The Shortest Way Home
Publication Date: October 30, 2012
Pages: 416
Sean Doran has been to hell and back. He left home nearly twenty years ago, leaving his younger sister and brother in the somewhat capable hands of their Aunt Vivian. He went into active war zones with the hopes of forgetting his childhood and the hereditary disease that ravaged his mother and held the rest of them hostage. After twenty years as a nurse in the war zones, Sean returns home finding his family is just as fractured and damaged as they were when he left. His brother has passed away leaving his young son, Kevin, in the hands of the aging Aunt Vivian and his sister, Deidre and Deidre is ready to get make her escape. Will Sean be able to settle down and be there for Kevin and Aunt Vivian, or will he suffocate under the responsibility?
The Shortest Way Home was a really sweet, tender family novel. It is rare for a Women's Fiction book to be told from a male viewpoint, but Juliette Fay has done just that. Sean is a good guy who was, first, glad to be home around the familiarity of his past, but then realized just how badly Kevin needed a father figure and how badly Aunt Vivian needed a caretaker. The realization of how badly they needed him was a bit suffocating at first and that is where you can really see the transformation in Sean. Going from this guy who thought he was on vacation visiting family, to this guy who realizes the weight of the responsibility waiting for him. I especially enjoyed the relationship between Sean and Kevin. Kevin is such a unique little boy and I love the way Sean starts to realize just how unique Kevin is and that to leave him alone with Aunt Vivian would do irreparable damage.
Bottom line,
The Shortest Way Home, is a sweet and tender novel about the ties that bind, family. The story itself is well written and obviously written from the heart. If you are looking for a good novel about the importance of family, no matter what the age, then you simply must read
The Shortest Way Home.
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