There was a story in the Bible about Jonah. My grandmother, a bit of a religious fanatic, had taken particular delight in giant fish and prophets and the complete stupidity of some guy living three days up to his knees in gastric juices. I must have heard it fifty times. “You see, you must always do what God tells you to do,” she’d say. As a small child, I would nod and agree, and then ask for a cookie. Finally, when I was twelve, I demanded, “What about adultery? What about murder? What does God say about that?”
